What I did New Year's Eve

I’ve been debating whether or not I wanted to write this blog about the New Year. Is there anything I could write which has not already been said? Last evening, I was reading one of the books I got for Christmas about Christian writers. The article I read was about where to find inspiration and one of the items mentioned was to write about something that has happened in the last week.

Hmm? I thought. Dare I share how I spent my New Year’s Eve? The sorry details? Or is there, just like so many things that God hands us in life, true inspiration in these events?

How did I spend my New Year’s Eve? In the bathroom with both vomiting and diarrhea. Not very pleasant. And I had not had a single drink, I swear. (Anyone who knows me is going to know that I am not lying.)

I don’t know if it was something I ate or if it was the stomach flu. Whatever the case, there was something in my intestinal tract that my body did not like one bit. And so my system worked hard through the night to get the intruder out. It was maybe not at all pleasant for me, but I had to let my body do its work. Instead of feeling despair all night, I should have felt relief that my digestive organs were so effectively defending themselves. They were fighting a battle, which they would win, when my entire system was emptied of the enemy.

I was maybe left drained by morning, but my health would return soon enough.

Unfortunately, other intruders invade our bodies and we are not so quick or brutal to eradicate them. We let jealousy into our hearts, we allow our minds to dwell on past grievances, we don’t ask for forgiveness and we don’t offer forgiveness when we should. We keep all kinds of festering sores locked up in our hearts and minds. They eat away at our very souls and we let them.

We need to rally our bodies for a fight to purge ourselves of these intruders. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to come into us and cleanse us of the many thoughts and emotions that are eating away at us. We need to let out all these sins of the spirit and just flush them down the toilet.

The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness,
But who can bear a broken spirit? Proverbs 18:14 (New King James Version)