Jesus gave me Diarrhea

Funny story...

A few weeks ago I was lying in bed and I could not fall asleep. I was thinking about Jacob and his family. In Gen 35 Jacob wants to build an altar to God, so he asks everyone in his family for all of their idols and jewelery. He then uses them to build his altar to the Lord. It is strange to me that these people are moving around, following God, waiting for His commands and believing His promises and yet they carry around idols in their bags. And it doesn't stop with Jacobs family. The Israelites continue struggling with idolatry through their journey in the desert and even in the promised land. As I was lying there, unable to sleep, I just couldn't understand how people could genuinely follow God, while storing idols in their bags.

Then, out of nowhere, I felt very convicted. The Lord was saying to me, "Heather, you have idols. You may not be worshiping them now, but you keep them in your backpack and carry them around with you. When you feel that I'm not enough...you turn to them."

My first thought was, "I do not... that's ridiculous." The Lord then began to reveal some of my idols to me and I realized it was true. Then I said the prayer that changed everything, "Lord, do whatever it takes to get rid of these idols."

The next morning I woke up and told Curtis about what the Lord was speaking to me. Curt asked me what idols the Lord was convicting me about, and my response was, "Just a lot of things."

A few days later, I got sick...really sick. It started slow but then got exponentially worse. I was sick for two weeks and by the end of the second week I was ready to call a specialist. To say I had diarrhea is like saying God is big...it just doesn't really do justice to the situation. I lost 8lbs in one day!! I wasn't really talking to anyone about what was going on, (diarrhea doesn't make for a great topic of conversation) but Curtis mentioned some of my symptoms to his mom. Immediately she told him that she had had the same problem and she found that she was lactose intolerant. The same thing had also happened to his sister. Immediately he called me and told me to try cutting out dairy. So I started my lactose free diet and within a couple of days I was cured!!!

Now you are probably wondering how this all ties together. A couple weeks earlier when I was telling Curtis about my middle of the night idolatry conviction, I hadn't been completely honest with him. I was vague about the conviction because I was embarrassed. You see, the main thing that the Lord convicted me about was ice cream!!!!!!! How was I supposed to seriously tell my husband that the Lord had kept me awake most of the night to confront my love of ice cream...that is just completely humiliating! But after Curtis mentioned being lactose intolerant, I just had to laugh. I was immediately reminded of my prayer, "Lord, do whatever it takes to get rid of these idols." When Curtis got home I confessed to him the truth about the conviction. He thought it was hilarious of course. We agreed...Jesus gave me diarrhea :-)

I hope my story makes you laugh, because God is funny. I also hope it allows you to look into your own life and see if there are any idols in your backpack. Pray about it...God answers our prayers :-)