Nebuchadnezzared

     I have an iron constitution when it comes to eating food.  This isn’t meant to be a boast although I pride myself in the statement and boast about it often… ok, it’s a boast, I can eat just about anything and survive pretty much unscathed in the aftermath.  That’s why when several members of my unit went to eat at a local Iraqi restaurant with me about a week ago and then complained of getting violently sick shortly afterwards I relished in the glory of my intestinal fortitude and ability to digest any harmful parasites as a bonus to the meal.  Conversations arose at the dining facility as these fellow Soldiers finally began resurrecting from the dead about how miserable the experience had been for them.  I lovingly invited them all to come back and eat at the restaurant with me again.  Apparently God wasn’t amused. 

     This upcoming week’s sermon happens to be in Daniel Chapter 4 when King Nebuchadnezzar looked out over Babylon and gloried at all he had accomplished, and then was suddenly driven insane forced away from civilization to eat grass like an animal, and have his body wet with dew and start growing hair like feathers, and his nails grow like the talons of an eagle, until he would acknowledge God as being the Most High.  I bring this up because something eerily similar happened to me two days ago. 

     I had left the dining facility having sufficiently teased the weaker stomachs around me and I went home to bed a happy, healthy man.  I awoke the next morning seemingly underwater.  My head was swimming, all heat had been sucked out of my room and every inch of my body ached at the very thought of moving it.  That’s when I heard the strangest sound.  Do you know the sound the water dispensers make?  The ones that have the big jug of water upside down with a spicket to pour into the little paper cones?  It occasionally filters and a big bubble rises up in it and it makes a “Blublublubloop” noise.  Well, I heard that exact sound emanate from my stomach and I knew the timer had just begun and I had roughly 30-45 seconds to dress, sprint down the hall and locate an empty stall before Armageddon was upon me.  I made it in 15 because I by-passed dressing, (It shaved off seconds on both ends) and I definitely needed the seconds for the back end.

     I spent quality time thinking of the errors of my ways in a little stall in the middle of the desert in Baghdad, Iraq, just a few short miles from where Nebuchadnezzar would have spent time thinking the same thoughts.  3 courtesy flushes later I looked at a shell of a face in the bathroom mirror and realized what dehydrated fruit must feel like.  I made a valiant effort to dress and get out to do the daily routines of a Chaplain but it turned into a tourist visit of every port-a-john on Camp Cropper in a big circle arcing back to the barracks where I gave up and lay in the fetal position on my bed shaking and burning up with fever for several hours. 

     At last I came up with a solution to my sickness, a way to be delivered from all my distress.  It is an age old remedy that has never failed me in 15 years.  I struggled into an upright position on the side of my bed, took a moment or two to convince myself of the necessity of going through with this.  Swayed to my feet, shuffled in the dark to my computer, ripped it away from its cords instead of trying to individually undo them all, fell backwards onto the bed, covered up with whatever cover was nearest to the position where I landed, turned on Skype and told my wife I was sick and she needed to make it better.     

     She asked if I had taken any medication and I said of course not (this isn’t because I’m tough, it’s because I’m hopelessly dependent and she wasn’t here to give it to me. Sad I know, but this is reality folks).  After a rightly earned scolding she demanded I ask for Ibuprofen or at least aspirin from someone.  Fearing she would offer no further sympathy unless I agreed I capitulated to her demands.  2 hours later when I could bear the pain in my kidneys no longer I made myself get up and stagger to the bathroom again.  While there I looked over to my neighboring urinal user and asked casually if he had any medications he was willing to part with.   2 Ibuprofens and 1 hour later found my fever broken and me sweating like I’d just finished a marathon.  I checked myself for feathers.  Weird, but fever induced, I’m pretty sure.

     The next morning at the dining facility several fully recovered fellow Soldiers asked me if I was feeling ok as I was looking pretty pale.  I knew I had to man up and say something to them since I had teased them all so much during their infirmary’s, so I said “I’m fine, it’s just been so long since we’ve eaten at the Iraqi restaurant that I’m weak from hunger, do ya’ll want to go today?” 

     Despite this seeming relapse, when I prayed over my crackers (the only thing I could hold down) I acknowledged God a lot, so He wouldn’t feel the need to re-Nebuchadnezzar me again.