Wounds and Scrapes (Gizem)

I once had a guy friend become playfully indignant when I referred to a cut on his leg as a scrape. He told me in a very manly voice that it was a “wound.” Well whatever you call them, cuts, scrapes, bruises or wounds; they hurt like a mother.....!!!

This past weekend I decided to do something crazy……. REALLY CRAZY. I won’t go into the details of that activity (that’s for another blog J) but I will say it left me pretty beat up physically…..cuts, bruises, and a 6 inch “wound”. I think the last major injury I had was when I fell off my bike and scraped my knee way back in elementary school.

While grateful for my life (yeah, it was that bad), I’m still shocked that I actually hurt myself; I never get hurt like this. And I know that compared to nearly dying, bruises and cuts are nothing…but like I said I’m still in shock. Well, shock or no shock, I had to start taking care of myself. As usual I assumed I could do it, just hand over a bit of gauze and tape and I’ll be as good as new. Besides, it was kind of in an awkward location J Arzu helped me do it the first time, and I was grateful for help; truly I was, but I didn’t think I needed it, and truth be told, I thought I could do it better myself. But I let her work. You know just for her sake. I understand the need to be needed, so I didn’t want to be rude or mean by telling her I could take care of the bandaging myself.

Ha. HA HA.

This morning I sat on my bed and laughed at myself trying to unroll gauze, cut the right amount of tape, all without hurting myself more and having everything stay in place.

And I thought I could do this myself.

Yet another lesson in Humility 101; actually I’ve been taking that class for quite a while now ……..

Watching Arzu bandage my wound really made me stop and think.

I wasn’t just grateful to have her help;
I needed her.
I don’t like having to need people.
I want to do things on my own.
I’m happy for you to be with me on the journey, but I can do it alone.
I don’t want to need you.
But I do.
And that scares me.
I don’t want to depend on you, count on you, look forward to your help, have you as a part of my life, and then someday have to say goodbye to you; with snot and tears flowing down wondering if I’d be hurting this bad had I not allowed you in so close.

Oh wait, I thought we were talking about cuts, bruises, scrapes, and wounds? Hmm, wounds eh? Guess God’s having me learn yet again about wounds that I have that need to be healed. Places that need to be bandaged. Places I can’t reach myself. Spots that are embarrassing to expose, yet without the help of another will become infected, dangerous, and poisonous to the entire body.

In Sickness and In Health (Arzu)

Being sick, or I should say ill, is always a humbling experience. Recently, I was quite humbled. We all loaded up and went on a little vacation for the week. I was super excited because I had heard so much about this particular region of the world and was ready to explore it. We had a great first day… however, the second day made a huge turn for the worse. Well, it was worse in some ways… there are a few bright spots. I could tell that Zeynep was not doing so well when we began the day. I was just asking for wisdom on how to be a good friend to her. I had no idea how much of it I would need before the day was over. By lunch time we decided to come back to the pension because Zeynip was not feeling good at all and I was starting to feel funny myself. I just had a sense that it I shouldn’t leave her unless she needed something. So when she took a nap, I took one myself. When she needed sprite, Gatorade, or medicine I went and got it. As the night progressed she got worse and worse. About the time that she started to get a little bit better I got really bad myself.

Humbling experience… here we go! So I have not ever been so ill with food poisioning in my life. Everything I drank came out immediately. Any pride, sense of dignity, anything at all that I had left was gone. It was gone for the whole week. First of all, we were all sharing a room… no privacy. Secondly, we were sharing a bathroom …. Well, you can figure that out. It was horrible. The whole week Zeynep and I did not do too much except for rest. It was not the ideal vacation that’s for sure.

I will say that some pretty great things came out of the pretty horrible situation. My roommates saw a new side of me. I didn’t have much energy to do or say anything and they still loved me a lot. I really think when someone is ill and you stick with them through that it can bring you to a new level of friendship. I’m pretty sure that is what happened that week. They still like me even though they saw me at my worse. I mean, I looked horrible, I felt horrible, I probably smelled horrible, I was not always the most pleasant person to be around… and they still loved me. Gizem cleaned the bathroom and every time I needed anything I could always count on her to get it for me. Zeynep and I were still able to play and laugh even though things were pretty rough. That’s a special friend. It was sweet to grow in this way with them. Even though I was hoping for a vacation, I think that sweeter things came from it in the end. However, next time I go on vacation I am hoping and praying for a vacation!