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Connections&
"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their crosses daily and follow me." A true story: Since the age of ten Lauren was obsessed with food. When she became a teenager, conscious of her weight but unable to manage her eating, her life became a cycle of gorging herself and then forcing herself to vomit. Her distraught parents finally did the only thing they could--they had her admitted to a hospital. Lauren was angry that they had done this to her; she was angry at her friends who couldn't believe that she was doing this to herself, while at the same time, constantly complaining about their own weight. She refused to admit her problem. When the nurse settled her into her room, the teenager found she had a roomate. The girl in the next bed, coughing uncontrollably, looking tired and drawn, with dark circles under her eyes. Suddenly, when she saw Lauren, a bright smile came over her face: "Hi. I'm Julie and I'm ten years old. What's your name?" "I'm Lauren. I'm 15." The nurse inserted Lauren's IV and soon she was asleep. She woke sometime later to cartoons playing on the television and Julie's giggling. Julie's side of the room was a sea of stuffed animals and photos. It looked like she had been in this room for a long time. "You want to play 'Crazy Eights'?" Julie asked, in her unusually chipper voice. Lauren got up and pulled a chair up to Julie's bed. As she shuffled the cards, Julia said: "You know, Lauren, I'm going to die, but I'm not scared. I was born with a disease, and they can't cure it. It's called Leukemia. I've learned that I have to be happy every day that I wake up, and never take for granted what God gives me. I know your type, I can see you're hurting yourself, and my mom says that people who hurt themselves are scared." Julie continued to play as if she hadn't a care in the world. But her words struck Lauren hard. That night Lauren could hardly sleep. Julie had a difficult night, with nurses regularly coming in and shutting the divider between them. The next morning, Lauren went over to Julie's bed with a deck of cards. "Crazy Eights?" Lauren asked, waving the deck. Julie nodded and Lauren helped her sit up. As they played, Julie asked Lauren about high school and being a freshman and even about her first kiss--all things that Julie probably wouldn't live to do. Then the ten-year-old asked, "Lauren, why are you here? The nurses say you make yourself throw up. Why would you do something like that to yourself? I don't understand. I would do anything to be healthy like you." |
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