Mistaken laughter -
Sometimes I wonder why God has allowed me to fall into such bad health although I don’t drink alcohol, cola nor coffee. I don’t eat pork and I was even a vegetarian for six years until I got anemia and Dr. Bombach encouraged me to go back to meat since I ran 3 miles daily and used up a lot of protein. I don’t think my bad health is due to not taking care of my body but I can still learn from my suffering. In particular, I’ve learned to: be compassionate to pregnant women and, in particular, to unmarried teenagers, to have compassion on women going through menopause and to have compassion on elderly people suffering from frailty or loneliness.
I used to enjoy gossiping about the latest pregnant teenager. I felt it was my hard-earned right to laugh at them and scorn them for being so sinful and stupid and not being good like myself. Then I got pregnant (within my marriage 2 years ago) and I got an attitude adjustment. I went through a very difficult pregnancy, the whole 9 months, followed by a c-section. During my pregnancy I understood that, no matter if you conceived within a marriage or outside of it, the heavy toll on a woman’s body is the same. I learned that the physical and mental burden of a pregnancy is hard enough, yet the pregnant unmarried women also deal with even more burdens. Most unmarried girls also carry the emotional burden of being laughed at, talked about and scorned. They don’t get to enjoy the extra care, attention and praise from husband, friends and family. They worry about how they’re going to make enough money to take care of themselves and their child since usually the baby’s father is long gone (kudos for those fathers who step up to the plate). Many also have the spiritual burden of guilt and they can’t learn about Jesus’ forgiveness if someone doesn’t come forward to “love the sinner but hate the sin”
Now, on to menopause: It’s another favorite laughing matter for sitcoms and stand-up comedians but the jokes and laughter would stop if everybody had gone through it. I’m going through the first stages of menopause and I’m not laughing. Aunt Flo (that’s my monthly cycle) came to visit twice last month and it literally drained me. I went to the doctor and they gave me an IV for my extreme fatigue (while stuck to the IV pole I mulled over the question: “did the ancient Romans call an IV a quad?”). I took a taxi home and left the car there since I was still too weak to drive home. I took blood tests and I’ll probably start hormonal replacement therapy next week to help me feel better. I’m scared to death of the cancer risks involved but I haven’t felt fully alive in some time so I’ll take my chances and get frequent mammograms and pap smears.
Too much information for you? Well, deal with it. This is what half the population has dealt with in relative silence, or will deal with, if we’re lucky enough to live so long.
Lastly is, old age: I’m only forty years old but I’ve experienced some symptoms of old age and I’m not looking forward to more. Since we live with Tom’s 75 year -old parents I see some of their hardships. When I was in the throes of Lyme disease for a year I was in worse shape than they are now. I’ve never fully recovered and so I don’t know what’s left over from the Lyme disease and what’s menopause. Three years ago I felt like I was still 25 and now I feel like I’m 75. Some similarities that Tom’s parents and I share are: Haraboji (“grandfather” in Korean) and I don’t have an appetite. We struggle at mealtimes to eat enough to get us through the day. All three of us tire easily, especially if we don’t get enough sleep. When I was younger and a missionary in Korea, I had strength but not enough money to go home more than once a year. Now I have enough money but not enough strength to go home more than once a year.
I’m talking to myself when stating that “we” need to be more accepting of people in these three life stages. I’m still a work in progress. Wasn’t it just last week that I made a joke about the four semi-deaf old men? I knew better than that. Haraboji is hard of hearing and I know that’s not fun. I experienced near-deafness for 24 hours once when I had a bad cold and we drove over the Korean mountain range to get to the beach on the other side of the peninsula. The ocean waves were silent instead of making a thunderous sound. I couldn’t hear the cars around me until they honked at me (motorists drive all over the place here, not just on roads). I couldn’t hear the music on the car radio nor the engine. People had to yell at me and I could barely hear them.
So, I believe that the Lord is leading me to have understanding and compassion on people and their aforementioned conditions. I had made mistakes before of joining in the “fun” of scorning pregnant unmarried girls, menopausal women and old people. They say that a smart person learns from his mistakes but a wise person learns from other people’s mistakes. Please be wise.
