The other morning as I was going through the checklist and getting Rylie ready for a day of appointments at the children’s hospital, I stopped for a moment when I realized she would have a bit more extra equipment connected to her than typical. And said extra equipment involved draining fluids from more than one location on her body. And, said bodily fluids are on full display since medical supply companies made the decision to make all of these kinds of drain bags clear. Good yes, for monitoring output. But bad and unsightly to others just passing by. I reached for the cute cover I had custom made on Etsy for her abdominal drain bag a while back. It has a cute little pattern of sloths since many who use drain bags like those have Gastroparesis which causes slow motility, making sloths the ideal motto. But the problem was that I only had the one cover and two bags that needed covers. The other bag being her urinary foley bag that drains urine.
Then I realized that since we would be at the children’s hospital that at least we would be in good company. If we were to feel the slightest bit typical with so many tubes and bags, this would be the place it would be. Which makes it feel like home in some ways, and a different sort of comfort. But a comfort none the less, because when we are at the hospital we are not the only ones with medical equipment, she is not the minority in a wheelchair, and many professionals there are very familiar with all of the medical necessities that to the general public may make squeamish or turn and walk the other way.
After completing that thought process which took all of 60 seconds because my mind tends to race quite quickly, I grabbed the cute sloth bag and determined I would decide after we got there which bag would win the decision of acquiring fewer disgusted stares.
I was thinking about it on the drive down though since I have a good 2 hours in the car to entertain my thoughts. I realized that by covering the bags to help prevent stares or to attempt to make other people more comfortable, that I was in effect actually apologizing for her drain bags. Which, in effect, was apologizing for part of who she was. And when I realized that, began to think of a lot of other things I apologize for. And I then remembered something Julia Child said in her book I read a while back. It tells her story of moving to France and learning to cook French food and eventually how her passion turned into authoring one of the most popular cookbooks ever written: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Now you may be having a difficult time connecting drain bags and French food in the same conversation, but hear me out… One of the things that stuck with me the most from her book was how she determined to not apologize for anything having to do with her cooking. As she was learning, she would sometimes cook something that was more than sub par because she was still learning, but she decided that she would never apologize. This was profound to me as someone who is consistently explaining or apologizing for a dinner or baked good I’ve made for guests that aren’t always up to my standards. And also made me think- Why do I do this so often? Is it so difficult to just be confident and proud of the fact that I put forth the effort to get anything remotely edible on the table? Why am I apologizing for not being perfect? Is perfection the standard to live by? Is absolute perfection even possible? I’m basically apologizing for not living up to a standard that is impossible anyway. And in a sense am I just apologizing for who I am?! Whoa.
In the same way, I will often find myself apologizing if I feel underdressed in a particular situation, or the ultimate mom apology- “My house is a wreck, I’m sorry…” So let me just stop right here and ask: WHAT ARE WE APOLOGIZING FOR?! Apologizing for living? Apologizing for not living up to a literal impossible standard? The very definition of an apology is “a regretful acknowledgement of an offense or failure.” Am I failing or offending a guest in my house when my house is less than perfect? I’d like to think that the hospitality I am offering simply by inviting someone over is enough. Am I failing my daughter by letting her leave the house with the drain bags that she needs to survive? Or are they offending you somehow? But then what is ‘offend’ defined as? “Cause to feel upset, annoyed, or resentful.” Are you upset or annoyed or resentful by these things? Then I guess it begs the question: Why are you upset or annoyed by what my house looks like, or by what manners in which we have to care for our daughter, including draining various bodily fluids?? At the end of the day, I think we have to check ourselves and question whether or not we are showing grace to each other and ourselves. Are our critiques of ourselves and others motivated by love or pride? By humility or disregard? Or are said critiques even necessary to begin with? We can be so quick to point things out critically, but tend to be really tight fisted with the more important things like love and grace.
We also have to also consider how often we all are subconsciously telling ourselves we are failures in apologizing unnecessarily. Without the input of anyone else. Just simply walking around calling ourselves failures or something similar because we have accepted a lie that there is an impossible standard to which we must live up to. But, if we are walking around identifying as a failure, well then now I guess that makes sense why we are apologizing for our very existence all the live long day...
And so when I was trying to decide which bag was the most needing covering, one less thing to apologize for so to speak I actually realized- why do we need to hide anything?! It is part of who Rylie is. And if you want to know Rylie, then let me also introduce you to her drain bags.
It could also be a sort of word picture for anyone’s life in general. Carrying around our figurative drain bags of past wounds and painful memories. Sometimes keeping them neatly contained but at other times our own pain leaking onto others. Gross right? But is it really so far from the truth?
Maybe if we all started to focus more on the health of our hearts and the things that are coming out of it, we would leak less disgustingness onto people. And instead of noticing our drainbags at first when they see us, maybe the first thing would would see could be the light of Jesus in our life and heart. We can shine so bright that we overshadow our ’drain bags.’ But the bags are probably still necessary as we filter through the good and bad from day to day because of the imperfect world we live in.
Just as parts of my daughter’s physical body are broken in some ways, so also our hearts and souls and minds are broken in various ways simply because we live in a broken world. But fortunately for us Jesus loves to restore and rebuild and renew. “But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” -Colossians 3:8-10 And, “Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” -Ephesians 4:32
We all have our own baggage, pain, and drains. And yet somehow many of us have decided that we need to go through life apologizing for it all instead of just focusing on doing the best we can do where we are presently. If we live in a constant state of apology how is that affecting our psyche? I am pretty sure that over time it gives us a subconscious state of feeling like a failure. Eventually, seemingly apologizing for our very existence as I stated before. Walking around in this state isn’t the life God wants for us! He doesn’t want us to hide anything! Think about the last time something positive came from hiding something from someone. What is our first instinct when we have done something wrong or shameful? Hide it. So that no other person and maybe even God will not see how ‘disgusting’ we are. 1John 1:5-8 says, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
The drain bags can be representative of two things:
First, they can stand for the things about ourselves that we cannot change but that we do not like, and try to cover up. In effect, trying to hide who we really are. In doing so, we are not loving ourselves and walking in freedom to be our true selves. We have to stop apologizing for being ourselves! For merely existing!!
Second, they represent the things we hide that we know are wrong. Except over time, our figurative bags can only hold so many lies, and sin that we cant help but leak the negativity on to other people. There is the saying, “Hurt people, hurt people.” And so it is with those knowingly living a sinful lifestyle.
The solution to both is to walk in the light. Move towards the light. Look for the light. Be the light! Darkness cannot coexist with light. We cannot walk in true freedom in Christ if we keep ourselves in the dark, continuing to label ourselves failures and/or continuing to choose a life apart from him.
There is an old skit with Bob Newhart that many of you may remember. He is a therapist giving advice to a patient and he tells her to get ready for what he is about to say. She gets out her notepad and pen ready to write down all of the things he will say for her to do better in life. He tells her something to the effect of, “Okay here it is now listen carefully…..’STOP IT.’” She looks at him in disbelief and questioning why she came to him if that is all he is going to say. She proceeds to explain some other difficult situations she is facing to which he also replies, “STOP IT.” It is a super funny skit, but also full of wisdom I believe. Because when it comes to all of this unnecessary apologizing I think we all just need to “STOP IT.” And all of this walking in darkness, well… we need to just “STOP IT.”
Stop apologizing and start living. Be. light. Walk in the light.
Ephesians 5: 7–10, “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. …(vs13), But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.”
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