While chaperoning a high school mission trip. We were all working outside in the blazing sun, mixing concrete on the ground with shovels for the new wall we were building at a school. Noble work. Hot as hell, but noble.
I was drinking plenty of water, taking adequate breaks, and keeping my electrolytes up with snacks, but it apparently wasn’t enough. By that evening I thought I had a migraine coming on, which was not unusual for me. But the next morning when I had to keep getting up to leave the church sanctuary for the bathroom to get rid of the few sips of Gatorade I was trying to keep down, I knew there was something else really wrong.
Dehydration is one thing. Humiliation is something else.
Despite the pain and discomfort, the thing that sticks with me all these years later is the humiliation. There I was, the Spanish-speaking adult entrusted by parents to accompany their teens to the Yucatan, and I ended up being the one needing care. While I was only in my mid-twenties, it was embarrassing not being able to physically keep up with the teenagers. And the sweet Mexican nurses at the ramshackle clinic giggling at giving me a shot in my pompas didn’t help.
Our souls, Jesus seems to say, can become dehydrated.
And while there may be genuine pain or discomfort, I find it oddly common for there to be an attending sense of shame or humiliation. I felt it myself; I’ve heard others say as much as well. Because we’re supposed to be strong, right? We’re supposed to be capable, right? We’re supposed to be resilient, right?
Nope. To be human is to be frail. And the humiliation of that frailty might just feel worse than the frailty itself. But that realization is also our salvation.
The path to the rehydration of our souls is the path of humility that leads us to the ever-flowing fountain of Christ.
