I have decided to write about my experiences since I became a born again Christian and even some experiences before I was saved. I am doing this to prove the presence of God in my life and how Jesus has changed things for me. Some things may seem negative, like having to have a colostomy bag and a urine bag but I know God has a reason for doing these things to me.
THE URINE BAG
After I left my job at the meat packing company and went to work for Burger Delight, I bought a pair of inline speed skates to help me in my ministry of taking salvation tracts to phone booths and other places in the evening after I finished work.
The bicycle wasn't such a good idea because I had to keep getting off and back on the bike which took too much time. With speed skates I could make my way through town much faster and scotch tape the tracts to the phone booths and on car windshields.
A few weeks ago while I was skating at night and placing tracts, I mistook white paint on a curb for a handicap ramp and tried to skate up the ramp. There wasn't any ramp and I hit the curb doing about 15 miles an hour. I flipped over the curb and hit a bus stop bench, landing on my back.
I didn't know it at the time but I had injured my bladder and some other things too. I got knocked out and woke up in the hospital. The hospital said I was OK and sent me home. I had a hard time skating to the hotel but I made it with a lot of pain.
I was urinating blood the next day so I went to church and had the elders pray with me because the Bible says if the elders pray for healing, it will definitely take place. Later that night I couldn't walk and had to be taken to the hospital again. I had got an infection in my bladder and they put a thing called a shunt into the bladder with a pipe running out into a urine bag. They said they had to do it to keep my bladder from getting worse. I also had to take a lot of pills.
The bad part of it was that after I went to work for Burger Delight, I was only working part time so I didn't have any health insurance. I was suppose to replace the urine bag each day but I didn't have any money to get new ones and no insurance to pay for it.
God gave me the idea of putting a one gallon baggie on the end of the tube and fastening it with a rubber band. I thought that would work pretty good and went to work the next day with the urine baggie on.
Unfortunately, the baggie filled up and got heavy and it started sliding off the tube without me knowing it. It finally slid off while I was cleaning tables and when it hit the ground, a gallon of pee went everywhere. Luckily, no one saw what happened so I cleaned it up like somebody had spilled a coke. But I knew I needed to do something besides put a baggie on the tube.
I went to the hospital dumpster and the Lord led me to a bunch of used plastic urine bags. I took about 5 of them with me, went home and emptied them out and cleaned them real good with hot soapy water. It took a long time because the little hole for the tube wouldn't take much water at once. Some of the urine was almost black and I gagged while I dumped them in the kitchen sink.
Talk about stink! I gagged the whole time I was cleaning them. I think the one with the black urine probably was bloody and the blood turned black.
Well, for about a week I didn't have any problems with the bags falling off but they started getting hard and one cracked and sprung a slow leak while I was on window duty. I went to the bathroom and wrapped a lot of toilet paper around the bag to soak up the pee and that worked pretty well for about an hour but then my pants started getting soaked and there was a very bad odor because of the old bag I was using. I had dark pants on so I guess nobody noticed and I told the customers the bad smell was from some spoiled hamburger meat and rotten french fries.
THE COLOSTOMY BAG
I did't have insurance and I couldn't get more pills for the infections so it got worse and, believe it or not, it spread to my colon. So now I got an infected bladder and an infected colon.
I went to church and the elders prayed again for me to be healed, claiming the promise of the Bible that I would definitely be healed immediately. We prayed hard most of the night.
Back home in my hotel room that night, my colon swelled up so big it blocked off. I couldn't even stand straight so I had to call the ambulance again. At the hospital, the doctor told me what had happened and I had to also have a colostomy tube put in because my colon couldn't handle the back up and an infection at the same time..
The doctor said these tubes would come out when the infections clear up. In the meantime I had to keep them both on and he told me to change them to new bags often. I was too proud to tell him I didn't have insurance for bags.
So when I got out of the hospital, I had the same problem again. Now I had a urine bag and a crap bag - one on each side of my body. And no extras.
Nobody can tell me the Lord doesn't answer prayers because I went back to the hospital dumpster and found more urine bags and colostomy bags. The colostomy bags have a removable top so I could clean them a little easier. I put the biggest part of the colostomy bags in the toilet and then finished cleaning them in the kitchen sink again.
Yup, the smell was really bad but I think it has made me a better person having to deal with it.
Its funny, the night I was cleaning the colostomy bags, my girlfriend stopped by my hotel room and I invited her to come in. She isn't really saved yet and when she walked in, she said "Jesus Christ - what are you cooking? A pot of shit?"
I didn't want to upset her so I told her I was cooking cabbage. She said it was the worst smelling cabbage she ever smelled and said she wouldn't eat any so don't invite her to stay. I kept her out of the kitchen. Its a good thing we're not having sex until we get married because with all the holes in me, I feel like a piece of Swiss cheese with tubes. I know she would be upset if she knew what was going on.
I PREACH ON SUNDAY
The bad part about this whole thing is that I was scheduled to preach on the following Sunday. I spent a lot of money for a suit. I bought everything white. White shirt, white tie, white suit, white socks and white shoes. It wasn't that I just wanted to look sharp but I wanted to tie my dress in with how our sins are washed away in the blood and we are made as white as snow. The suit represented being washed in the blood.
We have 23 members in our church and I was pretty sure at least 15 would be there so I wanted to look good.
I got to church early but I was feeling weak and sick from the infection. The elders prayed for me again for complete healing. After that, my temperature went up to 102.5 degrees.
Just to be on the safe side and avoid the bad odors, I decided to wear baggies for both my colostomy and urine bags. The other bags really were starting to stink and I didn't want to offend anyone when I prayed with them at the altar. I got really strong rubber bands and wrapped everything on real tight.
The service started and after the song service, I stepped up to preach. I knew I had to walk lightly to keep from jarring the bags loose again. Well, I got into my sermon and the Lord anointed me real special as I was preaching. To empasize a point, I stomped twice on the stage real hard, next to the podium.
When I stomped, both bags slid off - both pretty full - and they slid down my pants legs and "plop" they went as they hit the floor. I took a glance down and there was my urine and feces all mixed up in a wet puddle. I quick tried to side step to get away from the mess. I tripped over my own leg because of being so weak and fell smack into the pile on the floor which had quickly spread.
I remember calling out to God to let His Spirit "fall on us" as we worshipped Him. Instead, I fell. When I got up, the right side of my suit was all brown and the left side was still white.
I tried to liken my suit to what our souls look like before we ask God to cleanse us of our sin but the smell was really bad and people were leaving, a few of them gagging as they walked out.
Before I passed out, I remember one of the pastors young boys yelling out to his father, "Hey look dad, Brother Caleb shit himself while he was preaching!" I also remember the pastor with his head buried in his hands and trembling. I think he was under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
We didn't have an altar call that day.
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