The Gospel According to Vomit

what my kids' stomach flu taught me about the maternal love of God

Aug 01, 2025

I heard it from the other room —
the sound of projectile vomit splashing across the hardwood floor just outside the bathroom.

I raced around the corner to see my youngest bracing himself against the hallway wall, breathing heavily, tears filling his eyes. I hugged him tightly and stroked his hair until he stopped shivering. And then, my husband and I got to work. He helped Lewis take off his soiled shirt and offered him a glass of cold water, then began to warm up the shower. I grabbed a pair of gloves, the trash can, and a giant roll of paper towels and set to cleaning up the mess. The smell was overwhelming, and I hoped it wouldn’t soak into the wood too much and come back to haunt us on the hottest summer days.

As I wiped and bleached on hands and knees, I turned towards Lewis and realized that he was still standing in his own vomit. Oh, buddy, I’m sorry, I cooed, as I took the paper towels and began wiping him down, directing him to step outside the puddle. I hopped up to grab a wet washcloth, and then kneeling in front of him, I gently washed both of his feet.

No one, besides the dog, has thrown up in this house in something like three years. We had been on such a hot streak, which felt well deserved after years of viruses that would blow through all of us like bullet trains when all the kids were little…when ⅗ of our family would regularly pick up discarded sidewalk lollipops and inexplicably lick public restroom doors.

Honestly? I had almost forgotten how disgusting it is to clean up misplaced vomit. As I scrubbed the floor last week, I was brought right back to those years of changing sheets and pillowcases in the middle of the night, or spraying the carpet next to the crib with Resolve by the dim light of my phone’s flashlight, all while mentally calculating who would likely be the next person to throw up and praying it wouldn’t be me.

Of all the ways that our bodies are part of God’s big story in the Bible, vomit doesn’t show up much. Despite chapters upon chapters that instructed the Israelites about what to do with everything from skin infections to menstrual blood in the Old Testament, throwing up doesn’t get much air time. The few times it does show up, vomit understandably serves as a metaphorical red flag. It is used as a warning against drunkenness and overindulgence, against mistreatment of the land, against a lukewarm faith.1 Perhaps most memorable is the warning against foolishness that offers us the visual of a dog returning to its own vomit, a reality I have played unfortunate witness to more than once in my five years of dog ownership.2

With this canine imagery, we are meant to feel disgusted as we imagine a mess of our own doing, sin and folly that we return to time and again. I think most of us can relate to that feeling — the ditches easiest for us to fall into, the thorns in our flesh that we just can’t shake.3 But for many of us, this feeling is also accompanied by not just disgust, but also by a tendency towards shame and self-loathing. And some of our churches - inadvertently or with intention - seem to primarily focus on the filth, preaching about it Sunday after Sunday, telling us early and often that our best work is nothing more than a stinking pile of rags, and that when it comes to spiritual vomit, it is a puddle we are meant to stand in until we learn our lesson.

But the “but God” in Ephesians 2:4 paints a different image. This God does not stand on the other side of the room shaking his head, nose plugged, waiting for us to clean ourselves up. Like a mother, Jesus draws near to us in our distress, apron on and towel tied around his waist, bearing a basin of clean water as he kneels before us, eager to lift us out of our own vomit and gently wash our feet.4

Recently Drew Brown published a moving essay entitled “The name of God is mercy.” He wrote about sin and shame, tangible forgiveness, and God, the Great Physician, who longs to heal us. He included an anecdote from a sermon his pastor had preached:

The pastor described a college girl he knew who was experiencing such despair that she had stopped eating, slowly starving herself. One day, a friend invited her to church to watch him lead worship; after the service, she stayed for the provided lunch and, succumbing to the social pressure of being a guest, ate. Unused to food, her stomach revolted, and she sprinted toward the nearest restroom.

But she didn’t make it to the toilet.
Instead, she vomited all over the bathroom floor.

In Drew’s retelling, “In that moment, something broke and she began to weep, eventually sitting down on the ground, surrounded by her vomit. Another woman walked into the bathroom and saw her there, weeping and sick. The woman came down to join [her] on the ground, holding her and crying with her, not caring about the vomit. There, on that bathroom floor, surrounded by vomit, the college girl was held.”

The moment on the bathroom floor served as a catalyst in the young woman’s life; she went on to experience true transformation in the love of Jesus, all because, as Drew’s pastor concluded,

“God draws near.”

A few days after my youngest threw up all over the hallway, my oldest son woke up and told me that he didn’t feel great. Around noon, he half-heartedly ate a banana, but otherwise, he generally malaise-d around the house, going from the couch to the overstuffed chair to my bed, flopping his lanky frame horizontal. Finally, as evening set in, he bolted upright, raced to the bathroom, and threw up from what sounded like the depths of his being.

I stood just outside the door at his request, waiting, while silently praising God for older kids who can make it to the toilet. When he was done, he stood up, face ashen, and announced, “I think I’m gonna pass out.” I rushed in and grabbed his elbows, guiding him to sit down on the toilet, helping him put his head between his knees while I blew cool air all over his neck. He kept telling me he could see black spots and that he couldn’t really hear me; he was shaking, tears and snot running down his face, specks of vomit all over his clothes and legs and feet.5

In that moment, I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that I was surrounded by vomit stench, my toes standing on the sprayed contents of his stomach.

I wasn’t concerned at all about the filth.
Instead, I only wanted to help my son.

There is an immediacy to this kind of love that is not squeamish.
It is focused.
It is practical.
It is near.

And this is the love God has for us. God sought out Adam and Eve in the garden as they hid, shaking in a mess of their own doing. After his death, Jesus literally came through the wall to be with his disciples, as they hid in a locked room, trembling with fear. And knowing our penchant for standing helpless in puddles of our own undoing, the Comforter was sent for us, showing up one day in a gust of wind and tongues of fire, spreading over us like a warm blanket. This pattern is all over Scripture, culminating in the incarnation.

Like a mother, God draws near,
even when, especially when, we’re a mess.

One night when my kids were little, I was home alone as my husband Eric had somewhere to be. I had put the boys to bed with relative ease, but my two-year-old daughter was sick. I had already spent nearly an hour in my darkened room with her, coaxing her into sleep; I had set up a pack ‘n play next to my bed so I could jump up to help her in the middle of the night if she needed it. I had finally emerged into the living room, bleary-eyed and exhausted, and was just sitting down on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, when I heard her begin to retch.

I ran into the room to find her, her pajamas, a stuffed animal, a pillow, and all of her bedding soaked in vomit. I scooped her up into my arms as she cried and just held her until her little body grew more still. I took her to the bathroom, peeled off her stained jammies, and drew her a warm bath. Afterward, I placed her on my bed while I changed all her sheets and scrubbed vomit out of every crevice of the pack ‘n play. Finally, I changed my own clothes, flinging the stinking mess of bedding and clothing down the basement stairs to serve as the next day’s problem.

I sat down on the bed and held her against my chest, her hot breath gracing my neck; I laid my cheek against her soft, clean hair. Eventually, her body grew heavy, and I sat holding her in the dark until we both fell asleep, together.

When I close my eyes and picture the love of God, that night serves as a sliver of stained-glass, illuminating the incarnate aspect of Divine love. And mothers live out this kind of Divine love every day. As author Bekah Stewart writes, “...the God of the universe lives in you, looks like you, loves you, desires connection with you, and uniquely designed you to represent the Divine in the world.”6 Because mothers are not afraid of mess. Mothers do not stand at a condemning distance at the inevitable follies of childhood. Mothers kneel down and wash feet, wipe butts, and change vomit-soaked pajamas, again and again. Bearing the image of God, mothers provide a portrait of the God who is not concerned with our filth but is concerned with us. God lifts us out of the mess and gently washes our feet. Like a mother, God draws near and holds us close.

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