Affliction

I have narcolepsy with cataplexy so chronic illness is just a daily part of my life. I REALLY struggled to be content with daily illness and submitting that to the Lord. I believe that I will always struggle with that at times. Bad days here and there. But for the most part, this isn’t a struggle for me anymore. In sickness and in health, God is loving and in control and trustworthy.

I didn’t have any understanding of a chronically ill person when I was young. I just had zero personal experience with it and didn’t really know anyone who was always sick. So in my mind, I felt people should be able to get over it. There is also a terrible mentality that has seeped into the body of Christ from the world that chronically ill people could get over it if they trusted the Lord enough. I see this more often with mental illness. A worldly belief within the church that mental illness isn’t real and that the brain cannot get sick as the body does. Which is truly mind boggling to me considering how often the Bible mentions it, but it’s something I believed for many years.

“Trust the Lord and suddenly you will be healed.” God does not have to heal us anymore than he has to say yes to any other prayer we pray. Christ himself did not heal everyone during his ministry although he had the power to. But living with affliction is spoken of over and over. Trusting the Lord in the midst of trial, trusting the Lord in spite of sickness, peace regardless of circumstances- that’s in the Bible. King David is a perfect example of it. He speaks of his depression so often, and also constantly praises the Lord and trusts in his power. You can see those ups and downs all thru the Psalms.

For me that peace and contentment in sickness didn’t come easily. I was CERTAIN God would make things easier for me if I prayed. I didn’t expect healing necessarily, but I did expect more ease. Less affliction. I expected to be a “normal person” with all of my heart. And I was very angry and depressed when that didn’t happen for me. It really shook my faith in the Lord to think that he would not answer that prayer as I thought best. I wondered several times if he even cared. I stopped reading my Bible for a time because I was just so mad. Throwing a fit over what I wanted.

I remember hearing Jane Haveman spoken of at her funeral. How she said she believed her suffering with breast cancer for so many years was molding her more into the image of Christ. And how she was so thankful for the good things that had happened during her sickness. Things that never would have happened without that sickness. I was very rebuked by that. My suffering pales in comparison and yet my faith was just so small. I was so easily bitter rather than thankful. I remember a terrible, terrible, good conviction setting in during her funeral. A sparked desire to stop wallowing. A side note: I reread The Hiding Place a few days ago. I was amazed by Corrie’s mother and sister Betsy. Two very, very sick women who had the most content spirit. They were so helpful to others. So giving. All those years after their deaths, the things Corrie remembered about them to write of was their faith in the Lord and commitment to help others. These ladies, Jane and the Ten Booms, were fallible sinners the same as the rest of us. But they had a faith that I can barely understand. And when I read or hear of it, I feel like I am pulling back a bit of a veil between heaven and earth and getting a glimpse of something so bright and powerful. It gives me an ache of craving for the same thing.

I had to face some truths. Hard but not bad truths: God has the power to heal me, but he has chosen not to. I deserve far worse than this, and do not deserve to escape all suffering. He is still good.

I decided to do a few practical things to help myself. Put my hand to the plow so to speak. One of those things was to practice thankfulness no matter how ungrateful I felt. Each day when I had the most negative thoughts, I’d force myself to think of two things that I was thankful for and say them out loud or write them down. I had to do that all day every day. Replace the bitterness with thankfulness. Out with the bad, in with the good. Renew a right spirit within me, Lord. I prayed that nearly every day. I had to be really intentional with this. I would also ask myself “Who do I serve?”. If I was allowing bitterness to overtake me, then I served Satan. I had to acknowledge that. And then make a decision. Who do I serve? Choose you this day.

Aside from bitterness I also had a lot of fear. Fear of being sick which was truly dreadful. I still fill up with dread over the smallest sicknesses and have to regularly remind myself to calm down. But I was terrified of sickness for a few years. I was scared of what people would think. Would they be like my past self and assume the worst? That I could get over this if I wished. That it was a spiritual issue rather than bodily. Would I embarrass myself in conversations with others by saying random dumb things because I had so much terrible brain fog. Would I offend people if I forgot who they were. Would I look stupid. Not one single person ever made me feel that way, but I feared it anyway. For no reason! The fear of man bringeth a snare. I cried many times when Luna was born thinking I would fall down the stairs with her (I’ve fallen down the stairs a few times myself but never badly). I would pray every time I walked down the stairs that God would not let me drop and crush my sweet baby. I told Aaron that I was scared I would drop her over the stair railings one day. I worried I’d have a cataplexy attack and dump her right over. He just looked at me for a minute and then said,”Babe you can’t think of these terrible things. God will protect you both.” It was so good for me to hear someone else say that. I knew it in my head, but couldn’t let go of the fear of it.

All of that bitterness and those fears were a lie.  They didn’t come from the Lord and they weren’t truthful. I am a big list making person. I have a list for every single thing in my life. So I made a list of those lies and countered them with scripture and the truth. Seeing it written down each day helped me to regulate my thoughts and rewire my messed up brain. I truly believe that the things we think become habits. And we can break bad habit thoughts just like biting our fingernails. Sin (in this case for me bitterness and fear) is a bad habit that we allow ourselves to have. God gives us every strength and grace and resource that we need to have victory with those bad habits/sin. Sin is an addiction. A drug that we have to work so hard to overcome and it takes a lot of time. I have been guilty of thinking that if I just pray then God will do the work while I sit around doing nothing. But it doesn’t work that way. Instead God gives us the strength and ability to WORK. 

God gave me new scripture every day during that time to help my brain. The sin in my heart was the same every day, but His mercies were new every morning. And every day there was a new promise and a new scripture to accept and believe to be true. I read this verse this morning and was reminded of how each day God shows us what we need. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27

I had it so wrong when I thought that sickness was kind of this end of my life thing. It isn’t that at all. That is another lie that I believed. Affliction is exactly that: it’s affliction and it’s really hard and not one person loves it. But the point is to allow God to shine thru it. To allow God to be glorified thru it. To be molded to God’s image. When I read the Bible or books like The Hiding Place, I see the Lord in those people. It’s what I see the most. I see the suffering too, but it seems small compared to the work the Lord is doing. That is what I want and pray for. I am not there at all yet, but I hope to be a Betsy or a Jane one of these days.