I Miss Being Sick

Being Reminded of the Important Things

Even though I’m only auditing a course this semester at DTS, I’m still required to attend chapel sessions.  It seems far too easy sometimes to simply treat this as another tick-in-the-box exercise that is common in academia.  But every now and then, I stumble upon a message that deeply moves me and reminds me of the purpose of my education, and more importantly, my life.  As the kids scampered off to their Saturday morning activities, I watched a service by Michael Easley that struck me in such a way.  But not in the way you might think, I actually reflected on the fact that I miss my pain.  

 A Dark Anniversary

The x’s on my calendar are rapidly advancing towards a rather dark anniversary.  In about 12 weeks I’ll be celebrating the two year anniversary of a gruesome surgery to remove a large tumor that I had in my abdomen.  In some ways, it seems like a distant memory.  After all, I feel great again; two years on I’m feeling a lot like my old self and I’m back to living my life.  It’s hard for me to remember the suffering and the pain I experienced all the while wondering if I’d ever feel ‘good’ again.  I can tell you quite confidently, that we all take our health far too much for granted, and we only really appreciate that when we no longer have it. 

So why on earth would I possibly miss my pain?  You see, when I was sick and in pain, I relied so heavily on God for comfort.  I humbly accepted the path He chose for me to walk.  Even the very act of eating a piece of toast became an earnest appeal to God’s grace.  I can’t tell you how difficult it is to eat when you are nauseous and sick all the time.  There is no joy to choking down minuscule bites of bland food.  It’s no fun cooking a meal for your family that you know you won’t be able to eat.  The aroma of the chore that was once such a blessing became an exercise in managing sweats, dizziness, cramps, and peristaltic control.  It was miserable, but somehow, by God’s grace, each day passed.

So much of my normal life disappeared when I got sick.  I couldn’t talk with people.  I couldn’t go into stores out of the fear of messing up their floors.  I couldn’t be the father I wanted to be to my children.  I couldn’t be the husband I wanted to be to my wife.  In fact, my wife became so frustrated that we needed to develop a scale so she would understand what I could and couldn’t do at any moment in time.  Zero was feeling normal, four was unwell but manageable, at six I was losing control (shakes, dizziness, wet mouth – my borderline of functionality), and of course anything eight and above was, well, messy.  My average at any given time of day was about a 5.5.  The only thing I was really good at anymore was being sick.

But God’s grace was sufficient for me.  Each day became a series of tiny steps, each totally dependent on Him.  And I knew tomorrow would be the same.  And that was OK with me.  As my life was literally falling apart at the seams around me, my confidence and satisfaction in God’s grace were more real and meaningful than ever before in my life.  My sickness in some ways, while horrendously unpleasant, became beautiful to me.  Because I knew that God knew exactly what He was doing; every tiny step of the way.  And I trusted him.  

To say that I grew in my understanding of who God is at this time would be a massive understatement.  I stopped thinking about who I wanted God to be, and more about who God is.  I stopped selfishly thinking about what I wanted, and I started thinking about what God was doing.  I stopped seeing myself at the center of my own life, and I started seeing God orchestrating and controlling all things.  Even in my pathetic weakness, God was demonstrating His strength in my life in ways that I could never have imagined.  In the words of Joseph Scriven in the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, we hear;

Have we trials and temptations
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer   

In my weakness, these words painted the picture of my everyday life, even down the most mundane details.

Now I’m better.  God has graciously answered my prayers (and the prayers of many others) and everything seems to be on track again.  Except that I realize today, that God seems a bit further off than He was two years ago.  I don’t seem to give much thought to whether I should enjoy another beef and lamb wrap with jalapenos.  I don’t seem to need to beg for God’s grace to accomplish the minuscule things anymore in my life.  While I’m once again studying earnestly to serve God, and I’m using that learning to teach and share with others the gospel of Jesus Christ; I seem to be relying more on myself to accomplish these things and less on the God who literally gave me this life back.

Today, I am reminded of how much God has done for me, and what a blessing my trials have been.  In some ways, I miss being sick.  Not because I enjoyed it, but because it kept me close to God.  I pray today to remember that only in Christ, are all things possible, even eating the toast.  I pray today to return to that dependence on Him for everything because without Him, absolutely nothing is possible.  May this be your prayer today as well.