health issues

Never Useless: laying aside harsh words for hard stories

/ bekaburnsblog / 1 Comment

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“In the years since our lives changed forever…”

It was a humble, short phrase, soaked with intention. The author was Katherine Wolf, survivor of a brain stem stroke that disabled her body, her speech, her face, and nearly claimed her life in her early twenties.

But she didn’t write, “In the years since my devastating stroke…” She didn’t even name what happened to her. She didn’t say “ruined.” Instead, she expressed the lasting impact of the stroke by using the phrase, “changed forever.” Katherine refused to turn her story over to be a narrative of only damage.

I wanted that same intention in how I frame what we’ve walked through, but I didn’t know how to get there. So, I started asking the Lord to give me His words for my story.

When I try to explain it, it goes like this:

(If you already know it, feel free to skip ahead.)

We studied for years and worked hard to pay for the flight training needed to prepare for an aviation ministry overseas. We sold our vehicles and belongings and moved our entire lives to Papua New Guinea to support missionaries working to translate the word of God into new languages. We studied the trade language for months to be able to live and function in the country. Then we got pregnant with our second baby. It was a brutal pregnancy filled with unrelenting nausea and vomiting that we could not get under control even with the prescription medications the doctors at our base were able to give me. We fought to handle it with IV fluids a few times a week and support from our co-workers to feed and care for our family while Cody continued in simulator training and working on the planes in the hangar.

Seventeen weeks into the pregnancy, our leadership and medical staff sent us back to the U.S. to receive more complex medical care. I was placed on a pump, constantly infusing nausea medication, then hospitalized for a cardiac arrhythmia that was contributing to how fatigued and weak I felt. I came home with a wearable defibrillator and an implanted heart monitor, then gave birth in the ICU. Shortly after we got the baby home, he began having eye tremors. We took him to the hospital and found that he had fluid compressing and leaking into his brain tissue, cysts in two parts of his brain, and another part that never formed at all. We delayed our return to Papua New Guinea and set up housing and interim work serving at the mission’s retirement home for the next year, which we spent getting frequent brains scans for the baby, trialing a medication to slow down the fluid, and seeing specialists. Each time we thought we were in the clear and could return to our home overseas, another issue came up with either Benaiah, Cody, or I that we had to address: surgery for a birth defect, surgery for ear infections, appendicitis, a tumor too deep to biopsy, speech delays, nervous system disorders, and then, daily migraines which forfeited Cody’s ability to renew his flight medical. Finally, we tried to go back to Papua New Guinea, in a mechanic role, to give whatever we had left, and two things happened. One, another evaluation revealed new delays with the recommendation for more support and early intervention for our child. Two, we felt an unexpected peace that there was something new the Lord had for us to press into: a ministry of comfort and encouragement to missionaries and ministry workers who are struggling.

People can ask me a simple question and sometimes I’ve wrestled that information into a straightforward answer, but sometimes it still unleashes a flood of emotion, frustration, and unexpected detail. Sometimes, I shut the topic down and pack all that untidiness away.

We can be like that with our stories.

Many of our lives take us on trajectories we never wanted or expected. I know the Lord had purpose in it. But I’ve struggled as we’ve made the pivot into this new and good thing before us. It meant letting go of trying to get back to our life in Papua New Guinea. It meant accepting that our lives had changed forever. And it was heart-breaking.

But reading Katherine’s words was a reminder that even our hardest stories are more than what has happened to us or what we’ve lost, and I wanted a way to talk and think about mine that reflected God’s unfaltering intentions and purposes, not just my heartache and confusion.

So I took some intentional time to put away distractions with the purpose of asking the Lord to meet me in the discomfort that I normally numb. I tried to breathe through many, many uncomfortable thoughts and just invite Jesus into those moments.

Comfort me, Lord. Give me your words for my story. Uproot anything that’s untrue. Plant your truth deep in its place.

For a few weeks I have been praying this, and I wanted to share a passage the Lord challenged me with as I sought Him in his word. Right smack in the middle of the powerhouse book of Philippians, Paul takes a moment to talk about Epaphroditus, a man who risked his life for the sake of Christ:

“Meanwhile, I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you. He is a true brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier. And he was your messenger to help me in my need. I am sending him because he has been longing to see you, and he was very distressed that you heard he was ill. And he certainly was ill; in fact, he almost died. But God had mercy on him – and also on me, so that I would not have one sorrow after another. So I am all the more anxious to send him back to you, for I know you will be glad to see him, and then I will not be so worried about you. Welcome him in the Lord’s love and with great joy, and give him the honor that people like him deserve. For he risked his life for the work of Christ, and he was at the point of death while doing for me what you couldn’t do from far away.”

-Philippians 2:25-30

Here’s what I had never noticed before: Epaphroditus risked his life for the sake of Christ by getting sick.

Does this sound familiar?

My breath caught and I started to object, “But Lord, I didn’t stay to the point of death itself…”

Epaphroditus wanted to keep going. He wanted to give more than he had to give. He got sent back from something that was really important to him. He got sick. This was not his plan. His story is here for a reason. Do you want my words for your story? Look at how I describe his.

I studied the words used to depict Epaphroditus:

True brother, co-worker, fellow soldier. Welcome him with love and great joy. Give the honor people like him deserve.

I sat quietly with this passage, and I felt a gentle question nudge my heart:

“What if I honor the very thing that fills you with shame?”

Epaphroditus never would have written these things about himself. Nor would I describe myself that way. But I’m writing down this wrestling because I don’t think I’m the only one carrying around a bitter accusation that what I tried to give to the Lord was lost. And I think He confronted me on this because He thinks differently than you or I.

Lost? What do you mean? You offered it to me. As you walk with me, what you lose, give up, or suffer, I count as an offering.

Epaphroditus was upset that the Philippian church even found out he had been sick. But God inspired Paul to write these glowing words about a man who was being sent home. A man whose service was affected and interrupted by an illness totally outside his control.

I get honoring great sacrifice when I see what it accomplished. When hardship happens and it gets in the way and erodes what I am able to give; when I see cost, but I can’t trace out how it could be worthwhile…other words come to mind.

What was all of that? Why did we train for years and leave everything to give our lives to the work of spreading the Gospel only to end up hospitalized and scrambling to figure out housing back in the United States?

How useless. What a waste.

Those are the painful words that have painted my disappointment with extra sting.

What are yours?

My aching friends, God doesn’t think the same way we do.

He didn’t just see Epaphroditus’ body, taken down by illness, falling short of all he may have wanted to accomplish. God saw his heart.

He sees yours and mine, too, even when we are spent and there’s so much more need beyond our reach. Even when it all falls apart and we’re trying to rally, but we’re limping and frustrated and filled with doubt. Even when, like Epaphroditus, we’d rather people not even know how desperate things got. Even when we’ve tried to do something good and it blows up in our face.

“…Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

-1 Samuel 16:7

God doesn’t look at weakness or sickness with annoyance like you and I might. He’s not surprised when it disrupts our plans. He’s not stuck on how it’s holding us back. He tells us we can boast all the more gladly about our weakness, because it is in that weakness (not once we get past it) that his power rests on us and that we find His grace sufficient. The unexpected stuff that hits our lives is part of the course that He’s marked out for us, even and especially when it gets in the way of what we wanted to offer.

This week, as I’ve continued asking the Lord to give me His words for my story, I was reading Malachi chapter 3 and I came across this:

““Your words against me are harsh,” says the Lord.

Yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”

 You have said, “It is useless to serve God…” 

And again, I was challenged. When I say, “What a waste. How useless.” Not only are those NOT God’s words for anything my story has held, but while leaning on my own understanding, I am speaking harshly against Him. I’m looking at the short timeline and the visible things I can wrap my human brain around and declaring that since this didn’t turn out the way I hoped, it was a waste. But here’s the truth,

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

-1 Corinthians 15:58

Why would Paul need to write that to the church at Corinth? Because life is full of trouble and ministry is hard. Sometimes, it feels useless. So we need the truth that it is never useless.

If you’re spent and hurting and fighting with the lie that it’s not worth it. I’m going to repeat it again. This is what God has to say. Here’s your sword, pick it up:

NOTHING YOU DO FOR THE LORD IS EVER USELESS.

NOTHING YOU’VE DONE FOR THE LORD WAS EVER A WASTE.

In this life you will have trouble. But take heart. He is using those troubles.

Sometimes, it’s not the satisfying moments when it all comes together, it’s the hollow ones when it all comes apart where we learn to treasure and be satisfied in Him. Sometimes, He’s doing something new we never saw coming. Sometimes, waiting feels like defeat, but it’s not.

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

-Galatians 6:9

Epaphroditus carried the letter of Philippians from Paul to the church of Philippi. Maybe he carried the weight of disappointment on that long trek back, too.

Why, Lord, when I came all this way, would you let me get that sick?

But in leaving his ministry in Rome behind, Epaphroditus served as the courier that made it possible for you and I to read the words, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

We have Philippians because Epaphroditus carried it back when he was sent home unexpectedly.

Maybe you, too, are carrying a message that God has crafted to strengthen and encourage and comfort, out of the very disappointment that has left your heart heavy, and you yourself just haven’t laid eyes on it yet.

Can you imagine the look on Epaphroditus’ face when Paul’s description of him was read out loud to the whole church?

I bet that same shocked, humbled feeling would overcome our hearts if we got a good glimpse of the way the Lord sees us. And I imagine He would say:

When I speak about you with grace, joy, hope, and satisfaction. Don’t argue. Take it in. This is who you are because of my Son. Welcomed, loved, honored, upright. Whether you’re making headway or collapsing under duress. When you’re strong and when you’re weak. I love you. I have always loved you. And I’m looking for your heart, not for what you have to offer me.

“So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!“

-2 Corinthians 5:16

“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him...”

-2 Chronicles 16:9

When Hebrews 12 tells us to lay aside every weight, I think a good portion of it might be wrong descriptions of ourselves, and heavy, stinging versions of our stories that speak harshly of their author. Let’s not carry those around anymore. Life is heavy enough. But our God, full of grace and truth, has spoken new things over us, and He promises that there is a bigger story happening with the suffering and loss we can’t make sense of.

What if we took a deep breath of trust, moved into those dark, hurting places, held it all up to the Lord, and asked Him for His version? What if He’s gentle to us? What if He comforts us? What if He give us rest for our souls?

Lord,

I trust you, here and now, that this is the path you’ve marked out for me and you’re doing more with it than I could ever grasp. So, I will not call “loss” what you call “offering.” I trust how you describe me, even when I see all my issues, and I will take my stand behind the breastplate of your perfect righteousness, which has been applied to me in Christ, to extinguish every fiery dart of accusation my enemy would hurl at my heart, and every harsh word he would speak about my story.

I will not agree with him by speaking of you or of me in that way. Fill my heart instead with your truth, your words, and your peace.

“Unless the Lord had helped me, I would soon have settled in the silence of the grave. I cried out, “I am slipping!” but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.”

-Psalm 94:17-19

““Each time He said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

-2 Corinthians 12:9-10

You Light a Lamp for Me: meet the One who produces quiet hearts in dark valleys

/ bekaburnsblog / 3 Comments

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I’ve made it one year knowing that there is a tumor growing in my body.

The Lord has sure given me grace for this year. And…I carry the awareness that it is there, hiding just beneath my skull, of uncertain nature and uncertain trajectory, surrounded by delicate structures, buried too deep to biopsy, and risky to treat. It has been challenging work to unload that awareness and focus on other things.

This month at my follow-up, one of the Mayo Clinic surgeons offered to operate, so I now have the opportunity to remove it while it’s still small, rather than treat it with radiation down the road. We got the surgery on the schedule and I have a little less than a month to walk through anticipating that. On December 6, the surgeon will begin his work. Mine begins now.

Doing the research and walking through this decision was a struggle. There’s a lot we don’t get answers on until the operation is over, and I’m the type of person that likes to know what to expect.

The fear living in my heart has a really hard time with not knowing the future. It looks at unknowns and says, “I bet this is heading somewhere where you don’t have what you need.” It stresses about what to gather and prepare, but never feels quite secure, even when I’ve prepared all I can. It aches for the things that seem to be going well in other people’s stories.

Fear sings in incessant rounds of “what if” and “if only.”

But peace says, “The most important things are not if’s.”

Oh, what mercy, that peace has broken into the conversation.

I am absolutely floored that, in the wise and careful hands of a God who cares deeply for me, a tumor is actually what dials up the volume so that I will notice a battle where I have been getting slaughtered, and get desperate enough to grab onto the strength I need win.

“You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good, you turn it for good.”

-Elevation Worship, “See A Victory”

I had some freeze, despair, pull my hair out moments working through both my initial diagnosis and this new round of options and information, but now I think this hard thing, in God’s capable hands, actually gets flipped into the training ground where I learn to take up the fight. Perhaps this is where I finally say,

“ENOUGH! I am done yielding my thoughts and heart to the anxious toil of problem-solving things I can’t control. I will take hold of the peace that is MINE and I will fight for all I’m worth to keep it.”

“You will keep in perfect peace
    all who trust in you,
    all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Trust in the Lord always,
    for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.”

–Isaiah 26:3-4 NLT

“Peace I leave with you; My [perfect] peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. [Let My perfect peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge.]”

–John 14:27 AMP

In his discussion of Ephesians 6, MacLaren’s Expositions says this:

“The quiet heart will be able to fling its whole strength into its work. And that is what troubled hearts can never do, for half their energy is taken up in steadying or quieting themselves, or is dissipated in going after a hundred other things.”

My heart is a lot of things: driven, busy, hopeful, productive, vigilant, and determined, but oh, how rarely it is quiet.

And yet that is what the Gospel does. Meeting Jesus, believing who He is, and taking hold of what He has done for you produces a quiet heart. At the beginning, and every time you sit at his feet after.

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

–Matthew 11:28 NLT

“And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts…”

–Colossians 3:15 NLT

Oh Lord,

The load is too big for my shoulders. I cannot bear it. I am a mess – a tightly squeezed mess trying to look and feel like I have all of this managed. Cody’s migraines, Benaiah’s brain, my tumor. Too many. Too many problems to respond to and keep track of all at once. Too many emotions. Too many possibilities. So little control.  

And I’m exhausted.

Can you take over? Please flood my heart with your peace and Let. It. Rule.

You are my peace (Eph 2:14). No data or insight or prep will be sufficient. It has to be you. That’s where my security lies.

You don’t miss one detail. You have kept us from missing it when we needed to intervene on things. Help me trust that you’ve had us all along, and you still have us now. You are faithfully leading us step by step. I’m in the dark about what’s coming, but you are not.  You are over the disease that stalks in the darkness (Psalm 91:6, 9). This surgery scares me, but I feel warning about leaving the tumor.

And I trust your leading. I trust your timing. I trust what you allow.

It is okay that the things that are challenging for me are a struggle. I’m learning. Help me to humble my heart and respond to the things you bring to the surface when it’s frustrating and stressful. You love me and you’re working on these things in me. I will keep needing your grace to encourage my heart, your mercy for my failures, and your righteousness to stand on instead of my own.

I agree with you about me. What mercy and grace you choose to give to me, I will receive happily, for I sorely need it. And where you allow it to be challenging, I will agree with you that I am ready, because you have equipped me for it.

In the past 4 years, I’ve watched my husband and both of my little sons rolled away from me and into an OR. These years have held a heavy, unfolding story of brokenness with little reprieve before we duck back under for another round. I feel my weakness and my weariness often. And I long for relief and resolution. When I’m hit hard, I so quickly think of relief as the place I must reach, somehow, someway, if I’m going to survive this.

But pain is where I press into you and find you sufficient.

You are the steady, strong, unfailing supply no matter how long my time in the deep lasts.

You are the place I must reach for, and you are reachable, when relief is not.

It’s when the fight takes us past where we ever thought we’d be walking, past the last of our endurance, when we collapse and still it keeps hurting: that darkness is where we learn that we want relief, but we don’t need it. And that is a powerful secret to uncover.

When you learn that even though you’re uncomfortable, you do have what you need, right here in the dark, you become something to contend with. Because someone who has found their bearings in the deep places is much more difficult to mislead.

If you’re waiting in the dark, too, I want to encourage you with this. I think our Faithful Teacher is in the business of leading us through the valley of the shadow of death in order to build us into sure-footed followers. We are becoming people who don’t fear discomfort or lose their nerve when it gets confusing, because we are learning to trust our Shepherd.

He is shaping us into the kind of people who can face down dire-looking circumstances and trust that He knows the way to lead us to the other side, and that what our enemy intends to ruin us, He will use to build into us.

One more thought. For you, the one who is doing battle in the dark:

“Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.”

–Ephesians 6:10-11 CSB

It has helped me to remember that we don’t take up armor so we can stand against our enemy’s strength. We’re not warned about his strength here; it is so inferior to our Almighty God, there’s no power contest happening. But what we are warned about is the devil’s schemes: his attempts to get us off-center and worried that this vast strength will fail us.

In whatever you are facing, let me be a voice reassuring you that it will not.

So be strengthened by it. When you’re discouraged and stressed and out of steam, be strengthened by the One who will never fail you, by the One who is all you need in the dark.

Because He is light itself.

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“I will praise on the mountain, And I will praise you when the mountain is in my way.

You’re the summit where my feet are, So I will praise You in the valleys all the same.

No less God within the shadows. No less faithful when the night leads me astray.

‘Cause You’re the heaven where my heart is, in the highlands and the heartache all the same.”

–Benjamin William Hastings/Hillsong, “Highlands (Song of Ascent)”

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Adequate Shelter: a place of relief when the storm ramps up

/ bekaburnsblog / 4 Comments

“But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress.“
–Psalm 59:16

I’ve been digging through the Word of God and trying to flesh out the concept of joy. There’s a lot to it. Sometimes it’s the only word to express the emotional overflow in a hard-won victory, at the fulfillment of a long-awaited hope. It’s the mark of wholeness, celebration, abundance, and total satisfaction.

But sometimes, Scripture ties the concept of joy to danger, grief, and stress. I’m trying to understand this layer of joy because I think it can be a huge help to me in framing our situation.

Especially in the first half of Psalms, I found a lot of verses that combine the themes of joy and refuge in the same sentence. Joy: the elation and relief you feel when, having desperately needed cover, you have found your shelter adequate.

There’s a song I’ve been playing on repeat over this last week or so as I cling to the refuge visual.

/You can be still
You can trust Him
Even when your world feels busted./

-Jordan Janzen, “You Can Let Go”

My world feels a little busted.

Since Dr. Filart said that an ablation would likely not solve the problem, and he’d like more imaging of my heart. Since the radiologist sent over the report with the words “cerebral white matter disease.” Since I started on an antibiotic to try to clear up a possible pocket of infection in the base of my skull. Since the MRI showed a mass in my neck we didn’t even know was there.

I did pray that whatever was causing my symptoms would show up on imaging. Yeesh.

I’ve mostly responded by calling people and listing the findings. As if rehearsing that list again and again will somehow help it make sense. Or by distraction. Baking show. Survival show. Facebook. Music. Anything to fill the space. The silence. The gnawing awareness that I don’t know what it all means. I don’t want to sit in that awareness. I welcome anything to keep my mind busy instead, even the hum of the CT as I bite my tongue and try not to swallow so they can get a clear picture.

Cody sat me down the other day and told me that I had called my brother, my sister, his sister, and Eva Jeane, but I hadn’t really talked to him. I think…in the same way that I hadn’t really talked to the Lord. I had lightly conversed, I had listened, I had worshipped. But I hadn’t poured out. I was trying to just take in the truth, but a relationship goes both ways. I also have to let out the ache.

Instead, I had tried to satisfy my need to process on the phone, skirting the edges of this uncomfortable emotion, because with Cody and with Jesus…I can’t pretend I’ve got it together and I understand it. It becomes glaringly clear that I’m out of my depth and I’m reaching.  Reaching for any sort of way to describe what is happening that puts me back in a position of control over it, instead of victim to it.

I looked at Cody, and hot tears dribbled down my cheeks as I finally gave voice to my dread. What if, instead of growing stronger and stronger, I’m going to have less and less to give to my little boys? What if, after everything Cody’s already given for me, instead of being able to help him, I become an added burden to his load?

Cody gently reminded me that we live with our own little Ebeneezer, and we paused to listen to the happy pitter patter of his feet in the hallway.

“Maybe,” Cody continued, “maybe just like with Benaiah, first God is making it clear that we’re in an impossible situation, THEN He’ll step in and solve it.”

The next day, Cody left me a note on my desk:

“God sees when our beacons are lit, and unlike Rohan, there is no question as to whether He will answer. (Lord of the Rings reference) He will come. He will walk with us through the flames, and He will be – He is – our salvation! Keep your eyes on Him my love.”

Oh Lord,

Grow me from the person who scurries around on the beach of the Red Sea crying that I’m about to die, into the person who stands on the rock, holds up a staff and screams “Stand still and see the salvation of your God!” No Red Sea moment of options closing down and danger closing in is too hard for you. You make a way where there is no way.

“Peace. Be still.” Speak it over me, Lord. Help me yield to the rule of your peace in my heart. (Colossians 3:16)

Tears are just beneath the surface. Not always. Not when I speak clinically. Clinically, it’s a fascinating case. I’m excited to find out what’s next. But as the person who’s living inside the case study, I am frustrated, I’m scared, I’m troubled, I’m weary. I’m emotionally spent.

As we keep finding things, it feels more and more foolish to hope we will be able to return to the life we hoped for.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.“

–Philippians 4:6

–What have you already done?–

You saved Benaiah. He’s okay. We are maybe one scan away from a deep sigh of relief. He needed surgery. He had so many things going on in that fragile baby brain. And yet you healed him, Lord, when all we could do was ask you for help.

You sent phone calls. You put me on people’s hearts and they felt moved to call me and speak strength to me. You see me, El Roi. The state of my heart is on your mind.

You sent your words: Acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). Strength to strength (Psalm 84:5-7). Promises of your understanding and compassion for me as the waves hit. Promises of your new strength to survive the next wave when I already feel bowled over and spent from the last one.

You gradually marched out the information so that I can absorb it a little at a time. It is not hitting me all at once, but at a pace I can tolerate.

Before I even asked, Dr. Gottschalk had an ENT he really, really trusted and asked me to go to THAT one. The one who just removed a malignant tumor from his friend’s throat. When I scheduled this new patient appointment with Dr. G, and he got the office staff to move it up from February, it was just to deal with my asthma. I can’t get over the perfect timing that it was all in place when this new round of symptoms hit. To have the doctor that walked through Benaiah’s entire journey with us, now set up to take care of me as the appointments multiply and the information floods in. Incredible. I was not prepared, Lord, but you were.

I’m already set up with weekly therapy appointments. I don’t have to wait until it gets too rough and then try to think about adding another appointment to the schedule. It’s in place. I’ve got a space to talk and process and work through both what we’ve already been through and what’s coming.

You have worked on our behalf, you have heard our cries, you have seen our grief, you have promised your strength, you have prepared the way. It is mine to walk in it. But your fingerprints are all over this.

–What do I need?–

I will ask you. Please, Son of David, have mercy on me. With a word, with a touch, with a thought in your mind, all of my problems would be no challenge at all for you to clear away. Creator, you could totally restore me. I believe you. Please heal me.

“Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” 

-John 9:3

May the reason I’m sick be so that You get glory. So that the work of God may be revealed in me. And don’t do it in the shadows. Show your strength in my weakness. Give me victory that could never have come from me. Use my story to overcome arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of you in the minds of people (2 Corinthians 10:5). Through me, teach them who you are, that they may come to love you and trust you.

Please, please, make this mass removable, and may it bring relief when it’s removed. Please no radiation. Please no chemo. But not my will but yours. If you ask me to walk that road, strengthen me with the understanding of the incredible greatness of your power for me, the one who believes you (Ephesians 1:19). The same power that raised Christ from the dead? Sickness doesn’t stand a chance against it. My enemy doesn’t stand a chance against it. You can solve dead. You can surely solve everything short of that.

As I look at my erratic heart rhythms, my weary soul, my damaged mind, and my dwindling strength, Help me still to love you with all that’s left of my heart, my soul, my mind and my strength. What little I have, may I give it all to you.

Show me what you are asking of me. Strengthen me to give it. Move me to love you deeper and to humble myself to receive and receive and receive from your love. Oh how I need it. Ground me in it. Help me to stand.

May that love overflow into waiting rooms and doctor’s offices. Help me to see and minister to the needs around me rather than being absorbed in my own concerns.

Help me to exercise discretion with my thoughts: which ones I pick up and hold onto, which ones I lay aside. Give me the wisdom and self-control to choose to dwell on only that which will serve and strengthen me. Give me the trust and the confidence to let tomorrow’s troubles wait, to refuse to suffer them early.

Help me to count it all joy. Give me your joy, your endurance, your strength, your humility.

Give Cody your peace. Comfort his heart. It is so painful to watch someone you love face scary possibilities and be helpless to fix anything about it. I hate that he’s going through that again. Thank you for this husband you guided me to and gave to me in your grace. He is one in a million. Make me a blessing to him. When I feel afraid that I am a burden he will come to resent, remind me your truth, that I am your gift to him. And give to him, through me, Lord.

Help me to trust you with my whole heart and to relax in your goodness – like I do in a beautiful cabin, snuggling by a fireplace and enjoying the giant windows that look out on a violent storm. When I start running through that daunting list, help me to draw it in my mind: the clouds, the lightning, the rain, the wind, the flood. Then, to draw a window framing it. Because the storm is real, but I am inside. You are my adequate shelter.

Give us the joy and relief that is ours because we rest inside your protection. We can watch the storm ramp up and ramp up and appreciate how solid you are and be fascinated by the contrast of the outer chaos and the inner calm. That it’s an impressive storm, but we are safe in it.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!”

–Psalm 34:8

“As pressure and stress bear down on me, I find joy in your commands.”

–Psalm 119:143

“Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you;
    your strong right hand holds me securely.“

–Psalm 63:7-8

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, He increases strength.”

–Isaiah 40:29

“Do not gloat over me, my enemies!
    For though I fall, I will rise again.
Though I sit in darkness,
    the Lord will be my light.”

–Micah 7:8