To be healed you must be sick…. stop. reverse. lets back up about a week.
Last Monday the team decided to go on a little FIELD TRIP!!! I couldn’t wait to get out of the house and hit the open roads because I had been living in the backyard in my home away from home, the tent. We all piled in a van and headed to a school for kids who live in the local dump outside Guatemala City. No more than three minutes down the road I started to get queasy. My stomach flipped upside down and I started to get unnaturally hot, sweating from the inside out. “WHAT?!? This can’t be happening to me,” I pondered. I chose to ignore it. If I just act like I’m not sick, it will go away.
I tried to sleep it off, I burried my head in my hands and tried to steady myself.
The Lord was up to something…
instead of getting better, I got worse.
I rode the whole way home from the school with my head out the window like a little puppy on his first adventure in a car. As soon as we pulled up to the house, I ran upstairs and nested in my “cozy” bed- aka a mat on the concrete ground. A teammate brought me a barf bucket and placed it beside my head. “Just in case!!!” she said. Within minutes, that contraption was used!! VICTORY WAS MINE! I felt so much better…
Or so I thought.
The nausea came back just about as quickly as it hit the first time. I took some drugs to knock me out, said a prayer for healing, and fell fast asleep.
The next morning my body ached like I had hit a brick wall, I was miserable. Wednesday came and Wednesday went. The highlight of my day was when Nurse Julie came in and fed me crackers…by crackers i mean one cracker.
Thursday I was determined to get out of the house. A wise man once told me, if I get ready for the day, it would increase my productivity and make me feel better. So I got up, showered, and put on real clothes for the first time in days. I joined the team for a prayer walk around the city. Two hours later we came back to the house and I darted straight up the stairs to my bed where I stayed.
By Friday I was FRUSTRAED, EXHAUSTED, and completely over being SICK!! I couldn’t understand why the Lord would bring me to community just for me to be alone. I couldn’t figure out why the medicine wasn’t making me feel better and why I couldn’t keep anything in my body. I was ready to be healed!!
Determined, I grabbed my pillow, blanket, Bible, and marched outside where I knew I could meet with the Lord- THE TENT!!! The 2 feet by 4 feet home where I've heard His voice so clearly before. A place where stillness and rest reside, where it's just me and my Papa. The Guatemalan team surrounded me with prayer, love, and encouragement from afar while i took my place across the backyard.
Friday I fought. I fought for my right to be well, for intimacy with the Lord. I didnt want to feel alone anymore.
I was exhausted beyond belief, weak because I haven't eaten in six days, and spiritually dry because I hadn't heard his voice in almost a week.
I woke up the next morning and I was done, raw and ready to be healed. I had nothing left in me, I mustered up enough energy to surrender to Him. I let him love me, speak truth over me, and fight for me harder than I could fight for myself.
He told me He had been with me the whole time.
He told me that he desired deeper intimacy with me.
He told me that he would wait for it until I was ready.
The light bulb went off – He loves me because he loves me because he loves me! It’s such an unexplainable, deep love! Tears of frustration turned into tears of joy.
My friend Kacie came over to me and I tried to verbally grasp His deep love for me. Like so many of us, The Father just wants to dance! He wanted to take me by the hand and lead me in a dance of intimacy to the rhythm of his heart beat. I just have to accept His invitation to dance, allow him to take control, and respond to His subtle hand gestures that beckon me into a twirl or a spin.
RUMBLEEE, GURGLEEEE, BLURFPPPP!
"Did you hear that?!!"
She smiled, "YES!"
I was hungry! Hungry for a love so deep that it's almost impossible to comprehend… and for steaming hot bowl of tortilla soup. and for seconds… possibly even thirds. (Give me a break, I hadn't eaten in six days!) The Lord healed in minutes, something that days of sleeping and tons of medicine couldn’t do!
