1 Peter 5:9-10
Resist him [the devil] and be firm in the faith, knowing that your present sufferings are being experienced by your believers throughout the world. Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus will personally restore, establish, strengthen and support you after you have suffered a little.
These are two of my favorite verses in the Bible. I fall back on these in hard times and it reminds me of our personal, relational God. You see, verse nine tells us that our sufferings are shared by other believers all over the world and all across time. As King Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun! There is no new sin – every bad thing we do is not a surprise to God! We can also take comfort in the fact that we are never alone in sin. There is someone else in the world who has been through the same things, and we can build community from that. Then, in verse ten, we see not only the God of all grace, but the God of all the universe humbling Himself down into our pit of sin and struggle to wrap His arms around us and bear that burden of sin. And this is even after only a little suffering. It just takes one tear for our Lord’s heart to break for us and for Him to come rushing to the side of His child.
I want to tell you a story of how God has beautifully shown me this passage in my life. I got sick in the beginning of 2017. I could barely walk, fine motor skills were difficult to execute and I was in constant pain. It was my joints. They were sore, aching. At first I thought it was just because of the temperature change as I returned to school in Philly after winter break in South Carolina. But, the pain only got worse. I started to fear that I had arthritis, my mom started seeing symptoms for that around my age. Or maybe I had lime disease, I love hiking and camping so maybe I picked that up. I finally visited my campus doctor and they checked me out, took blood samples, and told me to go home. I went back to the doctors. I tested negative for arthritis and lime disease. They sent me to another doctor. And another. And more blood drawn. And X-rays. I asked people to pray over me for healing in my body. I had heard that was possible and wanted to step out in faith and trust God. Nothing changed. Finally, in an examination room of a rheumatologist’s office two months later, the doctor told me I had something called Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD). She explained to me that this was a family of autoimmune diseases that include lupus, scleroderma, and polymyositis. I had positive blood results for the general condition but not enough symptoms to be diagnosed with one of the specific diseases. She explained it as me being in the “house” of MCTD, but I’m in the hallway, and the three diseases I could have are all behind doors in that hallway. I just hadn’t gone through a door yet. She explained that this was not curable, but manageable. I could take medicine that would dull the pain and I could do physical therapy to regain strength and mobility in my body. I could say I was relieved to finally know what was wrong with me, and I was to an extent, but this felt like a bomb dropping on my youth. I’m supposed to be young, nimble, and capable at only 22. Now I moved like I was 80 and had to remember to take my pills every day.
It was during this time of figuring out what was wrong with me that I first heard of the World Race. It seemed incredible, but I thought there was no way I’d be able to do it because of my autoimmune disease. But, as I took steroids and medicines, I was able to regain strength and mobility. I went on a trip to Utah with my class and was able to hike and photograph people out west. I did a camping road trip with some of my best friends after graduation. I started to feel normal again, and eight months after my diagnosis, I decided to apply for the World Race.
One of my prayers going on the Race was to see someone healed. Not me, because I had already ruled that out, but I wanted to see this miracle happen for someone else. Then, during our first month of the Race we saw two girls get healed! One of her sense of smell and one of her allergies. WOW. God is so good and so cool. I felt very privileged to even be part of one of those healings. God had answered my prayer, I should be happy, right? But I wasn’t. I was struggling with a lot of hurt and pain in the face of these healings. Why didn’t God want to heal me? My condition puts me in pain every day but these girls didn’t even ask for their healing of these comparably small things. What’s wrong with me? As these thoughts flooded in, immense guilt and shame for even thinking them came along as well. I was hurting and felt guilty for hurting – I didn’t recognize that my pain was coming from the enemy and thought it was God punishing me when really He was right there in the pit of my sadness. During this first month, I had a couple people speak into the pain that came along with my MCTD. One girl encouraged me about my prophetic key (which says “deeper”) in saying that God wants me to seek a deeper relationship with Him before I can be healed. She encouraged me to proclaim truth over myself every day, thanking God that I already am healed. I am whole. I am beautiful. I am made new. I told myself all the things I didn’t believe until I started to think they were true. Another friend told me that I will actually be healed – either on earth or in heaven. That perspective helped in shifting my mindset a lot and encouraged me that no matter what, this is temporary. Whether it is an “until tomorrow” kind of temporary or an “until 70 years from now when I enter into eternal life” kind of temporary. It’s not forever. These words from friends comforted my heart a lot and helped me feel better within my pain.
At the end of month one, we had a debrief time in Costa Rica, and I felt convicted to tell my friend healed of allergies about the ways I was feeling and to bring that shame to light. You wanna know something crazy?? She had been feeling guilt and shame about HER healing! You see, the enemy is sneaky, and they like to steal joy in any way they can. While I was beating myself up for not being happy about my friend’s healing, she was beating herself up because she didn’t feel like she deserved it when she looked at someone like me. When I heard this from her, I was in shock and furious at the enemy for stealing joy on all sides of this blessing from our God. So, I started choosing to rejoice in this blessing rather than dwell on these lies from the enemy. I started dwelling on the blessings my friends received in their healings but also in the blessing of getting to depend on God in my sickness, and it felt like a weight had lifted off my chest.
A few weeks later, a friend felt Holy Spirit leading him to pray for me to be healed. I didn’t really expect anything, but I told him that was okay and that I wanted my team at the time (Kintsugi!!) to be part of it. We got together in a little room and after he and my team prayed for what felt like hours, I felt convicted to stop taking my medicine. You see, when I took this medicine, it numbed the majority of the pain I would be feeling. If I wanted to step out in faith and confidence that God had healed me, I would have to take the risk of being in pain again by stopping my medicine. I woke up terrified the next morning as I went my first day without medication. My symptoms returning brought me so much worry and anxiety. My incredible team came around me and prayed for my healing and pointed me back to our Jesus at the start of every day for months. We wanted to cover this entire process in prayer, and they would pray against my doubts, my fears, and any pain I felt. Those days waking up scared I would feel like I had been hit by a truck turned into weeks, which turned into months, and I got less and less scared. I can now proudly say that it has been eight months without medication and I feel AMAZING.
Since being healed, I have slept in a Red Cross and hiked to a waterfall in Zarcero, Costa Rica, hiked and camped at the top of a volcano in Ometepe, Nicaragua. Ridden a board down a different volcano in Leon, Nicaragua, white water rafted in the Zambezi River, and spelunked through the cave systems of eSwatini. These are all things I never thought I could do without popping a couple pills every morning, and I will brag on God for making this possible until the cows go home!
But, let me tell you something I’ve learned. God wasn’t just with me in the healing He brought. He was with me in the struggling through comparison and lies. He was with me in the mornings when my body hurt so badly I couldn’t get out of bed. And He was blessing me through all of that as I clung to Him.
This thing we are doing called Christianity is not about whether we go to heaven or hell or whether we even believe those things exist. It isn’t about being a good person either. It’s about the life we get to experience right here, right now because of our Savior and Friend. And one of the best parts of this Race has been getting closer to that Friend.
So, I want to ask you all today – how can you be obedient to God in His desire for a relationship with you through your hardship? What are the areas of your life that you are believing lies about? Trust me, obedience and intimacy with Jesus Christ is so much better than the novelty of just knowing about God.
grace + peace,
Emma
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