This morning I experienced the culmination of an epiphany that has been brewing since month three of the Race…In South Africa when I had the severe arthritis flare-up and started taking the medication “prednisone” (prescribed to me by the South African doctor), my team reminded me that while we were praying for complete healing and seeking a miracle for me relative to my health, that maybe the miracle is in God’s provision of modern medicine. “Yea yea yea…” I thought, “…I know, it’s amazing that I have this medication and that my body responds to it”. But the truth is – that was not the answer or the miracle that I wanted. Over these past months as I have prayed for healing but only found daily “sustaining” through medication, I have been left partly satisfied…trying my best to see God in the “sustaining”…and trying to convince myself that that is enough…that that could be the miracle I’ve been praying for. But really, if that is to be the extent of the miracle…the extent of the answer to my prayers and to the step of faith I took this year, am I satisfied?
This morning, my answer is YES! These mornings of waking up with hands that literally don’t work until the pain and swelling subside have made me think. This is how I feel WITHOUT Enbel, but WITH all the other medication I am able to take daily this year…Plaquenil, Mobic, Prednisone…what if I didn’t have ANY of these medications to help my body every day? My realization this morning…I would be crippled. I know it sounds extreme…but it’s true. I would be so limited physically. My knees would swell up like they did in South Africa and I wouldn’t be able to walk without a limp. My hands would be worse than they are now and I wouldn’t be able to use them for much. Other joints that I thankfully don’t think about as often because I don’t use them as much would grow worse and I would be forced to notice them more…my elbows, shoulders, neck, jaw…things that have twinges of pain now with SOME medication would be a mess without any of it.
Now I realize what God has given me through modern medicine. He has given me renewed health…a chance to live normally…freedom to move, exercise, push myself…a gift…a miracle.
“You have moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis”…that’s what my rheumatologist told me when I was diagnosed at age 18. With 13 years of feeling relatively good on medication…it has been easy to forget what lies under the cover of medication…this year, I have been reminded. I am so aware of my weakness…not to the extent that I’m going to dwell on it…but I have a humble awareness of my frailty, my dependence on God’s grace, my need for restoration, and the fact that this world and this body are temporary. I am thankful for the wholeness, healing and freedom that God offers through this Son and for the fact that one day, I will live in full freedom…including physical freedom…in Eternity.
Romans 8:18-25
