If you would have asked me last summer before launch if I thought my race would include a 5 day stay in a Nepali hospital and being put under anesthesia for multiple procedures to try and find why my bowels were so inflamed and infected and why my spleen was about to rupture; I would have laughed. Call me crazy, but that was never part of my plan. I was going to have a mostly healthy race with a few “flu’s” here or there because of the conditions on this side of the world. I had it all planned.
Then reality happened.
Something that was always written in my book that was always meant to be started unfolding in my life. I got sick….. really, really sick. I panicked. This was not supposed to happen. This was not supposed to be my race. I was supposed to be healthy… I was supposed to be safe.
I learned this month that danger is real and taking care of ourselves is important; but fear is only an illusion. When tragedy strikes, the fear we have because of being pulled out of our safe zone starts to appear. Not only did it appear for me, it engulfed me. I was terrified.
I wanted to control what was happening to my body and how long it would take me to recover. I wanted to control what treatment these foreign doctors were giving me. I wanted to control who came to visit me and when. I held on so tight to that control in those beginning moments of suffering because thats all I had left to comfort me. I was scared and so far out of my safe zone I didn’t recognize Jesus standing right in front of me. He was there, He always had been.
There came a point where I realized I had to give up to be stronger. I had to let go to grasp the love that was waiting for me. I learned God always knew this was part of my story, and not only that, but he still deemed it as good. He entrusted me with this suffering because He had such faith in me; He knew I would come out the other side a stronger woman.
Through the treatment, I found comfort in my spirit. The Holy Spirit has been growing so greatly within me that when I let go and surrendered, it took over. I was comforted through the pain, I was calm through the fear, I was at the Lords Mercy.
I survived the last week of my life not because I am strong; I survived because He is good.
I was diagnosed with Typhoid Fever. I am still recovering and gaining strength everyday. The spiritual gains I have made in the last week of my life surpass those of the lessons learned in the past 27 years.
With love and strength,
Hannah Berndt
