It is midnight on a July summer night where the sky is illuminated by the moon and random streaks of heat lightning. I have just spent the whole day hanging with my friends and enjoying the long summer night. Now it’s time to take my regular late night hot shower. So that when I lay down for the night I don’t feel too much pain for a while. My day has been wonderful, but something has limited me from truly enjoying everything about this day.
When I first woke up this morning I knew the day was going to be a rough one. I could feel stiffness in my back as soon as I rolled out of bed. As I’m starting to stand up a sharp pain goes throughout my whole lower back. This pain is one that feels like every muscle is tensing up and will never let up. It is so sharp that it instantly takes your breath away. I know some of you are wondering what’s wrong but it is nothing that God and I can’t handle.
Doctors all across Tennessee tell me that I have Ulcer Colitis and Multiple Sclerosis. I believe though, that I am healed through my Father in Christ. Some people say how do you believe that you’re healed if you still have multiple side effects from these diseases. I tell them simply that I will be healed in God’s time, not mine own. In the mean time, I will have faith in my Savior that he will use these so called “diseases” for his glory! Honestly, I count all my struggles as joys, because I know they are here to make me a better man. I tell you about this chapter of my life not for you to feel sorry or to have pity for me. I tell you this because I know others face many issues in their life that are similar to the ones I face. I hope to encourage you, and I pray that your faith will be stretched. I will keep believing and praising my God daily because I will be healed either tomorrow or one day in Heaven. Remember pain is unavoidable, misery is optional!
I leave you with a conversation I had with my boss one day. He said, “Jake don’t you think its kind of crazy or foolish that your going on The World Race?” “Somedays you can’t even walk straight or stand up pain free.” I told him that if I helped one person or child all the pain and suffering I face will be worth it. He was extremely shocked with my answer. I know my boss was just concerned about my well being, but I don’t think he understood why the pain and suffering is worth the cause for me. See Jesus took all the pain and sufferings for me when he died on the cross. So my back aches, long sleepless nights, random muscle spasms, constant pain in my legs, and uncontrollable bowls (haha), are nothing to what Jesus had to endure on the cross that day. It would be foolish to let the world convince me that I can be stopped by these diseases.
Romans 8:18-28
18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God's curse. 21 All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don't need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently. 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for usthrough wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
