“Healing?”
A few months leading up to leaving for The World Race, I had been sick. Very sick. I was going to the doctor, at least once a week, getting blood drawn and tests done to figure out why I was feeling so sick. I was super tired and my stomach constantly hurt, to the point I was getting sent home from my job because I just couldn’t work. The closer I got to leaving the better I was feeling. The doctors never really gave me an answer. They thought I had mono. I didn’t really have answers but October was right around the corner and nothing was going to stop me from going on the race.
Being sick isn’t something I like to talk about. I believe the mind tells the body how to feel. So I down played being sick and I still do. I had so many people pray for my health before I left. I believed so deeply in my heart that I wouldn’t be sick for the whole 11 months. I had so much faith in the Lord that I would be perfectly fine, which is unreasonable traveling to 11 different countries, having new foods and environments consistently. But I truly believed I wouldn’t be sick. I had a prayer night before I left and told them that was the only thing I wanted prayer for, was not to be sick.
So let’s jump to month 2 in Kathmandu at our first debrief, I became super sick and I couldn’t stop throwing up. I cried all day and was upset but played it off as something I ate. Then a few weeks later, while my team took a weekend off, I became sick again, still playing it off as food. Then month 3 at Christmas I was feeling like I was unable to do anything but I continued pushing through because I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. Once I realized my sickness wasn’t going to leave and it continued, I began telling my team I was fine when I really wasn’t. Two weeks went by and we started a new ministry in Cambodia that I love so much, but I felt so awful. In my stubbornness, I did not want to admit I was sick and I needed help. My team pushes me to ask for help, but I’m stubborn and I was upset because I believed the Lord would heal me. I had believed so much the Lord would heal me and now here I was angry at the Lord. I had so much faith, why would He not heal me?
One morning we woke up at 5 a.m. to go to ministry, and I didn’t feel amazing which was normal at this point. I volunteered to stay back from going to pick up the kids. I spent the 30ish minutes throwing up and wanted to go home. My teammates asked if we could go to the doctor, completely broken and tired of being stubborn I said yes.
I could barely stay awake on the way to the doctor. I was at the end of my rope with nothing left at this point. We got to the doctor and they took such good care of me. The doctor actually wanted to help me. He was the best doctor I’ve ever seen. He wanted to help me just as much as I believed that I would be healed. He told me that he couldn’t give me the answers I needed but that I would need to see a specialist. He didn’t want to just give me an answer to get me out of his office, he genuinely wanted to help me. I don’t know if he knew the Lord or not but the Lord used him to show me that He still cares and that healing could look different than I thought it might.
Coming all the way across the world to get an answer I couldn’t get in the states is not how I pictured my prayers being answered. This isn’t how I thought the Lord would heal me, and I would be lying if I wasn’t mad at him at times for not doing it the way I envisioned it. But even in my stubbornness and not understanding, I’m getting more answers and He is restoring my trust in the medical field. It makes be believe that there actually are doctors who care about the person in front of them and want what’s best for them and they don’t just see you as just money. I don’t have all the answers I want. I still don’t understand everything. I’m still sick. I don’t feel better. But I know that the Lord is working through it all and he has a plan even if I don’t understand it.
-TaylorB
