I have suffered from severe health anxiety for four and a half years now, when life as I knew it was flipped upside down in a small apartment in Santa Cruz, and I could no longer rely on a healthy body anymore.
There have been so many tears shed, angry words shouted, and dreams ripped away. There has been self-pity, bitterness, and despair of life itself. What is the point of living in a body so broken?
I have spent four and a half years fighting against my circumstances. Fighting against what I thought God had unfairly inflicted on me. Why me, God? Why this?
I have refused to see my health problems as anything but a curse– problems to be solved. I have put my entire hope into doctors, therapists, and anyone who claims to know how to heal me. I have put my hope into physical healing. I have idolized health as the ultimate goal of my life.
And finally, as my health problems multiply and seem to get worse instead of better, I have learned a secret:
The secret of acceptance.
After four and a half years, God has broken through to me in a way I can finally understand. That all this time He has not been absent– He has been very near. That in fact the very circumstances of my life and my health that I have rejected have been the ones that He has been using to draw me to Him.
Suffering has a way of doing that.
I think I’m only just beginning to understand it, but perhaps all this time this suffering has actually been a gift. Perhaps without it, I would never have had to rely on God deeply and develop the relationship that I have with Him now. Perhaps I would never understand the deeper realities of Him and His Kingdom.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:3-4
Maybe the goal is not to be the most comfortable and happy in this life. Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time and it’s actually the suffering that refines me and helps me to see the greater opportunity of comfort and happiness in Him.
If this life is all there is, then of course we should try to make ourselves as comfortable as possible here. By all means we should pursue our own happiness.
But if there is more, if in fact we are only living in a shadow of what is to come– an eternity with the King of Love– then maybe, just maybe, this life is training grounds. And part of that training includes how we respond when life doesn’t go the way we want it to.
I’ve realized I’ve only compounded my suffering by the ways I’ve responded to it. And God offers a much, much better way: to run to Him.
Because He already knows. He knows my every thought, every single hair on my head. He knows this is not the way I would’ve chosen. But He has chosen this way for me because He loves me.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
What if there is so much more to my own story than I can see right now? What if all of this suffering is not meaningless, but is actually paving the way to a more glorious outcome than I could ever imagine? And even if I don’t see that outcome in this life, I have a guarantee that I will when I see Him face to face.
So whether or not I am physically healed, I can look forward to the new and perfect body I will have in Heaven, after I have run the race He has called me to. And for now, I can choose to see everything in my life– both good and bad– as blessings from His hand.
rhythms of grace 