As I said earlier, I'd started here and there singing on the worship team at
church, which gave me great joy and something to look forward to week to
week, even though there were days I could barely stand up, even with pain
medication.
One evening, I was one of the team leading worship for a guest speaker at our
church. I remember this so well, the passion of this Jewish woman as she
shared her story; a woman, though highly motivated, wealthy and successful still found herself terribly lonely and empty. She wound up walking away from everything and was even disowned by her own family when she embraced the reality that Jesus Christ WAS in fact the Messiah and His sacrifice included her!
This gal was serious. The revelation that God loved her in this personal way
had turned her life upside down and cost her everything. When she was
finished talking, I asked her to pray for me. I told her about the misery of the treatments. How weak and sick I was and it seemed to be getting worse, yet I still had more than seven months left. She just looked me square in the face and didn't even hesitate;
"who says you have to continue taking the medication?"
What????? I couldn't believe the nerve of her to be so bold.
"Well," I stammered. "Uh...the doctors say that I have to be on this eighteen months."
"What does God say?"
I have to admit, I was hurt and actually a little insulted. I don't know what I actually was expecting...a little compassion, maybe, but...I certainly wasn't expecting her blunt reply at all. I dismissed her answer as being a little fanatical. Yet, as the days drug on and I grew weaker, I remembered those words again and again. By now, I'd lost half my hair, (Now THAT's a symptom worse than death...well...right up there among the worst, at least for a hairdresser :) and my head pounded constantly. Every muscle and bone in my body ached without relief. In those last weeks of treatment, just getting in a car, let alone driving, was simply unbearable. Getting myself up and out of my house had come to require so much effort, going anywhere just didn't seem worth it.
One night, friends were in from out of town. They wanted to meet us for dinner.
I missed them and wanted to see them so badly. So I timed the pain
medication, taking it right before we left the house, so that I could tolerate
sitting up in a restaurant for an hour or so. Their expression of concern when
they saw me confirmed it; I looked as near death as I felt. That night I was due
for another shot, but the thought that the morning would bring more side
effects on top of this was just too much to bear. Though I went through the ritual of tapping the air bubbles from the syringe and finding a clear place on my leg to inject...I found I just couldn't do it! And didn't.
The next day, I called the nurse at the "Medical College of VA" or MCV, where
I'd been going for treatment since starting the second round of injections. "I can't do this anymore." I sobbed to the nurse. After administering shots of Inf for almost a year to myself, the thought of doing it this ONE MORE TIME made me sick.
"Well, of course, we can't make you take treatment" she said. "why don't you just stop and see how it goes?"
So I did. I stopped short of seven months of the prescribed treatment with no
recurrance or consequence. Today I'm still "virus undetectable" which means
that although the virus is probably still there, it is no longer active or wreaking
the havoc it once was. (Now I am not advocating that everyone stop treatment,
because I don't deny that the medication had some part of the recovery,
however, I attribute my physical, emotional and spiritual health to God)
Slowly, I began gaining strength. Eventually, it occurred to me that until then, I'd
been content to live in this bubble of a Christian world, surrounded by
Christian people, doing "Christian" things. Yet, for more than seventy five
percent of my life, I'd stood on the edge of hell itself, trying out, in some
measure or another, pretty much everything this world has to offer. I knew that
the end result in all of those things came to nothing. I'd experienced it first
hand and knew without a doubt, God is real, and His love through what was
done on that cross is serious! That woman knew it was serious!
Realizing that, back when God showed me His reality, had brought a sudden reversal of the destruction I'd reaped on not only myself, but, my children, just what kind of human being would I be if I could simply enjoy the shelter of this new
"Christian" world, when others around me were still caught in so much
hopelessness and despair?
It's kind of like a conversation on another blog; one guy asked the question "what if it's all not true? and you lived your life for something that was a lie?"
"Well" I answered him. "Then my life was more purposeful, meaningful,
healthy, and because of it a cycle of abuse, divorce, alcohol and drugs was
mercifully ended. I guess the worms and the dirt that cover me when it's all said and done will be none the more harmed for my being there....HOWEVER...If it IS true...God help me if I didn't at least tell you."
Anyway you look at it, I felt like this whole thing had purpose. I don't claim to
know the whole of God's intended purpose...but, for me, this hideous thing
opened my eyes to first of all, see more intimately, the seriousness of life and
what people go through. Surrounded by all the "Christian" trimmings, it's easy
to lose perspective of the pain/suffering and despair of others. This was the
thing that God used to encourage me to share my life, openly. There's nothing to hide; the good or the bad. I'm not responsible for what people think, but only to let others know that there is nothing too difficult for Him. He can and will change the most impossible/hopeless situations if you simply let Him.
Corrie TenBoom, a Holocaust survivor, said this; quoting her sister
as she lay tortured and dying in a concentration camp; "there is no suffering on
this earth that is so deep that His love is not deeper still" Her words seem trite, except that spoken through a serious situation...they become more profound. Those words were spoken through the truth that gave them hope in such as hopeless situation...the reality of what God has done through Jesus on the cross.
I share all this in the hope to encourage you. Don’t give up. If you are a
Christian, hold on tight, embrace the Truth, even when it doesn't "feel" so true,
and learn with those that have gone before to trust His goodness and say with
confidence “I will not fear for thou art with me.”
If you don't believe, I pray that maybe you'll ask Him right now, to show you
the reality of His existance.
