I do a lot of my thinking in the shower. Maybe because it is one place where I really have no obligations to muddle up my thought processes. There’s no one there but me and God. This morning, I was remembering a letter someone sent me, sharing how she had been praying, and God put me on her heart. She told me that she believed God wanted me to be healed. For all the years I’ve been sick, I never considered that He might want that.
I don’t know if I figured that I deserved to be sick, or that it just was what it was; I never really expected a change. My friend’s email left me wondering. I couldn’t chalk it up to the well-wishing others had done over the years. In my heart, I knew I couldn’t just write it off as only emotional healing. She was speaking of physical healing. It hadn’t really occurred to me over the years that I could even want it, especially after the MS misdiagnosis.
But what hit me in the shower this morning is that even if I do get better, even if I do heal, the years of depression and illness will have taken their toll – on both my body and on my relationships. A wound doesn’t heal without leaving scars. I can’t ever be the person that I was before I got sick, before my heart got broken. I don’t know what to do with that. I liked me back then, oblivious though I was. But if I’m to be honest, I have to admit that I wouldn’t want to be that person again.
I had lots of dreams then, but they were undefined – anything was possible. Now my dreams are more defined. I know what is real; I know how to live in the moment and leave the future well enough alone. I think it would be naive of me to pray that God would heal me without scars. He didn’t even do that for Christ.
Whether I get better or not, I will always carry around in my body the neurological damage caused by the Lyme disease. If I do get better, maybe I can live a little more whole, still taking care for myself, but having a larger capacity to love on others without so many physical needs as I have had.
I don’t deserve healing. I can’t begin to understand my motives for wanting it/not wanting it. I think at this point, I am just sitting here going, “okay God. I’m here. Do what You want.” And trying to trust Him for the results, whatever they may be.
“I think it would be naive of me to pray that God would heal me without scars. He didn’t even do that for Christ.”
Wow – this statement hit me. So, so true.
We do obtain scars from our trials, and how selfish we must be, thinking that we want to go back as we were… Outside my “little box” of thinking, I know that the scars have far greater impact (for Him) than I could ever imagine.
This is a profound post, Kelly. You’re right–you have been changed. That’s incontrovertible. I think your prayer to let God do with you what He will, well, that’s one you can count on being answered.