Around early 2019, a younger woman I met -in her 30’s-asked how I was. She’s one of those who means it when she asks, so I told her that I was in the middle of an IBS flare, and wasn’t in a good physical space due to other long standing issues. Which I now realize are due to AS, or are common co-occurrences-like the IBS itself.
Her response was along the lines of, “You sound like you’ve accepted that this is how your life will be. No! God doesn’t want you to be sick! He desires health for all of us. You must pray…”
That would be presumptuous of me. And prideful. The world is full of suffering of every kind. Bombs, tribal wars, earthquakes and awful diseases. Ever seen a little child suffering from EB? Does God “WANT” little children to be sick? Does He want people to have cancer? If those people, especially the innocent children, have to deal with suffering, why not me? Why would I not accept suffering when they have to too?
I’m not more important or less undeserving than they are. Good, bad, evil, perfect, selfish, selfless, nobody is going to be guaranteed a life free from trials. Why would I expect preferential treatment from God? The same God Who bears long with sinners so that they repent and go home to heaven one day, allows the world we are in to do its thing.
Only heaven will be like heaven. Only in heaven (and the new earth) will God’s will be done. By all of us. It’s not like I’m perfect, why would I expect a perfect life? Until then, His grace is as sufficient for me as it was for poor Paul who begged Him to remove the “thorn in his flesh” many times.
Paul prayed for healing. He didn’t want to be sick. But God had other plans. Anne so Paul’s prayers changed. I stopped praying in 2012. I remember it very well. We’d gone to the shop and my back was killing me. It wasn’t even a long trip. Or was only shopping for a family of four who all ate the same things -it was quick. But by the time I got into the car, I was in agony. I silently asked God why He hasn’t healed me. Why none of the physio helped. Why He wasn’t taking this cup away from me.
I wept and pleaded as never before. I told HimI wanted to be a more present wife and mother. I wanted to visit sick lonely patients in hospital. I couldn’t when I couldn’t even sit in a car or be upright without pain. But He didn’t heal me. I gave up. I didn’t deserve to receive what Paul, the great preacher didn’t get. I didn’t deserve what Christ Himself didn’t get. They didn’t have lives free from suffering, so why should I? I stopped pressing for healing, but have never stopped praying for strength, for grace to suffer without lashing out. For a sinless life. THOSE, I know for sure are His will for me on this plague-filled planet.
They said I should write a book 