It was like cancer.I wrote something before I got diagnosed and I wrote that it was like tunnel vision, like I was obsessed with this one thing. It consumed me, and my life became about this one thing. It was like a cancer in my body, destroying me, poisoning everything good until it became only about this one thing.
A while ago I was reading this book and it was talking about casting out demons. It was the first time I really got it. It was talking about, when Jesus cast out demons in the Bible, people were no longer a slave to their insanity. While Jesus did physically heal a lot of people, somehow I don't think that's the point. I think it's about no longer being a slave to that insanity inside your head. It's about being free.
Dysautonomia isn't a form of cancer, but for me it destroyed everything good and beautiful in my life. For a long time, I guess I was a slave to the destruction and chaos that was surrounding me. I remember multiple times during my undiagnosed stage just crying out to God and wondering how much was enough? When would I finally be able to stop feeling like everything good I had was being taken away from me?
Healing isn't a one time deal, which I am still figuring out. It isn't about a one time surrender. It's about daily, hourly even, lifting our hands in surrender.
At my (Mom's friend? Former youth leader? mother of the 2 awesome girls I love to death? role model?) anyway, at her baby shower my mom was asked to give the devotional. She was talking about the passage in Exodus 17, when whenever Moses had his hands raised, his side was winning the battle, but whenever he lowered them, they began to lose. So his friends came along side him and held up his arms.
It reminded me a lot of chronic illness, and the battle that goes on every single day. Without surrender, the internal cancer wins, and everything begins to fall apart. But in that surrender, with hands raised, the demons are cast out, and I am no longer a slave to that insanity in my head.
With hands raised, He comes in like life saving chemotherapy, or radiation or a bone marrow transplant. He comes in and rescues me. When I live in complete surrender, the destruction can't pull me under.
I am being asked to walk on water. I am being asked to continually keep my hands raised, even when I'm tired, even when I'm sick and nauseated and every muscle in my body screams, even when my blood doesn't flow where it's supposed to, even when I am in so much pain I can barely breathe. Even then I am asked to surrender. Even then I am asked to say, "Not my will be done but yours."
And I can't do that alone. Over the past 2 and a half months since being diagnosed, I've had some of the most amazing, unexpected people step in to my life and help me keep my hands raised. They have loved me in to a place where I want to find healing, fought for me and with me, reminded me of who I am, but more importantly who my God is. I am so grateful for these people.
I don't know is physical healing will ever come. I don't know if there will ever be a cure for Dysautonomia, or for GSD. But as long as I keep my hands raised, I can win this battle. As long as I keep my eyes on Him and let Him cast out my demons and breathe life into my body when I have all but given up then I can be free from this internal cancer that threatens to poison everything good.
The hurt meets the healer, demons are cast out, and I am set free.
Daily, hourly, moment by moment I surrender. I look into the eyes of the only one who can really heal me, not only my sick body but also the stuff going on inside my head.
With hands raised, I surrender all I am for all He is. In surrender I find healing. In healing I find hope. And in hope, I find freedom.
And then head spins "Where is God in this mess?" and the heart knows the answer, "Right here."
God is right here with us, and He knows
This pain is what He did for us, willing. He knows this hurt because He chose it to save us.
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