Each morning I wake up and immediately wish I could go back to sleep. Better yet, that I had never woken up. A feeling that I had just slept a couple hours haunts my body, accompanied but such extreme weakness that I wonder how the miracle will come about that I get through another day.
As the day wears on, a host of symptoms come and go -- headaches accompanied by sensitivity and pain in my ears, a great weakness/numbness/tension all throughout my body, a fast heart rate, and at times such acute weakness in my chest and head that I feel like my heart will stop. My head feels full of pressure and concentrating is a huge hurdle for me. Sometimes the littlest bit of exertion feels like a marathon, sending my heart rate up and challenging my ability to breathe; I experience a dizziness and feelings of imbalance, even while sitting and sometimes lying down. My appetite is gone. I battle feelings of extreme anxiety -- a tension in my chest, even during peaceful moments of prayer and hope in God. Often despair and hopelessness seizes me.

I am aware that I can tend to be a dramatic person. In writing about my current physical struggle, I am not trying to say that I am not convinced that hundreds of millions of Christians have already gone before me in dealing with very similar chronic physical trials. How do we rate pain and suffering? How can we measure it? And perhaps one trial to me may seem easy to you, or a deathblow to someone else. Some may think I am a saint by the way I am bearing up under this, and someone else might want to yell "you wimp!". I've seen both reactions. The only real way to measure the depth of someones suffering is what they say it is to them; not what we think it would be to us, or what it has been to others.

I am also aware that countless people have dealt with very long-term, undiagnosed illnesses. But that doesn't make the struggle easier. (Sidenote: talking to people who have faced similar struggles is HUGELY encouraging! I am only stating that just knowing that they exist isn't particularly helpful...) Inside, I am crying "it doesn't matter what they could do!! I can't do that!!" Their strength doesn't convince me of mine, or make the trial more bearable.

Writing honestly about how difficult this is for me is to show the depth of my weakness...my greatest moments of helplessness. My biggest fears. But I know what the Word of God says -- that our weakness is our strength:

2 Corinthians 12: 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I love this quote by Tim Keller:

"Look at the story of David and Goliath. What is the meaning of that narrative for us? Without reference to Christ, the story may be (usually is!) preached as: "The bigger they come, the harder they'll fall, if you just go into your battles with faith in the Lord. You may not be real big and powerful in yourself, but with God on your side, you can overcome giants." But as soon as we ask: "how is David foreshadowing the work of his greater Son"? We begin to see the same features of the story in a different light. The story is telling us that the Israelites can not go up against Goliath. They can't do it. They need a substitute. When David goes in on their behalf, he is not a full-grown man, but a vulnerable and weak figure, a mere boy. He goes virtually as a sacrificial lamb. But God uses his apparent weakness as the means to destroy the giant, and David becomes Israel's champion-redeemer, so that his victory will be imputed to them. They get all the fruit of having fought the battle themselves. "

This giant of my current illness seems like too much for me. So many times I have told God that I just can't do it. As though this is news to Him! He knew that Israel was incapable of defeating Goliath; they were the ones that needed to realize that. And then once they did, He used something they would consider too small and too weak to overcome the giant that they felt they themselves couldn't defeat, to show that HE was able to conquer on their behalf.

Don't tell me to be strong. Don't tell me that I can do it. Don't tell me about how so many others have done it, so I can.

Tell me that He is strong.

Tell me that He has done it.

Tell me that He has done it, so I can.


Every day, my prayer is for faith to see: that yet again, God is working in my life another expression of my great humanness and His great salvation.