I saw a poster that read:
God is my healer even when my body tells me it doesn’t feel like it.
It was just the reminder I needed. My blood counts are still stubbornly slow to recover, 2 1/2 years after cancer and my strength continues to sometimes lag. Truthfully, I still get frustrated when I tire so easily. Sometimes my body tells me it still isn’t getting stronger. But I remember the day of my Leukemia diagnosis I couldn’t walk more than twenty feet; today I can walk 2-3 miles even if I sometimes need to rest. I just need to keep trusting God who is my healer even when I don’t feel it.
How about you? Is God your healer when you are depressed? Is he the healer of your illness, your pain, your grief, your emotional scars and disappointments? Is he your healer not just when things get better but also when they don’t seem to improve? Is he your healer when things don’t get back to normal or the “new normal” is not all you had hoped? Is he your healer when the difficult journey you’re walking takes you to a new and unfamiliar place?
We are complicated beings made up of body, mind, spirit and soul. Our thoughts and emotions and physical sensations all run around in circles trying to persuade us of a certain reality… one that is limited to their perspective. There is yet another reality – the real experience of our spirit when it is aligned with the Spirit of God. It is the same Spirit who spoke peace to Corrie Ten Boom in forgiving her captors. It is the same Spirit who gave strength to Richard Wurmbrand when he was tortured for his faith. It is the same Spirit who allowed Stephen to praise God and forgive the people who were stoning him…to death. It is the same Spirit who revealed the purpose of suffering to Paul. This same Spirit wants to speak peace to you in your troubling time.
Our spiritual reality is able to transcend the emotional and physical reality that shouts so loudly at us. But we don’t experience it naturally. It is a matter of cultivating our sensitivity to spiritual things. It involves turning down the noise of the world (and our emotions and bodies) and listening more carefully to to a “small quiet voice” that nonetheless speaks powerfully to the one who listens. It is the peace that calms the sailor even when the storm continues to rage around him.
I’m still learning. It seems to be a life long lesson. Thankfully, it’s not an all our nothing experience. But the journey is worth it because the alternative is surrendering to our circumstances and how our noisy soul interprets them. Are you ready to let God be your healer today…even if your body tells you it doesn’t feel it?