Sunday night I stood before a room full of strangers and spoke of my experience with Lyme disease. It was because a certain priest had found my story miraculous insofar as I did not despair in the wake of bearing such an illness, that he invited me to speak to this group of charismatic intercessors. I had nothing prepared to say, and really, no intention of speaking. I just went along to see what was going to happen.
Well, what happened was, I spoke; not eloquently, but simply to say that God is our strength in weakness. That it would be impossible for me to stand at all without His willing that I be able to do so. That it was Him who moved my legs when I could not move them by myself, that it was Him who inhabited me at my weakest moments animating me with any life at all. That my brain was so profoundly infected at one time that I was unable to compose a coherent sentence and now I stood before them speaking cohesively and comprehensibly.
The key to getting to where I stood before them with nary even a fleeting fantasy of ending my suffering was that I always trusted in Him, and never lost trust in Him. With unwavering certainty, I knew that He knew every moment of trial I endured and I trusted that all of it would be put to good use with none of it going to waste. I knew that He was present with me in every moment, when I was conscious and unconscious, weary and worn out, pressing and pressing my legs to move on that treadmill, blinking through blurry eyes to read prayers, forcing food down my throat, sitting like a zombie before Him in the Blessed Sacrament, etc.
I concluded by announcing that my illness has been one of the greatest things ever to happen to me, for it set me within a disposition to God so utterly docile, so utterly in need, so utterly dependent that we became fused in a way that would otherwise have been impossible. With such an intimate fusion, there is inevitably a kiss that occurs, an ever deepening and eternal kiss so consuming as to absorb the soul in desire that it should never be parted from this kiss, neither from the act of kissing nor the kisser Himself. When it is Christ whose arms embrace us and whose heart is thirsting for us, how can we for even a moment stand to withdraw from His desire whatever it should be?
So, if it is my purification through illness and the benefits my suffering accrues to others that He desires, I say, let it be done to me according to Thy word.
This is such a beautiful post. And so inspiring, Sandra.
ReplyDeleteWell done on standing in front of a group of people and talking to them. I'm sure though, it isn't the hardest things you have had to do over the last few years.
Thank you and God bless you. :)
Thanks, Kee:)
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