How Far Away is Healing?
When I started having an idea for a blog, I knew I would never lack of material - First of all, I certainly felt God pushing me to do this…(I’m running behind His schedule by a couple of years!) So if He’s in it, I know I can keep typing!! Also, I’ve been writing poems almost my whole life and I just figured that finally I would have a place that I could quietly post my poems in a way that is much more comfortable than sharing them face to face. I’m certain the biggest fear I will have on this journey is your rejection of my material. But, I did want to have a level of transparency here that would allow YOU to relate to me. I wanted to be real and I wanted to be able to write as I feel led by God. After all, that’s who blessed me with my ability to write so it only makes sense to go along with His plan. (I had a post about that not too long ago, so I’m practicing what I write!) Besides, if I’m not being honest and sharing my soul with you each time, I just don’t see the real point of this journey. This is not about showcasing my writing skills by any means. I truly believe this is God’s way of growing me into the person He’s always known I could be, my arrival has just been delayed for awhile!
So time to get the transparency on.
A part of me likes to pretend that this is behind us, that it was just a bad patch in our little family’s story, but that is not the case - yet. Battles…..the ugly B word. Why do we have them? Why does God allow this in our lives? Why do we have to watch our kids struggle? Yes this is about the kiddo, my one of a kind, smart, quiet soul of a precious son.
I’ve dealt with my son’s anxiety in a way that is not very faithful at times. I’ve questioned God. I’ve asked why we’ve been put on this path and I wonder why this type of journey. So many questions, so many PRAYERS. Pleading with God, hoping that somehow this would just disappear in the same strange way it showed up. That our boy would grow out of it. The doctors, the many, many, many doctors and their accompanying misdiagnoses. And the classic: my refusal to accept the diagnosis of anxiety early on. I carry guilt on the mom side of this journey.
Reading article after article….the Internet searches, the dashed hopes after disappointing doctor visits. Vitamins, supplements, high protein diets, structured meal times, medicinal tea, Eastern medicine, Western medicine…. total.complete.emotional.exhaustion. And still no solution, still no answer - to this day. The utter helplessness that floods in when you can’t help your boy, when you don’t know what to do. When you feel like a chicken with it’s head cut off running after this possible solution or that doctor with a potential “fix”. AND, that’s just how I felt….only God knows how my boy felt, he’d never talk about it, didn’t want to talk about it, still doesn’t talk about it. Only would ask WHY mom? That heartbreaking, scary, hopeless question: WHY? None of this sounds very faithful, right? It’s hard to admit that I didn’t do all the things… leave the burden at the cross, trust He who created me, pray with out ceasing….But God’s in the battle, God’s in the journey and God’s in the healing. By His stripes we are healed. These are promises made. But that is almost impossible for a young one to accept, a young one that just wants to be normal. A teenager that wants to fit in and be like everyone else. Hard to grasp that there seems to be no help for him physically, to make this go away.
He’s angry now, frustrated - and then the circle begins again. All the why’s, all the negative emotions, but he pushes on maintaining a normal life as possible, but always with that dark cloud just over his shoulder because he never knows when it will strike. We have never figured out that piece of the puzzle.
But this is his journey, my boy’s that is…not mine - Has that been the problem all along, have I actually interfered with the process God has put in place for my son? I know this battle has to be fought on my knees for him, so that’s my role in this journey. His prayer co-pilot. He’s an adult now living on his own and I don’t know his comings and goings each day. But this is not about the WHYs, it is about the HOW…but to put our human-ness aside and just ask HOW is near impossible. We want a fix, that silver bullet, but that may not be God’s plan….and that’s where it gets hard.
I’m convinced this is one of Satan’s favorite and common weapons to steal our happiness, our joy and our peace and possibly our souls if we let him. It disrupts normal life, it disrupts dreams, it catapults it’s victims into darkness and many times despair. I only know anxiety from the outside looking in. But I KNOW anxiety, I’ve SEEN anxiety and it’s hard.
Let not yourselves be anxious God promises us. Ok, I’m trying not to let myself be anxious Mom, he would say to me, but in it still crept. Like a thief come to steal - and then we pray and we pray, he feels healed, even writes it on a rock …his Ebenezer stone. I was sure we’d hung the mantle of anxiety at that youth retreat. Healed, he wrote. But no, it’s like the waves of the ocean, you get through one and all seems good and wait for it, wait for it, BOOM - it’s back again with a vengeance, striking again. It’s a battle, it’s a battle of the mind and only you and God can combat it. The hope we cling to is for God’s plan to be revealed and never ceasing in the hope that a miracle of healing rests on this side of Heaven. In the meantime, He WILL make a way He tells us, and….He fights our battles and we WILL win.
I’ve still got that rock, looking at it right now as I write and I know the healing is coming….in God’s time.
Thanks for stopping by to take a read today. My prayer is that you were the reason God lead me to share this story.
Here are the scriptures I referred to and I am quoting the Bible from the New International Version (NIV).
Blessings - Rhonda
Isaiah 53:5 - He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 - Be joyful always; pray continually give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
1 Samuel 7:12 - Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying “Thus far has the Lord helped us.”
2 Corinthians 9:8 - And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
Psalm 20:7 - Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
2 Chronicles 32:8 - With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.