Miracles and Questions
The moments after being told I had cancer are vivid in my mind. I remember the yellow hue the hospital hall lights cast on the walls. I remember the way my mom's face fell, trying to be brave and positive for me but she couldn’t mask the glassy wetness in her eyes. I remember the gasps and cracks in the voices of my friends over the phone. I remember how the tears on my face felt as they came in a constant stream. Wiping them away with napkins became useless and I let them drip onto my breakfast plate while the bewildered waitress brought me a coffee refill.
It was November two years ago and Thanksgiving has been marked since then.
I remember sitting on the floor with Navy, who was two at the time, while he giggled and I played with his toes as I read him a bedtime story. I wondered if I would see him play sports, get married, or be able to watch him turn into a man. I hid my tears from my girls as I brushed their hair or made them dinner that week. All of a sudden the annoyances of each day became my blessings and I wondered how long I might be able to hold on to them. I looked at people differently. I did my work differently. I cleaned and did laundry differently. I was more deliberate, more observant, more appreciative.
Staring at the large bump on the left side of my throat, I was puzzled that I had never noticed it before in putting on necklaces or washing. How had I never felt the tennis ball-sized knot? Maybe I had been too preoccupied with taking care of so many other things instead of pausing to ask if there was something wrong with me.
I sent an email to close friends at work, those I knew were fellow followers of Jesus, those I could trust with my breaking heart. I asked them to pray and they did. My family was cheerful over the phone but I could hear the worry. My sister never held back her tears. I loved her more for that. Although Johnnathan spoke of faith and determination and strength, I could see that he was scared. I was scared.
I stood in the shower and cried hard. I was angry at God and I told Him so. I had been angry with Him before, many times before - when I was swallowed up in post-partum depression and anxiety for months after having Graysie, when we didn't have enough money to pay for groceries and worried about the electric bill, when I found out a friend from my childhood had died of a drug overdose, when I learned another friend my age had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, when I saw news of people being killed by natural disasters or terrorism, and every single time I heard about children being hurt or abused. I cried because of the darkness in this life.
I pressed my hands hard against the fiberglass tub as the steam filled the bathroom and I sobbed to God, not just for all of the moments I hadn't yet experienced and thought I'd miss, but for friends and people I didn't know who also cried like me for worse reasons than the fear of cancer.
When I couldn't cry any longer I heard the soft familiar voice on the inside say Remember.
***
In 2004 I had been diagnosed with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Every joint in my body was swollen and painful. My fingers curled like an old woman and Johnnathan had to help me dress on some bad mornings. My ankles and the tops of my feet held the imprints of my socks for hours and all of my toes looked like they were attached to one another in a solid puffy mass due to the swelling. None of the prescription meds were working and I knew I couldn’t continue dumping more and more steroids into my body. I had begun to lose hope.
***
When my tears subsided that day in the shower long enough to take a breath as I cried to God, I pulled my hands up to push my hair back. A moments later, I glanced back to see perfect hand prints of my large hands against the shower wall formed from the steam and I heard again, Remember.
My wrists and ankles had not been swollen for 9 years. I had not had joint pain nor had I taken any medicines for those old diagnoses. I remembered but I clearly needed a reminder.
I remembered vividly the morning God healed me in 2006. I don’t tell the story often enough because, honestly, it makes me sound hokey. But this reveals my own selfish and ungrateful heart and I am sorry to God and others for staying silent too long about miracles that should be proclaimed loudly.
God healed me.
I had been praying for healing but it came instantly and unexpectedly. God healed me miraculously in one instance in a time of prayer and bible study with Johnnathan and a friend. It was early, around 6:30am or so, and I felt it happen immediately after our friend said some words of comfort. I was so happy I ran around our apartment complex parking lot barefoot in my tights. I hadn’t been able to run in 2 years because of the joint pain in my knees. Three days later all of the swelling was gone. God took away the pain, the inflammation and the antibodies so that when I was re-tested, my doctor found no trace of the two incurable diseases I had suffered from for two years. God healed my crippled hands but He’s continuing to make my heart whole.
God reminded me of the swollen hands that He made smooth and strong again. He made my hands able to hold a pen, interlace my fingers with my husband’s, and pick up my children without wincing. He made my hands lay flat against the shower wall to support my own shaking body as I cried in fear and despair.
Remembering what God had done for me years earlier gave me the strength I needed while I waited for test results that I thought would confirm what I had already been told.
When I finally received the phone call I had trembled in anticipation for all week, my body involuntarily collapsed on the bed behind me as I crumpled in joy. The word “relief” doesn’t begin to describe the feelings of elation that followed that phone call. There had been some mistake. That diagnosis wasn’t mine. I was healed before it even began.
That week was one of the worst of my life and yet has been one of the best gifts. I remembered that phone call and the silhouette of my hands on the foggy shower wall when I had to have my thyroid removed a year later and during the worst migraines that followed. I pray to hold on to those memories and the feelings of hope, relief and gratitude that followed what seemed hopeless.
Reminding myself of this time when I am stressed and anxious, overwhelmed with the chaos and complications of my everyday life has been a sweet deep breath of perspective - a traumatic memory to be cherished.
God healed my body to further the healing of my heart and bring me closer to knowing His character.
I don’t know why God healed me one time but not another. He didn’t cause the goiter on my thyroid to shrink. I had to have my thyroid removed so I could continue to breathe. I don’t have any answers for why friends get cancer or children get hurt and I am not attempting to offer a philosophy on the problem of pain or evil in this world. People smarter than me have been debating this forever. Just read the book of Job and you’ll have more questions than answers. But God is not threatened or intimidated by my questions. He answers, just not in the ways I always expect.
So I tell this story because I am like the simple man who Jesus healed of blindness in John 9. When the man was asked by the religious leaders deep things about who Jesus was, how He was able to heal him and whether He came from God, the man replied that he didn’t know but that he did know one thing: “Once I was blind, but now I see.”