As humans we tend to try and aide our pain. We have a headache, we take a Tylenol. We have a scrape, we put on a band-aid. The avoidance of pain at all cost is usually the way that we choose. If we were able to see our lives before we were born, all the heartache and all the joy, do you think we would have a better life knowing what was going to happen?
I don’t.
At a women’s retreat a couple months ago, I learned a lot about how my mind handles emotional and physical pain. They are very intertwined, and for me personally , I ” feel ” everything. I’ve learned that my body is so sensitive to my surroundings and what is going on in an environment ( spiritually and relation-ally). This is a good thing, but often backfires on me if I am not careful.
Battling on going anxiety , at the Retreat I asked the Lord to show me when it began. When I chose fear. There must have been a turning point in my life where I allowed fear to reign. Although not all anxiety I am dealing with is fear based, I am learning that if I allow fear to enter, it becomes worse.
With my face pressed against the cold wooden floor of the building we were staying in for the weekend, I wept. Begging the Lord to set me free from these attacks, and to show me anything in my life I needed to ask forgiveness for, anyone I needed to forgive.
Baby me.
He took me into a vision of myself in my mothers womb. As labor began , and the pain became more intense for my Mother… as a prophetic woman I saw my life. Even as an infant I became fearful of failure. Fearful of pain and rejection. Fearful of responsibility as a woman of Christ.
So , just before it was time for my Mom to push, I flipped. I saw vividly myself flipping the womb that carried me so graciously. I didn’t want to enter the world that would hurt me. I let fear in, and became feet first. This gained me a few extra minutes of safeness. And in the quiet, I knew I would be born into a world that wasn’t fair or just. I would be caused much pain, and yet I would experience much of God’s goodness.
This was the first time I ever sinned.
I then saw myself handed a sword ( spiritually speaking ) , and as the Doctor cut my Mom to deliver me , I opened my Mothers womb with a large sword, aware of my life, but ready to fight. I was born a fighter. I knew then what I know now. To survive this season of my life, I have to fight .
I asked for forgiveness, and I forgave myself. I rejected fear, and asked God to fill me with more faith, more peace and more courage. That weekend changed my life in ways that are irreplaceable.
As I ride this rollercoaster of several different medications, trying to find my perfect number… I am learning to push through the pain to my prize. I am also learning that what I Physically CANNOT do, God can . He in me is strong and mighty, even when I feel I am drowning in my own body. The pain I am feeling now is only a fraction of what He did for me. The pain he endured on the cross.
There is no pain big enough for us to be able to say that God is not present.
We cannot allow the lie inside our mind that if we are suffering, he isn’t with us.
In my suffering, He has been so present. A thick blanket to keep me warm in this winter I am facing. He is more present now to me now than when I was a healthy, whole woman …in no need of medical interventions. So present in fact, that I feel as if I could reach out and grab hold on the fringe of his robe.
“Just then a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe.”
Matthew 9:20
I want to have the faith of that woman. That just one touch from Him can heal me, and make me whole again. Until I am healed, I am making it my goal to draw closer, love deeper, and dream bigger. It’s just that one touch that I need.
I never want to miss an opportunity to touch the fringe of his robe. In pain, we get to a place with Him so near. So vital in our survival , where we learn what it means to truly be his child.
Do you not rock your sick child to sleep? Check on them in the dark of the night to see if their fever has broken? Hold their hair back as the stomach bug hits?
Imagine this. He loves us more than we love our children. When we are in pain, he feels it too. He is there to rock us, hold us and make us well again.
He is good to me. Even still . He is still good.
