Musings from my Sick Couch

I can probably count on one, maybe two hands the times I have been really, truly sick. There’s the time I got bacterial food poisoning in the Philippines. The year my whole family got the flu. Chicken pox on the bottom of my feet. A vivid memory of throwing up Apple Jacks during reading time in second grade. Though my immune system is generally strong and these illnesses are few and far between, they all have something in common. 

Being sick makes me feel weak. It makes me feel fragile and pathetic and alone.

Last Saturday, I woke up sick. I pretended I wasn’t and drove 3 hours to a basketball game, where I sat miserably with a fever and sore throat. Sunday I stayed in bed all day. I spent a majority of the rest of the week securely planted on my couch. I told people it was the flu. It felt like the flu, but it better not have been, because I got my flu shot. And there’s no way I should have to go through a needle in the arm and still get the flu. 

Either way, I did not want to be sick. Because in the hours spent alone on my couch, I knew I would have to face the depths of despair that I have been avoiding for months. 

I did not want to be sick, because I did not want to face any of that. I wanted to be happy and healed and full of nothing but joy. I wanted to pretend that I had thick skin and an elastic heart (thanks Sia). I did not want to admit that grief does not only come in stages, but in layers. But there were deeper wounds I was leaving unaddressed. And in my days on the couch, they came bursting back to the surface, festering and infected.

My friend Stacie and I were talking about this phenomenon, where people who are normally healthy seem to face more attack in the moments when their immune system gives out. We have a vulnerability in those moments not normally there, and the Enemy is great at finding a foothold. 

This week on my couch, the foothold led to attack. And the attack looked a lot like NyQuil induced dreams of regret, fear, and desire. A screaming in the waking moments of my subconscious that I’ve made a huge mistake. A sinister voice whispering that promises made to me are meaningless and easily broken. Crippling anxiety of my heart and mind. A suffocating feeling of loneliness and abandonment. Lies about the ones I love most leaving me. Moments of bitterness and anger and resentment. Tearful conversations of frustration and hurt. 

I detest being sick.

But in the struggle, in the sickness, I learned something. We have to face our demons. We have to look them in the eye and say “get behind me, Satan.” We have to go through the trial in order to move forward. We have to declare the name of Jesus, walk through the mess, and come out on the other side. We don’t go in to be attacked, but to demonstrate victory. Our testing serves a purpose that is so much more about our future selves than who we are now.

We cannot find healing until we let God treat every wound. We cannot find freedom until we let God break every chain. We cannot live in the truth until we expose every lie. We cannot become strong until we recognize our weakness. 

Right after Mom died, I was talking with someone close to me about strength. I told him how I was beginning to feel trapped by people telling me how strong I was, that I felt like I no longer had permission to be weak and broken and grieve. At the same time, I was afraid of giving in to that weakness, because it felt bottomless. He reminded me that strength does not mean we are impervious to hurt and unmoved by the things happening to us, but it is how we live through them, where we turn in that weakness and brokenness. He reminded me that it’s okay to be weak AND strong. Because my perceived weakness is a posture of surrender and abandonment before the Lord, a recognition of my complete inability to live through life without God. My strength is a gift from Him, an outpouring of His love and grace for me. 

Lord, I am weak. I am fragile. I am human. But that does not mean I am not strong. Give me your strength. Take me to the depths of my despair, for it will only lead to truer joy. For my good and Your glory, always. 

 

 

Here’s to the journey of healing, physically and emotionally. Here’s to walking out every stage of grief, instead of accepting a shadow of joy. Here’s to learning that endurance really can mean long-suffering, but knowing the victory is already mine. Here’s to who I am becoming. Here’s to being weak. Here’s to being strong.