healing doesn't come with a warning label.
It's vulnerable, too. The most vulnerable thing, because what happens next? What is there after joy?
{Originally published Oct. 19, 2022}
All parents know that the failing and the flailing, the wrestling and the weeping, are part of growing up.
If you lived with me in my house you'd find me shuffling around in a boot some days, a big one, strapped to my leg with velcro because my plantar fasciitis means I can't walk otherwise. Once a week, you'd see me jabbing a needle into my leg because the fluid inside makes the cells in my body receive insulin so my blood sugar will lower enough to be safe. Every morning, you'd watch me swallow my np thyroid and several hours later, make a vitamin salad with my inositol, selenium, Ds, Bs, Cs, and others to inhale with an iodine cocktail.
I'd be watching the clock, because I have a limited eating window of 6 to 8 hours per day; less than that on days I'm feeling able and brave, because I've learned that fasting lowers sugar and insulin. My heavy, insulin-resistant body needs lower sugar and insulin. Not only because I'm becoming diabetic, and not only because I'm trying to lose weight, and not only because the daily brain fog and fatigue makes thinking / living / mothering next to impossible, but because an MRI last spring revealed my ovarian cyst is still there, still bigger than a grapefruit, still causing my doctor to whisper, "cancer?" with a question mark.
It's been a full and eventful year for this middle-aged body. On the soul side of things, I feel like I'm a thousand years old. I've wrestled and wept with God like my two-year-old wrestles and wails with me, and He holds me close as I do him. Because all parents know that the failing and the flailing, the wrestling and the weeping, are part of growing up.
Take faith, for instance. Not the save-your-soul kind of faith, although that is most important. But the faith of "if you believe, all things are possible to him who believes." Or this one:
And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.” Matt. 9:28-29
According to your faith. What kind of faith do I have? A little faith? A weak faith? Or faith that is fierce and unwavering? A faith that is not blind, but could make blind eyes see or crippled feet well or cysts disappear from an ovary?