Why Living with Lupus is Like a Scavenger Hunt—Part 3

What about Faith?

Faith can be a two-edged sword with chronic illness. On the one hand, God’s nearness and companionship have been a great comfort to me. On the other, God has not healed me of lupus. I have wrestled with this. After all, it would be a whole lot easier if God would simply heal me—wouldn’t it?

But he has not. At times I have been really angry with him about this. At other times I have felt truly hurt, disappointed and let down by God. I have been in dire need of healing or at least answers, and he has not helped me. What’s up with that?

I am learning faith is not necessarily the straightforward thing I was raised to believe. God does not always protect me from harm. Sometimes horrible things happen and there is not always a reason for it. There may not be some hidden cosmic plan secreted in my suffering. But there are a few things I have gleaned from my lived experience of illness.

Pain has forced me to slow down. As a (recovering) perfectionist, I am accustomed to running around and doing all the things. Pain and flare-ups mean I have to listen to my body now. I cannot power through or soldier on; I must rest when my body says so. I also have to lean on the Holy Spirit a lot more. Without his relentless grace on my life, the relentless illness would beat me down. Life with illness is not easy, and it seems that healing would surely be easier. But perhaps this way is a better way.

An absence of healing does not necessarily mean we are doing anything wrong. Sometimes my Christian friends (bless them) look for a reason for why I haven’t been healed. ‘Maybe you haven’t prayed hard enough. Have you tried praying harder?’ Honey, I’ve tried praying while hanging upside down like a bat. I’ve tried contortionist positions. I’ve chanted in an open glade under a full moon. ‘Well, maybe you need to repent of some kind of sin,’ they hazard. We need to stop equating illness with sin, OK? Some of the most saintly people I know live with chronic illness. It’s not their fault.

God surprised me one day while I was praying for healing. He told me I wasn’t going to be healed. Just like that. ‘The usual testimony you hear,’ he explained, ‘is that someone gets sick, they pray, and I heal them. But that is not going to be your testimony.’

Oh? What’s my testimony going to be, then?

‘Your testimony will be that you got sick, and I didn’t heal you, and you continued to worship me even in the heights of illness.’

Yikes. Up until that point, I hadn’t considered there was an alternative kind of testimony. Surely the healing thing would give God the greatest glory? But he altered my perspective completely, showing me that worshiping in suffering was another kind of testimony.

Surely many of my brothers and sisters in Christ have similar kinds of testimonies.

The Greatest Prize

God has not always answered my prayers, at least with words. He has sometimes healed me of symptoms but not healed me of lupus. But he has remained at my side in the most difficult hours, the worst flares, the moments when I felt like giving up. He has spoken to my friends, prompting them to encourage and support me. He has been at my side in hospital beds, in surgeries, in MRI machines. He has been with me in deep waters, in pitch-black underground caves, in raging infernos. And he has never left me.

God has promised to be with us, no matter what beautiful and strange and terrible things may befall us. He has sworn himself to us and written our names on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16). He cannot and will not abandon us.

I am learning the hard way that God loves me, even when my faith has gone AWOL and my spiritual temperature is arctic. He loves me relentlessly, even more than the relentlessness of chronic illness. Because of his great love, he sits with me in horrible places, not escaping, not talking, not distracted but fully present with me. I’m getting better at resting in his presence, communing without words, being still instead of doing, leaning back in his everlasting arms. I know of no greater expression of love than his pure presence that is always with me.

The scavenger hunt will continue. I will fossick for more gems in the rubble, finding ways to laugh at lupus and be kind to myself, searching for survival and sanity in the midst of insane illness and fathomless grief. But I may have already found the greatest prize of all.

How has illness impacted your faith? Has faith buoyed you up during illness, or made things harder? How has God been present through those difficulties? Share your story. Let’s have a countercultural conversation.

Steph Penny’s book, Surviving Chronic Illness: Grace in the Flames, is available for purchase at her website www.stephpenny.com.au and at Koorong. You can also purchase the ebook here: https://books2read.com/u/bQnor7.

If this article has triggered any concerns for you, please reach out to Lifeline (13 1114) or Beyond Blue (1300 22 46 36).