My mom is still sick. For someone who has committed my life to following Jesus that is hard for me. My mom is still sick. My mom loves Jesus and she is still sick. My mom prays daily and she is still sick. My mom loves others and she is still sick. That frustrates me. For a long time I was mad at God, mad that he hadn’t healed my faithful mother because if anyone deserves to be healed it is my mom (what every child thinks). I held this grudge that God didn’t love my family because he didn’t bring healing. Often I would withhold my love from God because he had with held his healing from my mom.
We went on vacation this last week and yet again she was sick almost all week. She has to take a lot medicine just to be able to function and my beautiful mother’s spirit is sometimes broken by her illness. It kills me. I physically hurt for her sometimes, I want to take the sickness from her but I can’t and I have come to believe God hates watching my mom sick as much as I do. This morning he confirmed that for me.
I am reading John Piper’s book 50 Reasons why Jesus Came and Died and reason # 18 is to heal us from moral and physical sickness. In part of the passage he says, “The way that Christ defeated death and disease was by taking them on himself and carrying them with him to the grave. One day all disease will be banished from God’s redeemed creation. There will be a new earth. We will have new bodies. Death will be swallowed up by everlasting life. And all who LOVE CHRIST will sing songs of thanks to the Lamb who was slain to redeem us from sin and death and disease.”
Let me say that this isn’t a new concept for me. I have known that when my mom passes that she will have a new body and will no longer be in pain but knowing Christ experienced that with her is a new thing for me. Knowing that on the Christ he felt the pain of sickness shows me a love that can’t be competed with. Jesus knows my moms pain and he hates that. He wants her to be well as much as we all do and because of that he took on disease at the cross and bleed for the sick. His heart bleeds for your sickness as much as it does my mom but take heart Jesus has defeated it. Jesus has taken your sickness so that one day you can pain free and praising the one who took your pain.
mary ramsey barwick - I remember when your mom was sick. It was when we (really your dad and I) did youth ministry together at JFBC. I have thought of her a lot and wondered if she was still suffering like she did back then. I even fb-ed her one time, not too long ago, so that I could hear of her past struggles and how she coped with them. Not knowing she was still suffering. We never got together and now that we are in WV, it would be really hard to meet for lunch. Please tell her that she is on my mind and on my heart. How I love love love your mom and dad and your entire family.
When I sent your mom the message I wanted to get her perspective on living with suffering and illness because I am living with it now. I don't know if you've read my husband's and my blog (www.andybarwick.com/blog) but it explains my husband, Andy's, life with disease, unanswered questions, doctors' lack of answers, my pain and struggle as his wife and so on.
It almost seems too much to bear as times. And recently it feels like it's REALLY to much to bear.
I did like your blog but I have to be devils advocate (because that's just where I am right now–disillusioned, probably bitter (I just don't want to admit it right now) and many other things.
I understand that Christ suffered our illnesses and our disease. But it was only for a short while. three days was it. And now he's sitting at the right hand of God. If we took on the sins of the world and the disease and suffering we would I'm sure DIE from the heavy dark burden. But if we didn't die and we truly could take it all on, don't you think we could handle it for three days. If we knew we were going to be in paradise soon after. Just a thought from my broken and struggling mind. I hope you don't mind me sharing it. These days I have a lot of questions and I'm learning more and more I don't have answers, even though there are a lot of answers out there, I'm hesitant to believe. Probably because, like you said, the sickness is still around, it's still with the ones you and I dearly love.
Know that I love you and I think of you often.
Thanks for your blog and its timeliness.
Tell your entire fam I said hello.
Love,
Mary
Tindell Baldwin - Mary,
Thank you so much for sharing. I wish I could give you answers to heal what pain you and your husband have truly suffered. I can only assure you that the reason we will live with suffering is because we live in a world full of sin. Christ died for us even though he knew no sin and we live in sin daily. This world is broken and with a broken world comes disease and pain. My mom suffers daily but that doesn't mean God doesn't love her and hurt for her. That is why he died so that he could change that. He died so that one day we could be in paradise with him. I can promise you that God hates your suffering as much as you do. He hurts for, he weeps with you, he wants so badly to step in and take it but all in his sweet timing. Something we have learned in all of this is that God does everything in his perfect timing. My moms struggles have ministered so much to others, like you, and your husband is ministering to others who suffer. God has given us a great honor when he uses us to show his love and truth to others we just don't always understand his method.
Psalms 22: 24 says
24 For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
Isaiah 53:3-4
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
Take heart mary! He knows your suffering and he has overcome it!
All that to say I dont diminish your pain and there are many days that I am bitter (those just don't make great blogs) I just have to trust there is a bigger plan in all of this.
lots of love,
Tindell