Last year, on Easter Sunday, I shared my testimony before a packed sanctuary. I had no idea the impact that testimony would have or what the Lord was teaching me through sharing it. Still today I am in awe that I got up there, but it was only the confidence that Christ can give.
My life looks very different now, with a new church, some new friends, and a new home. Each change has been evidence of Christ’s goodness and mercy in my life. He heard every prayer. Some He said “no” to and some He just simply led me to understand in time. I thought I would share that transcript for you as we approach the Holy Week.
“When I was 14 I couldn’t imagine the hell I was about to walk through. I thought what I had already been enduring was hell enough. I had seen enough suffering. I knew its bitter taste so well that it almost lost some of its potency. I was used to it. But my life fell apart more than I could’ve ever imagined freshman year of high school as my body began deteriorating. A year later I got diagnosed with an incurable chronic illness.
I thought the diagnosis would lead to healing. I thought that God would finally take it away. I thought. But instead for the next eight years I watched my body waste away. I would spend hours every night sobbing into my pillow begging God to take it all away. Or to take me. Because I couldn’t bear to live like this anymore. I couldn’t bear understanding how He could watch someone He said He loved, beg for enough healing just to eat and drink so the home health nurse wouldn’t have to sit in her living room while she was hooked up to fluids.
‘God why can’t you just give me 1% of healing. Just enough for me to walk to the bathroom without being about to pass out.’
‘God isn’t that asking for so little? Jesus I can’t do this anymore.’
That’s what I said often, bargaining with God to take me; it was just too much.
I’m still here. Sometimes I wonder why. Because my life has not stopped being hard. While God has allowed my body to get better through medications and an incredible doctor, so many different parts of my life hurt deeply. Sufferings I still look up the sky and cry out, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’
‘Why must I be put through this? I love you. I try so hard to make you proud. What did I do to deserve this? Why don’t you see me? Why don’t you hear me? God when will I get a freakin break?’
Leading up to today, as I’ve been writing this, I’ve though a lot about seventeen year-old Holly who sat on the back row of her church on Easter Sunday, sick as a dog, trying to stand up for worship but couldn’t make it though one song. The anger she had with God was so great. So much anger that He did not even give her the strength to stand and worship Him. And I think of now, me standing on the same day, before a bunch of people hurting deeply, and being able to say ‘I get it.’ I’m with you, I feel for you, I know how enraging it can be to celebrate a day that is supposed to be filled with victory and you can’t seem to win.
Christ has not forgotten you today. This very day, Resurrection Day, is why when He doesn’t give us what we so desperately cry out for right now, the healing we scream and beg for, it will come. It may not be here. It may not be until we see Him. But it will come. And He will look at you in the face reach out His tender and scarred hand and say, “My child it was never ‘no’ to your desperate cries for help that you thought I couldn’t hear. It was a ‘when you get here; when you are finally home.’
No, my friends, it won’t be like this forever. It won’t. And I am not saying this from atop some lofty place of victory, but down in the depths of the valley just like you. My story isn’t one of miracles but of being sustained by Christ’s power as I walk though the valleys of the shadow of death. I’m not done walking though this darkness. But yet I still can say that I would not be any closer to seeing a light if He hadn’t joined me in this walk. He is my hope that I’ll see something other than the pitch black.
To every person who feels indifferent in this crowd towards Christ, who feels personally victimized by His hand, or just simply doesn’t understand “why”. I understand. And so does He. You are not forgotten in your suffering. In fact He considered your suffering from the beginning, and defeated it until its end. It was never ours to finish. He finished it on the cross. His hand isn’t against you, His scars say differently.”
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That was the message that I spoke to several hundred people one warm Easter morning. It’s the same message I hope I translate every day: God is for you.
I constantly deal with incredible anxiety from living through such a difficult health situation. Anxiety that Christ will allow more suffering, whether it be a job, friendships, or loved ones. I have seen the reality that God does indeed allow great suffering and can say “no” to even the most fervent and faithful prayers. But I also know that He got me through that hell, and whatever is to come, He will meet me there, walk beside me, hold my hand, and as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death His goodness and mercy will surely follow.
He is risen friends. Praise be to God.
Much love,
Holly
