We are not sick people trying to get well. We are whole people fighting off sickness.
~Graham Cooke
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
~Matthew 11: 28-30
This writer spends a fair amount of time in the Word. His Word brings life and health and truth and wholeness to the soul – but He – the One who breathed the Word – is the very Life and Health and Wholeness and Spirit behind the text.
Can this fool of a writer share something?
i have been to the very edge. i have seen into the teeth of death. Circumstances (actually opportunities to see His goodness) have shown me something to be true. Even in the very shadow of death, He is there. We are in Him. All is well. He has NEVER left any believer alone in their pain or suffering or sickness.
And there is a reason for this. We who have trusted Him are already whole. We are whole in such a way that the pain of sickness and death pales in significance to the Life we already have now in Him. And it most surely fails to even pale in the Light of the Life we are going to experience on That Day when it is Him whom we see.
A dear friend of mine had her physical life torn from her in slow and horrendous battle with lung cancer a few years ago. She left two girls and husband. She never smoked, loved Jesus, and ate health food. And still, she died of a rare and painful cancer. Unfair? Asking her, she replied, “I wouldn’t have traded this for anything. I know Him so much more deeply now. He is so good to me.” This woman died physically. And she died completely whole and holy and healthy in Him.
Beloved. The Jesus a woman like this is speaking about is real. He is not to be found in a Sunday School curriculum, or a good sermon, or even in the eyes of a good friend. No, this Jesus is found in the depths of suffering and despair. He meets the one whose knees are bleeding while they plead with Him to join them in their suffering. And He does. Oh He does.
i promise you friend. He will meet you in this place. He will meet you in your broken state and make you completely whole. And in this wholeness you will find that the sickness and pain you fight off is no longer truly relevant to your existence. No, rather you find that suffering is merely a catalyst to cast you further in the center of His near Presence where there is only joy and strength and power and peace and clarity and hope and wholeness.
He longs for your wholeness. Would that we would allow Him His longing in our lives tonight.
