I’m laying on a bed in the ER.  My feet are freezing cold, that’s for sure. An angel dressed in scrubs just brought me a warm blanket and I’m feeling it’s comfort.  My husband is sitting quietly on a bench reading on his iPad, and my teenage children have been left at home, alone.  I’m texting all of my praying friends and distracting myself from the seriousness in the room with Facebook.

My face became numb over Christmas break. It feels like I am the “Man in the Iron Mask” but that iron mask has been super glued to my skin and some mean person is yanking it off.  This feeling is constant, starting when I wake up in the morning and not leaving when I lay my head on the pillow at night. Today the numbness began to travel down my arm so we decided that we needed help.  I tearfully hugged my teenagers goodbye and we came to the ER.  I was scared, not knowing if I would be coming home that night or undergoing brain surgery.

There is a battle going on in my body and a battle going on in my heart.  My faith has been doing somersaults since this crisis began.  I used to believe so strongly that God was my healer.  In the Bible, God says that He is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals you.  The Bible says that by the stripes of Jesus we are healed.  It says that God forgives all of our sins and heals all of our diseases.  I have been declaring those verses over my health and TRYING to believe that they are true.

I used to believe that God was my healer until I saw a 12 year old boy slowly die of cancer.   My faith for healing died with him.

I am ashamed of my faithlessness.  I am an elder’s wife.  I am a ladies’ ministry leader.  I’m a mentor and a blogger and a Bible teacher, too.  I have pursued Jesus relentlessly for 25 years.  How could I be so faithless?  Recently I wrote in my journal, “God, how can I love you so much but believe you so little?”  I feel like such a fraud, and for the longest time I have been afraid that I would be found out.  Well, now you know.

The devil tells me that I am the only one with such a weak and puny faith.  He shames me because I even question that God is good.  He accuses me that no one else but me wonders if God *will* heal me, even though I am convinced that He can.  Many of my friends have a strong, relentless faith and I am embarrassed that I don’t.

I feel like I’m the only one that struggles with my faith in the midst of a confusing and terrifying world.

You, too?

Is there any help for us of little faith?

God must have known that we would need some encouragement because He put scriptures in the Bible about our spiritual growth.   Philippians 1:6 says that God has begun a good work in you and He will complete it.  Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus is the author and the perfecter of your faith.  Philippians 2:12 says to keep on working out your salvation with fear and trembling because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey His own purpose.

Did you catch the hope in that last verse?   God is at work in you. 

If greater faith is what you need, God is at work in you.

If you struggle to believe that God will provide, He is at work in you.

If you worry and fret over your children, God is at work in you.

If you wonder if God cares about you at all, He is at work in you.

And if, like me, you wonder if God still heals, He is at work in you.

That is our hope in this barren place of doubt and fear and confusion.  God is at work in us.  He will not leave us in this place of immaturity.  He will not leave us in this place of unbelief and faithlessness.  He will not leave us and our faith alone.  He will relentlessly pursue us and will strengthen our faith.

In short, even when we give up on God, God will not give up on us.

That is something that I can believe in.

God, we thank you that you sent Jesus to be our savior because we fall so short of your standards and we need so much grace.  Thank you that you are still working in us, bringing us to maturity, and giving us the faith to believe that You are who You say  You are.  Give us hope that you are not finished with us yet.  Amen. 

Lisa

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