Author Archives: Howard H Chang

chronic illness, Living with Psoriasis, Personal Faith

December: Questions Upon Questions (Four Seasons of Healing)

Note: This is entry 1 in a study guide series called “Four Seasons of Healing: A Pathway for Those Living with Chronic Illness” covering the introduction to Winter and December: Questions Upon Questions.

For a list of entries click here.

Part I: Winter (December to February)

My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long?  (Psalm 6:3)

Shortened days with darkened skies mark the winter season. Punishing storms reshape the landscape, eroding surface features through harsh winds and rivers of rain. 

The winter of a long trial such as chronic illness marks its arrival with an initial diagnosis or flare-ups of old symptoms. Like a strong downpour on a dusty desert floor, everything in life that is not securely grounded and rooted gives way to a barrage of uncertainties in this dark season. 

Yet winter exhibits its own beauty. The moonlight striking a snow-covered hillside, or a cleansing rain, reminds the soul of life’s rhythms and cycles. The desert cactus points to a creative force that adapts to the harshest conditions. Those living with chronic illness need not run from winter, but rather wait for God to reveal His amazing power in the midst of even the greatest storms.

December: Questions Upon Questions (Psalm 13)

Psalm 13:1-4

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

Devotional

In a winter of the soul the psalmist asks the Lord in despair, “Will you forget me forever?” Questions stirred from this winter season range from “why me?” to “how long?” He feels the depth of his pain even though his God is close by listening to his lament. His troubled thoughts remain from the time he wakes to the last sight of his eyes before he sleeps. God does not provide the answers the psalmist seeks in the time he feels he needs them. Instead, he feels like death is around the corner.

I can think of a couple of periods in my life where I sat in the silence and despair of winter like the author of Psalm 13. One time, during my second year at the University of California, Davis, old treatments failed. New treatments meant liver biopsies and debilitating gastrointestinal distress. Another time, in the mid-2000s, I experienced a massive flare-up of symptoms where psoriasis covered over 95% of my body. The top layer of skin on the soles of my feet and palms of my hands painfully peeled—a side effect of psoriasis medications. Those were times when I felt overwhelmed with ongoing anxiety and insomnia. I once again asked God those questions I first posed as a teenager.

God can handle any questions that come His way from a sincere heart saddled with anguish. Indeed, Jesus Himself cried out on the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Being honest and open about those questions begins the healing process.

Opener

Share one way you, or someone you know, has endured something unpleasant or painful over an extended period of time. What questions, if any, were raised in that situation?

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Living with Psoriasis, psoriasis

Introduction to the Four Seasons of Healing

At eight years old my life was turned upside down when dermatologists diagnosed me with severe psoriasis. Psoriasis is a noncontagious immune-mediated condition that inflames the skin and joints.

It became an imposing part of my life at that tender age. The personal struggle of living with psoriasis not only came from the physical discomfort of red, itchy, burning, thick, scaly lesions. Anxiety, depression, and hopelessness accompanied the physical discomfort.  

Everyone is touched by physical illness. Whether experienced personally or as a friend, family member, or caregiver, disease and illness are part of the human condition. The coronavirus pandemic started in the United States with the first confirmed case on January 20, 2020. The ensuing spread and devastation revealed just how fragile public health can be in the face of a novel pathogen.  

The personal struggle of living with psoriasis not only came from the physical discomfort of red, itchy, burning, thick, scaly lesions. Anxiety, depression, and hopelessness accompanied the physical discomfort.  

The increasing prevalence of certain chronic health conditions adds complexity and risk to medically caring for those who contract COVID-19. Indeed, those with chronic disease already bear a great burden without those complicating effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes on their website that “six in ten adults in the US have a chronic disease and four in ten adults have two or more.”[1] They describe the impact of chronic disease this way: 

Chronic diseases are defined broadly as conditions that last 1 year or more and require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living or both. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. They are also leading drivers of the nation’s $3.8 trillion in annual health care costs.2

 While the financial costs of chronic illness to the healthcare system and individual are great, those numbers do not account for the hidden impacts of these illnesses. Chronic disease and illness often affect one’s spirituality, emotional health, relationships, employment, or even the ability to perform basic daily tasks. 

Each day since my diagnosis I have grappled with having a chronic, severe, stigmatizing skin disease. Indeed, the emotional and spiritual wounds often felt insurmountable to overcome. 

Struggles at Home and Beyond 

I applied messy treatments and sustained painful taunts in those early years living with psoriasis. I especially hated putting liquid coal tar in a petroleum base on my skin overnight. The coal tar treatment smelled like a newly paved road while it stained everything it touched. The greasy feeling on my body made sleeping difficult. To make matters worse, my older brother called me names like “tar baby.” Those hurtful words made hours of treatments each day that much more difficult to bear.  

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Living with Psoriasis, Personal Faith, Spirituality

Two Questions About Prayer

(Photo by Sagui Andrea on Pexels.com)

Last month I posted a column on Everyday Health titled How the Power of Prayer Helps Me Face My Psoriasis. I shared questions I had as a young adult with psoriasis who recently found the Christian faith:

Is it selfish to pray for yourself when the world has real problems? Is it possible to know if a spiritual practice like prayer can be a healing force in the face of a chronic condition like psoriasis? Am I wasting my energy praying if my health doesn’t improve?

You can read more about my thoughts on these questions in the column. Here I would like to interact with a couple of question that didn’t make it into the Everyday Health blog.

How Much Prayer Is Enough?

“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.” (Attributed to C.S. Lewis in the movie Shadowlands).

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Family, psoriasis

How Our Couple Story Started by Sharing Health Stories

Today Lori and I are celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary. We hoped to go to Hawaii for our 25th, but then the pandemic changed our travel plans. A couple of years later we are still waiting to take that trip. Maybe it will become a 30th anniversary trip, but I hope it won’t be that long before we go.

We first me at the end of 1992 when I was looking for a co-leader for a Bible study I led off-campus with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at UC Davis. As I look back I’m struck by how we bonded around our health journeys and how we’ve become advocates for each other and others in the community.

I wrote the excerpt below for an Everyday Health blog about five years ago. Many of my older blogs (some dating back to 2007) have been removed in an effort to boost traffic to their website. It pained me to see hundreds of my columns removed, but I thankfully do have drafts or copies of most of them.

This particular blog focused on ways Lori and I support each other with our health challenges. It’s still true today–we are each other’s care partners and greatest champions as we daily live with chronic illness and disability.

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