Note: This is entry 4 in a study guide series called “Four Seasons of Healing: A Pathway for Those Living with Chronic Illness.” For a list of entries click here.

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Part II: Spring (March to May)

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

(Psalm 121:1-2)

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Renewal arrives in springtime. Each spring I enjoy watching the shrubs and rose bushes in the front yard that appeared dead during the winter come to life. At the first sign of spring, they emerge from their slumber to reveal a vast array of colors and creativity. Their outer barrenness gives way to a blossoming inner strength of beauty.

The psalmist on his difficult pilgrimage to Jerusalem and exclaimed, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2). Help is just beyond the horizon. One only needs to look up, the psalmist might say, when staring down at the ground in despair.

Spring represents redemption, hope, and healing. The potential burgeoning of faith and hope exists beneath the painful external circumstances that those undergoing trial and illness endure. The darkness of winter makes the light of spring appear that much brighter. The journey to emotional and spiritual wholeness begins by looking up to the Healer.

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March: Sufficient Grace

2 Corinthians 12:7b-12 

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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Devotional

I began to look up to God during those six weeks I spent at the Psoriasis Research Institute in Palo Alto, California as a high school graduate. Amid seeking God for answers, I asked if he would heal my psoriasis.

Some during that time would say “yes”—with a caveat. In the late eighties a false theology, dubbed the “health and wealth gospel,” spread to some Christian circles. Champions of the health and wealth movement argued that Jesus promised healing for those expressing truth faith in him. They also taught a manifold financial return for those who sowed a right seed—typically marked by giving money to their ministries. 

I wanted to believe their claims, but no amount of faith healed my psoriasis. I imagined a conversation with a faith healer where he told me that I did not have enough faith. Then, at the Psoriasis Research Institute, I read about Paul’s thorn in his flesh. He describes to the church at Corinth how he prayed three times for God to remove it. Scholars do not know exactly what the thorn was, but some suggest he had an eye condition or some other physical ailment. 

God’s response revealed that the thorn served a greater purpose in keeping Paul humble and dependent on God. Indeed, the greatest purpose in suffering is not to remove or relieve the suffering. Rather, it is to find hope and meaning within it. In a show of sovereignty and commitment to higher purposes, God chose not to heal Paul—a man of great faith and leadership. 

Paul received grace sufficient to handle whatever came his way. We can discover that same faith each day.

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Opener

Think of a difficult time when your perspective changed from negativity and pessimism to faith and hope. What helped you come out of that dark mood?

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Note: This is entry 3 in a study guide series called “Four Seasons of Healing: A Pathway for Those Living with Chronic Illness.” For a list of entries click here.

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Psalm 5:1-3

Listen to my words, LORD,

      consider my lament.

Hear my cry for help,

      my King and my God,

      for to you I pray. 

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice;

      in the morning I lay my requests before you 

      and wait expectantly. 

Genesis 40:23–41:1a

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream . . .

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Devotional

Winter marks a dark season of life when no answers to difficult questions seem to come. It’s a time when waiting for God to intervene feels like an eternity. No one invites a chronic condition, or a long-standing trial. Still, they can come unannounced at any time and remain longer than expected. Illustrations from the Bible of those waiting for God to intercede serve as examples for waiting amidst an uncertain future.

In Psalm 5, the author begins his petition in the morning and then settles in to wait the rest of the day for God’s response. He wakes up with burdens heavy upon his heart and mind.  Those thoughts could allow the darkness to overtake his soul, but he does not let it. His waiting is an active waiting. It’s where the soul gazes expectantly for a response from a loving and sovereign God. 

 Joseph’s story in Genesis stands out as a model for grace under pressure. He finds himself in Egypt after his brothers sell him to slave traders. At first, he does well as a servant to Potiphar, the captain of the guard. But when Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph and fails, she falsely accuses him of trying to sleep with her. Potiphar, as a result, sends him to jail with the cupbearer and baker of the king of Egypt. In prison, Joseph attends to them and helps them interpret dreams. The cupbearer, though, forgot about Joseph after his release from prison. Joseph languishes there two more years. 

The psalmist’s expression of active waiting and Joseph’s life of faithfulness enduring injustice are stories I draw from for my own life. The worst waiting with psoriasis comes with severe skin flares. Each minute feels like an hour, while an hour feels like a day. The physical discomfort of itchy, stinging sores and the emotional frustration and restlessness become unbearable. Flares can last for weeks, months, or longer. The psalmist points me back to God each morning while Joseph reminds me that God is just.

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Opener

Share a time when you waited for relief or resolution to a difficult situation. How do you feel you coped while waiting? What was the final outcome? 

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Note: This is entry 2 in a study guide series called “Four Seasons of Healing: A Pathway for Those Living with Chronic Illness.” For a list of entries click here.

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Job 2:11-13

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him;they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. 

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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

Loneliness is a constant companion in the winter of chronic illness—even in the presence of others. I read one statistic from the World Psoriasis Happiness Report 2017 that saddened me: Only about 40%of both women and men agree that their closest friends and family understand what it is like to deal with psoriasis. I wasn’t surprised, though. My own sense of isolation during my formative years confirmed what the almost three out of every four people surveyed. I mostly felt alone with psoriasis in my own home. 

Job from the Bible felt a depth of pain that no other, not even his friends or wife, could truly comprehend. His loneliness stemmed from the dire situation of losing all his property and children while sustaining boils over his entire body. In response to his devastating circumstances, his wife told him to curse God and die (Job 2:9). His friends felt so overwhelmed by what they saw that they sat in silence with Job with nothing to say. Their presence only heightened Job’s sense of loneliness.

It’s natural to feel alone in difficult moments as each person’s experience is unique. However, walking through the “darkest valley” (Psalm 23:3) while feeling abandoned and isolated leads to an even greater despair. Knowing that God is “my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1) turns loneliness into solitude with God and leads to places of restoration and renewal.

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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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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.

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Part I: Winter (December to February)

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

Continue reading →