“Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.” -C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity-

I remember reading this quote somewhere, and writing it frantically in my journal. It seemed the perfect encapsulation of this idea that we must be seeking that which is eternal, rather than what is material. Since then, I have tried reading the book Mere Christianity three different times. The verdict? Boring. I don’t know where all those exciting, interesting quotes were found, but I could not get through the first one hundred pages.

I decided though, after reading another blogger’s post about the development of the Christian mind (see https://ethanrenoe.com/2017/12/06/the-dumbing-down-of-christianity/), that I should give it another try. Apparently all those other times I was reading it, I had just needed to get past the first few chapters.

Today, I finally found the above quote in Lewis’ chapter on Hope. I was surprised by what I read directly following it:

“Aim at Heaven and you will earth thrown in: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more- food, games, work, fun. In the same way, we shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.” (Italics and emphasis mine)

Obviously, I don’t think I need to stop caring about my body, or that any of this is psychosomatic. All of us Chronic Illness People are not cranks, and we have to fight very hard sometimes to help people see that. Health is one of our main objectives because so much has been taken from us. Each of us remembers what it was like to be well, and wants very much to be that way again.

I have to ask myself why I want to be healthy in the first place, though. What’s my reason for fighting? Why am I working on this? What is the something more that I need to be wanting?

A lot of it comes back to me wanting to do these big, impressive things for God. It’s funny how I want so badly to impress the God of the universe. It’s as if I think that starting an orphanage, leading a bunch of people to the Lord, or being admired as a worship leader are going to impress the infinite Being who created the entire world. As if He’s going to say, “Wow, that’s amazing. How did you do that?”

Deeply rooted alongside this desire to prove myself to God is the other desire to prove myself to people. I want them to look at me and be impressed, to say, “Wow, you did that?” This is a part of my daily rituals, something I do without thinking. In the dark times, when my symptoms have seemed like something I could never defeat, I have often been angry with God because, “I haven’t done anything for You!” I am becoming what Lewis might term a “spiritual crank.” By making doing things for God my main object, I am completely missing the point of loving God and others more than myself. I have aimed at earth.

In Every Moment Holy by Douglas Kaine Mckelvey, there is a liturgy entitled For Those Who Have Not Done Great Things For God. In reading this prayer today I stumbled upon the following quote:

“Seek not your own glory. Seek God, and his glory will be seen in you, radiant in humility and in the strength of his might made manifest even in your brokenness, evident even in the smallest of services rendered unto him or offered in his name, even though they be seen by none but you and him; your reward is secure.”

Today, where you are in your health journey, I pray that you will think of your reward as being secure in Christ. Even the littlest thing can be sacred as we seek to find our something more in God.

 

I was sick this past week, so I ended up writing this poem as a way to deal with how it felt to be stuck in bed yet again. I hope it is an encouragement to you all.

Taste this and feel the slow embittering

Sliding down into the fresh incision

Where it drives your hopes away, skittering.

Yours, not the cause, now remains the decision:

Running away only increases the guilt,

Seeping into the cracks. It will destroy

Unless you stop. Wash off the drying silt

Clean your scabbing wounds. Bind your heart with joy.

It will never cease to be fragmented.

But, watchful, you must guard against its death,

Keep your mind clear, strong, and un-demented.

Sing the tunes the wind carries on its breath,

Songs of love ‘midst overwhelming sadness.

Help us remember promised steadfastness.

 

“Father, if I am to do nothing, let me do so gallantly.”

This past year, I began doing morning examen, a prayer that guides me through what the rest of the day will look like. This phrase has really helped me, especially on those days when I am dealing with a lot of Lyme symptoms and feel incapable of completing anything on my todo list (Today being one of those days. Hello couch.)

My friend Kim once told me that God can still be glorified even if I am just sitting in bed at home. He doesn’t need me to do everything that I want to do, every great and grand idea is still just a plan that I will need His help to accomplish. I hated hearing this, I mean really hated it. I loved to fill my days with tasks, even if many of them seemed completely undoable. Busyness is what I wanted, because busyness to me meant success. A lot of times it still does.

With Lyme constantly landing me at home in bed, or on the couch, I have really had to reevaluate what my idea of success is. This prayer, with its seemingly odd turn of phrase, has been of help to me.

“Let me do so gallantly.”

The phrase “gallant” often brings to mind the image of a gentleman gently scooping up a woman’s handkerchief, or rushing forward to get the door, or pulling out a chair, or lifting the heavy shopping bags. It’s poetic, chivalrous, denotes high standards of conduct, all of the beautiful things we want men to be. However, this is really only the second definition of gallant. The first definition of it is “brave, or heroic.” This means, of course, that gallant does not have to be just for men. It can be my word, too.

In a world that tells us to move quickly and work constantly, sitting still and taking care of our bodies seems a foolish thing to do. But what I love about this prayer is that it recognizes how brave our struggle is. When my body forces me to do nothing but deal with nausea, brain fog, and aching joints, I can do so bravely.

So can you. You may be doing nothing according to the world, but you are being brave. You are heroic as you sit there putting your body back together, fighting for a sense of “okay.” You there on the couch, struggling to breath, to get through this panic attack, you are brave. You have boldness, daring, and, as the old adventurers used to say, “no small amount of pluck”. You could let this mow you down, but you’re fighting it, even if it’s just in small ways, like resting or choosing to be thankful. You are doing gallant work, and I salute you.

Lord, as we sit today we are frustrated. We are tired of our pain, tired of being a people who are often defined by what our illness does and does not allow us to do. We are weary of our failings, our inability to be what the world deems “normal.” As we sit, as we work towards health, help us do so bravely. If our task is to do what the world calls nothing, let us do so gallantly, in Your strength. Help us recognize that in the midst of our nothing, You are everything. Help us be brave. Amen.

“I can’t come tonight. I’m not feeling well.” 

“Won’t be able to make it. Feeling really terrible.” 

“Sorry to cancel. I need to rest.” 

If you suffer from any kind of chronic pain or illness, you have either said these words, or texted them to your friends on more than one occasion. My rough days always seem to hit me right when I actually want to go do things, or when I have something planned that I’ve been looking forward to.

Over the years, I have probably said these exact words over a hundred times. People invariably say, “Oh, wow. I’m sorry. Do you need anything?”

What they mean is “Do you need something I can buy, or make? Do you need food or something to drink?”

Honestly, it’s so sweet of people to offer this, but I don’t want any food or drink that you’re going to bring me. With my dietary restrictions, it’s probably going to be something I can’t have anyway, unless you also follow the rule of no gluten, no dairy, and no sugar. Seriously, with these kinds of restrictions in place, you can’t just run down to the grocery store and pick something up for me. Unless it’s water, or tea, and believe me, I have those in abundant supply.

And then there’s the phrase “Praying for you.”

Okay, I’m all for prayer. Really, I am, and I appreciate people who say this because I will take them at their word that they are doing it. There are people in my life who text me the prayers they are praying over me, and it has really encouraged me. But while I believe addressing God is absolutely essential to spiritual growth, it often feels like a cop-out when I’m in my bed with aching joints, unexplained nausea, and fever like symptoms. There’s only so much the words “praying for you” can actually accomplish. At the end of the day, they are just words, after all.

What do I need? What do I want? 

What I really want, what I crave, is someone to come and sit with me. That’s it. I just need someone to sit next to me and pray with me, and ask me what it feels like to be sick again. I want someone to give weight to my suffering with their presence. I need someone to sit down across from me and bear witness to my illness, and let me know that I’m not crazy. I want someone to come over and bring a movie to watch. Honestly, one of the hardest things about being sick so often is that people assume you want to be alone when you’re sick. This is why people who suffer from Lyme often say that it is a lonely illness. During times of weakness and exhaustion, we feel excluded because we are never sure if we will be able to make it to an event, and it is difficult to commit to being a part of something when we might not be able to follow through on it.

Naturally, I want to blame people for my loneliness, especially when I know they know I’m sick. “Why can’t they see that I need company? Why can’t they make time to come see me when I’m sick?” As I’ve experienced it, much of our culture does nothing for people with chronic illness, other than a pat on the back and a “You have my thoughts and prayers.” Granted, I’m living in a place where I have no family, and few close friends, so my experience of this over the past two years has been a bit biased. I know plenty of people who have strong support systems, though, and even they have admitted to feeling very lonely in their experience of this illness.

Here are a few things that are really great to bring people who have chronic illness problems:

1. Yourself– showing up is probably the greatest thing that anyone can do for someone who has chronic illness.
2. Warmth– whether it’s a blanket, or a cup of tea, providing warmth is the greatest, mostly because a lot of us get really cold really quickly.
3. Distractions–  sometimes I don’t want to talk about our pain for the umpteenth time. I just want to laugh for a little while with someone, and think about something else.
4. Time– really, if you sit with me for an hour, or even thirty minutes, you are giving me such a huge gift. Lyme can make me feel like a waste of space because I’m alone so much with my own dark thoughts. Having someone spend their time on me helps alleviate some of that thinking.
5. Help- I mean help in the physical sense. Maybe you noticed a lot of dishes in the sink, or maybe you see there’s a pile of laundry in my room. Don’t sit there praying pretty prayers. Act.

I also want to admit that I am not always good at communicating my needs as an individual. I could say to people, “Hey, it would be great if you stopped by. I know I can’t make it to this event, but I really need to see people.” (Subtext: I am going crazy, please let me know that people exist outside of this room!!!) I can take steps to change this, and I hope that writing this will help me do that.

If you know someone with a chronic illness, please don’t settle for texting them “thoughts and prayers.” Please sit with them, let them know that they are still important even though they can’t always participate in the ways they want to.

May all that is broken in you be healed. 

-Rachel

“You definitely have Lyme Disease.”

That’s what the specialist said barely a minute into my first appointment with him. I was tired after spending most of the previous two days in various airports. More than that, though, I was weary and scared after dealing with confusing and increasingly strong symptoms for two years. I hadn’t really slept well in months, my joints ached, and my brain often felt fuzzy, as though I wasn’t sure about what was going on or even what I had been doing ten minutes before.

Outside, the summer sun was shining in Coeur D’alene, Idaho. Inside, the specialist pressed into a joint between my shoulder and collarbone. I cried, it hurt so badly. Blood tests could have come back negative for Lyme, but this joint was the telling sign. My specialist began making notes on supplements and my detox process.

I can’t have Lyme. I can’t. 

I had watched over the past year as both of my sisters were diagnosed. I had texted them certain symptoms I’d experienced, casually, of course, because I didn’t really think I was sick, just that I was a lazy undergrad who needed to buck up and get her life together.  I couldn’t explain why my body continually broke down with fevers, aching joints, and coughs and colds. I couldn’t explain why I was never tired, but would crash unexpectedly for days and not be able to work. Had it been up to me, I would have just kept pretending everything was fine, even though my symptoms were getting worse. My parents, though, encouraged me to seek a diagnosis, just in case.

I can’t have Lyme. I’m going to Korea. 

Korea had been my sister’s idea, but it was something I latched on to with excitement. Post graduation I felt a burning desire to leave the small Arkansas town I attended university in, and experience life in the real world (while paying off student debt). I applied and was accepted to teach English in an immersion academy in Seoul.

My specialist assured me that I should be fine, and that I could detox while working in Korea. I left the U.S. with high hopes for the coming year. Everything was going to be fine.

But everything wasn’t fine. Detoxing from Lyme while living in a foreign country was more difficult than I could have imagined. Everywhere I went there were more things to figure out on my own, something my brain fog made increasingly difficult. The school schedule was grueling, with class from 8:30 til 7:30 most days of the week. I had barely an hour for lunch every day, and only ten minutes between classes. I was also working with very young children most of the day, something that seemed more like hell than anything I had yet experienced.

The perfectionist in me kept saying, “Suck it up and deal with it. You’re fine.” As the days turned into months, though, it became more and more difficult not only to get to work, but to fall asleep when I came home. My detoxing was not going well, and I lived in a state of mild panic and exhaustion most of the time.

Finally, I had to stop. After a tear filled conversation with my boss, we decided I would I fly home a few days before Thanksgiving. Within days of arriving at my parents’ home in the Redwoods, I came down with a terrible case of chicken pox.

“I lost my job, my home, and now I’m losing my beauty,” I thought, and then had a self-condemnation party because I was being so vain. I tried to be positive, tried to be happy that I could rest, but there was no end date for my treatment, no finish line I could look forward to. Treatment for Lyme looks different for everyone, and I was only getting started.

It’s hard to describe the despair I felt during this time. My journals are an argument of sorts between the perfectionist in me and the poor scared little girl who had no idea what was going to happen. Most days I would wake up and watch Netflix for hours, rather than try and fail at something one more time.

My sister and brother in law offered to let me live with them in Wisconsin, and I accepted, wondering what on earth God could possibly do with me in Wisconsin. It was a place I had sworn I would never live in because it was too cold, the people seemed unfriendly, and they were all nuts about this one football team. (Seriously, there’s a journal entry where I say exactly that.) Wisconsin definitely seemed to be the end of the world, or at least the end of all my beautiful plans.

I was trying to believe that God was acting. It’s easy when we go through tough times to completely focus on the rough things: losing a job, losing your pretty face, losing a sense of control. I was trying to think about the good things, to find encouragement, but it was hard to find any sense of equilibrium. The bad always seemed to outweigh the good. I missed who I was before the Lyme came and ruined everything.

A friend recommended I study Romans. For a while, I did that at the same time every single day. I gave my perfectionist self some time off, and decided that I would do what I felt like doing, which often amounted to me scribbling, “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand, and I don’t have the energy to pretend that I do.” This went against years of missionary kid training, but I decided it was better than acting as if I understood God, because really, who does?

Music had always been a part of my life. Lyme made it hard to focus, though, which made it hard to learn new pieces, something I had a hard time forgiving myself for. I had always reveled in the freedom of being able to create at the piano, or even in my journals with words. Now, though, all the creativity came in short supply, and I had barely any strength to follow through on the bit that was there. “Why did you make me this way, why did you give me these desires, and then put something so confusing in my way?” I asked God over and over. “You should have picked someone else for this. I’m no good.”

Romans 8:28, “And we know in all things, God works together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.”

I knew this verse, had heard it preached since before I could read. I started saying it to myself over the next few days and weeks. “All things, all things,” I would mutter. Even with all my Biblical training, I had still read my own feelings into this verse, and thought it said, “All good things.” I knew that wasn’t true, though, especially after Lyme. I began to see more and more that God’s purpose was in all things, good and bad, and His purpose was to glorify Himself.

With Lyme disease, I am constantly asking myself, “What is my body feeling right now? Why am I feeling this way? What can I do to help my body?” Today, for example, I feel pretty awful, and have taken a lot of things off of my todo list as a result. (I don’t know why, but Lyme always seems to strike the people who like to achieve a lot of things.) I have come to see that this is a great picture of my spiritual journey as well. There are a lot of things that I want to accomplish, a lot of big, beautiful things I can do for God. But, a lot of times, I have to just keep doing small ones, like taking care of my body, resting, and praying for people. I really believe that He looks at those small things and says, “You are mine. All things are mine. These things that you do will bring glory to me, even if you cannot see how it all turns out.”

I still have Lyme, and somedays, like today, are a real struggle. I don’t always know why I am feeling the way I do, other than admitting, “Oh hey, I have Lyme. That’s why my body is doing this.” It’s frustrating, but I have found that He is there, even in the frustration and the confusion. He is the one certainty I can count on. All things are His. I am His. That is what matters.