Some years ago, I had a nasty case of the flu. I was so hot with fever, I felt like some super-villain from the comics—Atomic-Radiation-Woman. I burned with fever, but I didn’t sweat. At night I would lay in bed with the ceiling fan on, praying to be cooled.
One night, I woke up drenched with sweat, finally. That combined with the breeze of the fan made me feel so wonderful, I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled the sheet up to my chin.
That moment when we finally start to feel better after feeling so sick—the fever breaks, the cough loosens—those moments are glorious and leave me feeling thankful and blessed.
Lately, I have felt so good following several bouts of the flu that I’ve picked up the habit of cleaning, spring-cleaning, as soon as I feel able. Sheets and clothes get washed. The trash gets taken out. Clutter gets swept aside and sorted.
I do everything I wasn’t able to do when I sick and then some.
It’s not always just physical illnesses that we need relief from. Sometimes we experience other crises, crises of the spirit, times when we feel apart from God, times when we feel less than who we know God means us to be.
In his book Epic, John Eldredge quotes Douglas Coupland who says, “My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me to love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”
We all share Douglas Coupland’s secret. We are sick. We need God and we can no longer pretend that we can do this thing called life on our own.
For me, finding a church was the first step in the healing process. Finding a church allowed the fever to break. Finding a church … finding God in church … finding God in the people at that church provided an opportunity for my spirit to rest and once rested to heal.
There are times when we are sick that we wonder if we’ll ever be healthy again. We trudge along, eyes cast downward, barely getting through the day.
But we will be healthy again. And when the spirit heals, it’s like waking up from a bad fever dream. It’s like waking up and knowing that instead of holding pain and fatigue, the day ahead is going to be joyous and wonderful.
And then, just like I do after the flu, I do all the things I hadn’t been doing when I was sick. I smile more. I get angry less. I squint less—yes, I said it—I squint less because now I want to see as much of the world as possible. I want my eyes as wide as they can go, because I don’t want to miss seeing anything the world has to offer.
Most importantly, I share. I share the beauty of faith, the healing God has to offer and the recovery that follows.
