Healing

Over six years ago, I lay in my freshman dorm room trying to go to sleep at midnight.  My heart felt like it was racing and I had limited strength despite the fact I had not done anything except sit and walk to two doors to the bathroom for over an hour.  After a few hours, I got up and drove myself to the hospital.  I was sick of not knowing what made it so I could so easily lose energy as this pulsing went through my body.  Unfortunately it took until the summer for me to learn what I had: a hiatal hernia.

This is the one kind of hernia that does not require surgery soon after discovery.  I have no idea what caused my hernia as none of the frequent causes made sense to me, but I still remember looking at the picture that the doctor took of my stomach skin in my esophagus.  For the next few years I paid close attention to what I ate, what exercise I did and the time of day, the kind of music I listened to, and my stress level.  All of these things could set my hernia off to a long, painful, pulse that knocked the energy out of me.  Most of the time I could monitor it before it got too bad, but a few times it took me out for 24 hours or more. 

I hated having to ask my friends to turn the bass down in their car so I could make it to the destination safely, or to step out of worship cause I couldn't handle the drum or the bass guitar.  During my summer jobs, I would sometimes need to rest away from the music or from the stresses, but if I could feel any vibration in my room (like from the lathe making a baseball bat next door), it was almost worse than pushing through.  It was worse when I was in Australia, having to bike 2km home at 3pm right before taking my next pill in my 3 a day sequence and I remember a few times that I had to just rest with a friend nearby in case it got worse.  Thankfully, even on the day I couldn't walk to the dining hall but had to cruise downhill I was still able to keep pushing on.  

Lately, I've been getting more frustrated with having the hernia and needing to so carefully watch everything I did.  I mean I ate most things still and it wasn't an obvious problem, but the mental energy it took to consider if I could do something was hard.  And as I joined InterVarsity, I've been in more places where the worship music is louder and more bassy so I hated having to step out.  I knew it wasn't going to go away in time and it would be around for my lifetime unless...

See I have a God who works miracles and many coworkers who believe in His power.  While I was at Orientation for New Staff with over 130 of my new coworkers, I finally hit my breaking point.  If I really trusted that God could heal why didn't I ask Him too.  Sure I had prayed to Him about it before, but I had never truly believed He could do it. And I was still trusting in my own strength, plus I did like being able to use it as a true reason to take a break from an exhausting job.  Again I was laying on my bed finishing up some time talking to God when I realized that it was time to move on from this controlling so much of my life.  I wanted the freedom to exercise whenever I wanted to, to worship with my coworkers and others in InterVarsity, and to eat without the fear of losing energy.  I knew that IV always provides a prayer room during conferences so I went up to meet with one of the guys in my small group up there.  It was going to take more than just me to pray for healing for this, but it was time. 

Three of us gathered together, with my hand over the hernia knot in my chest and their hands on my back.  We prayed passionately with trust that God could heal.  We prayed that He would chose to heal me so that I could better serve Him and not have this concern anymore.  As we prayed for the knot to be released I felt it moving around in my body.  It was such a strange feeling, but I knew God was working.  That day He healed my hernia and I had it confirmed by a doctor a few weeks later who angrily stated "I don't see anything here at all, who said you had a hernia."  

Today, as I relaxed on my couch I could be thankful that I did not have the pulsing state in my chest.  Yes I could feel my heart beat and yes the pounding of the roofer above my head still annoyed me and yes I still have stomach issues that limit my ability to eat everything.  But I learned that I can rejoice that my God is now in control of when I need to rest and my stress level, not part of my stomach where it doesn't belong.  I am free to worship Him without fear now.