Can good come out of suffering?
This guest blog by author friend Lori Ann Wood is a beautiful description of how suffering and faith can be closely intertwined.
A picture hangs on a wall near my writing desk. It captures my husband and I laughing together, holding hands, mostly carefree. It is pre-illness and though I love it, it hurts a bit.
Because I am a different person now.
And I never wanted to be THAT person.
The New Me I Didn’t Want
I never wanted to be the one who always has to have special treatment, special food, and special concessions.
I never wanted to be high maintenance. All my life I just wanted to be part of the mainstream— unburdened and unburdensome. And most of my life, I was. But then God had another path for me. It started with a sudden, end-stage heart failure diagnosis when I visited my family doctor with what I assumed was the flu. I was immediately hospitalized with my heart functioning at just 6%.
I’ve always been a doubting believer. Always questioning, wondering, a bit skeptical in fact. Still, an at-the-core disciple of this God I’d heard about all my life. But when I was diagnosed with heart failure—a chronic progressive disease—my faith took a nosedive.
I didn’t actually believe prayers would help me, even though I solicited them. I asked to be anointed, just in case. Then I dug into medical research and survivor tips. I changed my diet. I did everything I could to make that big bad boy go away. But heart failure is still around after nearly nine years. Strange thing is, so am I, despite my doctors’ prognosis. Even more amazingly, my faith is still hanging in there, too.
How Chronic Illness Came Alongside My Faith
Several surgeries, procedures, devices, and medications later, this ongoing disease continues to reveal truths to me I couldn’t have seen as a healthy person. And I’ve been able to step out in ways I wouldn’t have in a safer life.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered, without consciously realizing it, that chronic illness and faith have a lot in common. They could be really close friends. In my case, you could say they’ve become BFFs. Here’s what they base that camaraderie on:
- They both have experienced that the next day (even the next hour) is unknown. From the time I wore the external defibrillator vest until I was implanted with an internal one, I knew I could be shocked off my feet at any moment. I was determined to not succumb to the anxiety disorder medical professionals warned me about. For the first time in my life, I stopped trying to figure out every detail about my future. And that helped me release control in my Christian walk as well.
- They both rely on someone who has a bigger picture knowledge. I had never felt more helpless than after I was diagnosed. I had no risk factors, no family history. Nothing other than sodium intake to change about my lifestyle. I had no choice but to rely on fallible, human doctors I had never met. Somehow this made it easier to grasp the idea of relying on an omniscient God I had known all my life.
- They both know that some days you just don’t want to be in the club. A few weeks after my diagnosis, I started cardiac rehab. Right away, I realized everyone else in the class were my parents’ age—or older. Classmates kept asking me what I was doing there, and I wondered myself. Then one day we talked about ejection fractions. I thumbed through the check-in sheets and noticed that my EF was much, much lower than anyone else’s in class. At that moment, I realized I did belong. Not long after that, I forced myself to show up at church, despite not being able to convey good news. I wanted to tell my fellow Christians that God was healing me, but it didn’t seem that He was. I wanted to tell them that their prayers were being answered, but it didn’t seem that they were. I felt unlike the believing type that surrounded me. Once again, I felt alone in the middle of people just like me. It was soon after this that I started writing about my faith questions and heard from so many readers who had similar experiences.
- They both have discovered that there has to be more than this. The daily burden of chronic illness and the daily burden of living on this side of Eternity have both given me a conviction that there is so much more than this. That God-shaped hole in our hearts can never be filled here. I am grateful for the ways my deteriorating body highlighted my eternal soul.
- They both have shifted focus from the insignificant and the petty. Once you grasp the reality of chronic illness, your life becomes concentrated on something much bigger. You let go of issues and worries that don’t carry much significance. Fully embracing faith does the same thing.
- They both highlight limitations this side of Eternity. Medical science can only go to the end of its knowledge chain. Faith is not meant to rescue us from every ailment, either. To be in this world is to have precious little control over our lives. Faith cannot cure a body from being human, and we should stop expecting it to. Faith is made to point us to a bigger outcome, a better future, and a brighter hope.
If you’ve found yourself on a path you didn’t choose, you are not alone. My detour was chronic illness, but yours may be divorce, loss of a child, bankruptcy, loss of a dream. These unwanted routes often cause us to come face to face with tough faith questions. My community welcomes and encourages such questions. You can join by requesting my most popular resource, “5 Prayers & Promises When You Can’t Talk to God.” If you’d like to take a sneak peek at my book, Divine Detour: The Path You’d Never Choose Can Lead to the Faith You’ve Always Wanted, you’ll find a link to read the first chapter free, as well as a book trailer, on my books page. And if you’re more of a listener, you can even pick up the audiobook here. You can also message me on my website. However you choose to reach out, my greatest hope is to connect with you and walk alongside you on your sometimes-bumpy faith journey.
Book available on Amazon in Kindle format, paperback, hard cover, and audiobook
Companion Journal also available on Amazon
Lori Ann’s Biography
Lori Ann Wood lives with her husband in an empty nest in beautiful Bentonville, Arkansas. Having discovered a serious heart condition almost too late, Lori Ann writes and speaks to encourage deep faith questions along the detours of life.
She has been awarded the Frederick Buechner Narrative Essay Award, and awards from the Evangelical Press Association as well as from Colorado Christian Writers. Her work has been published in several anthologies and numerous print and online venues, including The New York Times, The Christian Century Magazine, Just Between Us Magazine, Bella Grace Magazine, Truly Magazine, and Pepperdine University Press.
Lori Ann’s first book, Divine Detour: The Path You’d Never Choose Can Lead to the Faith You’ve Always Wanted, was recently published by CrossRiver Media. It quickly became #1 New Release on Amazon in Christian Spiritual Growth and in Personal Growth & Christianity. The book has won eight international book awards.
Where to Find Lori Ann Wood
Website: https://loriannwood.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClsYrW5KIUqMBVvRxzNZG5Q
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loriannwood/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/DivinelyDetoured
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@loriannwood
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lori_ann_wood
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