I was talking to a friend recently who has some of the same
conditions I do. She was telling me how proud she is of the fact that no one
where she goes to church knows she is sick. She has a power wheelchair that she
doesn’t use, (even though she needs it) because she says people look at you
differently, badly.
Most of us grew up hearing that we could accomplish anything if
we try hard enough, overcome any obstacle with our sweat equity. We need to
pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. If we just try hard enough….
Then along comes something we can’t change and can’t fix. We are
willing to do whatever we can to not feel this way anymore, to feel and be more
productive, healthier. Most of the doctors I’ve worked with have been great.
But there are those who seem to feel the need to punish those of us who just
“won’t” get better.
It’s hard not to give into the shame, the guilt of being sick
with a an chronic illness that no one knows how to cure or its cause. The loss
of control is very frightening. Knowing that we have medical conditions that we
can’t change is enough to make the toughest of us tremble. We try harder, we
get sicker, and end up tripping over those darned bootstraps! Not trying hard
enough?!
I refuse to buy it.
I know who I am.
I know what my conditions have done to me. I know what I have
done to try to manage my medical conditions.
I know the before and after.
There may be times God may work with us through adversity,
sometimes our adversity is caused by others behavior or our own.
Sometimes, it is simply our circumstance. We live in a mortal
world. People get sick, people may stay sick, get well or pass on. These are
simply the circumstances of our lives. It just Is. What in that is there to be
ashamed of?
If God is working with us, that must mean he thinks we can
become even better than we already are. The good news is that regardless of the
nature of our adversity (all adversity), the nature of God can see us through
all things, including the misplaced feelings of guilt or shame we may feel
about our health.
There is nothing to feel guilty about because medicine may not
have caught up with what we need to be cured. I was talking to a doctor once
and commented on the fact that there is no test for Chronic Fatigue. She said,
“Oh there’s a test for it. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
We may not have all of the answers Right Now, but that doesn’t
mean they don’t exist. Where is the shame in that?
