The Tapestry of Healing

I spent approximately seven months trying to find a doctor who would believe something was wrong with me. It took ten more months for me to no longer be questioned by the medical community, and still over another year to convince the federal government that I was sick enough to be disabled. After almost three years of fighting for my health, I was finally free to rest, recover, and heal.

Except I couldn’t. Not fully at least. You spend almost three years trying to convince the world that something is wrong and see how easy it is to stop.

My mind had become used to a constant repeat, reciting my story over and over again in my head, planning what I would tell every doctor, lawyer, secretary, and judge who entered my life: “I was perfectly fine for 25 years till that one rare incident that led to this rare condition and so on…”

I was not only trying to convince the doctors; I was trying to convince myself. Initially, I didn’t believe I could really be that sick. Surely, I could just take some medicine, resolve the issue, and get back to my life.

Eventually, even I had to believe life would never be the same – yet, at the same time, I had to believe it would. Because I had to have faith.

On the physical side, I was sick. But on the spiritual side, God had promised healing. So I had to use worldly wisdom for one and unwavering faith of the other – and I had to convince myself of both.

So while trying to make my invisible illness seen by others (and myself), I had to do everything I could to make it get better… all while filling out disability paperwork… all while walking in faith that I was already healed. It was maddening.

From a Broken Brain to a Broken Mind

I should have never had to justify anything to anyone. It was as if I had brainwashed myself, as if I had no idea who I really was or what I even wanted.

I thought that my disability getting approved would end the constant mental battle, but the story never stopped playing. “Am I really that sick? Do I even deserve this? Am I just milking the system? What if they take it away?”

Three years of telling my story over and over in my head so that I could make it clear enough to others. Three years of holding my ground that I had a sickness worth fighting for. And then at last, my disability was approved… for three years.

Intracranial Hypertension is a fairly unknown condition. You could get better or you could get worse. I suppose they felt three years was a sufficient amount of time to see if anything would improve.

I was fine with this decision though because I had every expectation of being better by then.

Three years goes by quicker than you would think.

Under Review

My disability is currently under review as I write this.

So how did it go?

Of course, over these past three years, I did my best to learn this condition, pay attention to any triggers, and find ways to balance and manage on my own. I learned healing wasn’t always immediate or linear, but that was OK because I had time to figure it out. People were praying, and I knew what God could do.

How do I feel now?

Torn. Because truth is, I still don’t know.

Am I still disabled? Or am I healed? Because I do have some wonderful days, but I also still have days where I am very much limited by my body.

Am I where I was when I first applied for disability? Definitely not. But the opposite of bedridden isn’t necessarily a normal life.

So these days, like most of the past three years, I ask myself, “If I was working, would I have called in sick today? Would I have left early or would I have tried to push through and medicate through the pain? Are some medications even legal to take on the job? Could I honestly go back to work right now? What is stopping me?”

After five years of this condition, I feel I have learned how to mostly manage the pain and fluctuations of pressure. But how much of that is thanks to having the opportunity to manage them from the comforts of my own home? Or could I maintain this same protocol with an employer? Am I even ready to drive again after this many years?

Needless to say, I have a lot of questions. But I have recently learned that the main one isn’t whether or not I am disabled or healed. The main question is: Have I created an identity in being sick?

Have I spent so much time trying to defend the reality of my sickness that I never realized how attached I had become?

Letting Go

I recently heard a pastor say, “What God saved you from is not more important than what God saved you for.”

That can be very difficult to believe when you feel as if your whole testimony and purpose was based off of one incident from your past, especially when nothing seems as if it could compare to facing death and hell itself. How could there possibly be more than what I have already been through? Do I dare to even find out?

If I was questioning these things, then perhaps for me, it was never a matter of being sick or healed. Perhaps, it was all a matter of changing my way of thinking, of letting go.

You would think letting go would be the easy part. Who would want to remain sick? But chronic illness is just as much mental as it is physical. I had spent so much time trying to heal my brain that I never even thought about the healing my mind needed.

I spent three years trying to convince the world I was sick, all while trying to get better, all while standing on the promise I was healed – so much time trying to prove and defend my disability, yet now I was expected to let it all go?

I had even tried to take that plunge into complete healing… only to end up having surgery again. I had tried to stop all of my medication as a leap of faith… only to end up back on it. Hadn’t I tried to let go before?

How could I be healed if I was still hurting? How could I be disabled if I was still participating in so many things?

It seems I was everything yet nothing all at once, all in and all out. Yet regardless of which side of the fence I was on, nothing was ever black or white. No clear answers. Just twists and turns and combinations of all sorts of complexities.

So what am I? Who am I?

His Masterpiece

My answer came one stormy, summer evening in the middle of a small group class. In one word, God made it all make sense:

Tapestry – defined by Oxford Languages as an intricate or complex combination of things or sequence of events.

God wasn’t just defining my life. He was calling me His tapestry. His workmanship and handiwork. His masterpiece.

I am not composed of one thread, one label, or one purpose. My identity is not in a disability or in being sick. It is not even in being a healthy, healed person. It is in Him and the beautiful masterpiece He can create through me.

I had come into such an agreement with being sick that I had started to believe I could only be used by God if I was sick. My broken body was His vessel to use. My suffering was my purpose.

But while God can and will use all of those things for His glory and our growth, God never intended for that to be my life. God created me for so much more, to be continually woven and renewed by Him till I am complete and whole in His Heavenly kingdom, like a tapestry.

He does not desire for any of us to have a broken body. What He desires is a broken spirit (Psalm 51:17), one that He can repair and fill till we are made perfect. And this can be attained regardless of our physical health.

My Prayer

So this is me letting go, trusting what I don’t see, and saying, “God, Your will be done. Me being healed does not cancel out all I have been through, and me being sick does not cancel out who You are. I can still serve You regardless of what I feel, and Your hope can continue to live through all parts of my journey.

I don’t know what is next, but You do. You’ve brought me this far, and You can carry me further. You know best.

My healing may not have been an instant miracle, but I’ve seen Your miracles nonetheless. Only a few years ago, I saw no future – yet,  here I am. And no matter which direction the tapestry takes, no matter how I may feel, You are still God, and You are still good.”

 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” – Psalms 139:13-16