"You need to pray harder." Is what I was instructed by an elderly lady who meant well as I was giving my prayer request about the pain I was experiencing. Another person in the group spoke, "You need to quit stressing," and then another one, "Rub Vicks on it."
I sat there thanking them for their input, but in the back of my mind, thinking, "I have been praying. I am not stressing about much." Then I even started to question, "Am I stressed?" Of course, for Hispanics, the remedy for everything is Vicks. "You have a cold? Vicks. Do you have a headache? Vicks. Is your stomach bothering you? Vicks. For this reason, I was aware that Vicks was not going to help the problem.
It has been going on for three years already, and by this time, the doctors have diagnosed the pain as Chronic except my Sports Medicine Doctor whose name is Dr. Chin. Dr. Chin insisted, "We can get this under control."
In the process, I have experienced agony. Hopelessness, frustration, fits of anger, despair, and friends who meant well, however, did not know how to handle the topic when I would mention my pain. Many would give the quietness that one gives when mentioning a past loved one. Others start to offer their experience of pain and how it was worse than yours.
However, though I have had my share of wrestling with God. I held on to, "God, you are Sovereign and you can heal me if you want." Of course, with my mind being more set on the I will be healed aspect.
It was then at a Father-Son Camp that I was already asking God to give me grace and teach me what to do with this pain. It dawned on me, "Why are you safely trying to walk to death?" Is it not the call that one must suffer for the sake of Christ?
With this new paradigm, I am now reading literature on Chronic pain and seeking to bring about awareness and hope for those who live in pain. Unfortunately, despite the advice to "Pray harder. Quit stressing or rub Vicks on it." I have come to ask if God is calling me to "Embrace it."
The call to embrace the negative is the call to discipleship that Jesus speaks about. Is it not? "So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:33).
We often worry about the pain our family will put us through for our walk with Jesus. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:26-27). Does it hurt to be betrayed and disowned by family? Yes. Should we seek to be at peace as long as it is with us? Of course. But do not place those relationships above Christ and compromise on the Word.
The call to discipleship is a call to:
- Denial of ourselves - meaning it is essential to finish this walk as you have started, which is 100 percent reliance on Jesus.
- Taking up our cross does not mean enduring a hardship. This is an expression of death and denial of self, that is, "Paul, quit prying for healing and pray for my will to be done."
- Daily discipleship is an everyday walk with Jesus in obedience.
"Joyful Christians have found satisfaction in whatever God gives them and are truly satisfied."
- B. Montgomery
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