Faith Makes Me Well

This has been a particularly bad week for me physically. Because of this, I have had a particularly bad week emotionally. Despite the fact that I had a night of sheer delight and fun cruising New Orleans with my wife in an unexpected trip for CPE day at Notre Dame Seminary, I have not felt well. The fact that I have not felt well is really starting to get to me. I have now been on Remicade for going on four weeks and I have really seen no real results. I find myself lying alot recently about how I'm feeling. Including myself at times. I just want SO badly to feel better. Plus, it gets people off the topic for awhile. The reality though is that I'm still struggling though I am still going.

"Your faith has made you well."

I'm really searching this meaning for me. It certainly is not if I have faith in Jesus Christ, I will be cured of my Chrohn's Disease. I think it does mean that there is something about this relationship with God through Christ that offers us a space for healing. Christ offers me something that provides healing for the whole self. But, I have responsibility in this as well. There is alot I cannot change, like my disease, but there is a lot I can, like my choices in turning toward God in faith. The reality is that I haven't seen my dependence in Grace as something to be desired, but something from which to run. I have sought my own way, I have sought too often independence from God. It is the sin of pride as I understand that. The sin of not seeing myself in the proper perspective in relationship to God and others. Faith would make me well, regardless of my condition, if only I could trust. Trusting in God's grace is a process I am living in at the moment. I am beginning to understand ways in which I do trust and ways in which I do not. In other words, to accept in God's grace where I am while at the same time move toward a new way of relating beyond where I am today.

I often get caught in black/white thinking here. I understand that. I will try not to fall into that this go round. Just for the moment. The Kingdom of God may be at hand, but there are ways that I live in community with the faithful, and ways I do not. Probably always will. But my spiritual life at the moment is on the cusp of an awakening of sorts. This process, this intersection of my illness with my process is a powerful opportunity for me. My forty days so to speak in the wildnerness.

We will see where God leads me, and where I will follow.