I’ve struggled a lot recently. A LOT.
It’s been 5 years since I was diagnosed with cancer. I went into surgery 2 days later and then had chemotherapy after that, 3 days before Christmas. Oh what joy 🤒
Two weeks after chemo I left the house for the first time. Previously, I had been extremely fit, cycling a few miles every night across the Peak District. I swam frequently as well. I took it easy, walking to the end of my street and back, and then promptly fell asleep from exhaution, on the sofa for 2 hours…
I knew recovery would be slow, and getting back to my former level of fitness would be a gruelling slog. That didn’t worry me, I just had to keep going out and my body would do the rest. I’d suffered major injuries before from a motorbike accident, nearly losing a leg, and the ability to walk, and I’d made it back from that.
Except this time was different…
The tiredness I had felt after chemo did not go away. I was told it could take up to 2 years to fully recover from chemo. 2 years later, I was still suffering from fatigue, to the point I had to be careful not to fall asleep at my work desk(!) So, I went back to the Doctor’s. I was referred to different specialists and had a battery of blood tests and samples taken, but nothing out of place was found, and so, I was given the evergreen advice: eat well, exercise and proper sleep.
It was dissappointing to say the least. I feel years older before my time, and fatigue follows me round like a shadow. It’s a drag on my personality, it’s a drag on my relationships, it’s a drag on my mental health, it’s just a constant drag every day. I did my best. My wife makes sure I eat properly, I exercise moderately by walking instead of taking the car to the shop, and I nap to try and get enough sleep in a day when I can’t sleep at night.
And yet it got worse.
From November last year I started getting horrible aches in all my joints along with other symptoms. In desperation I rang the doctor again. Another battery of blood tests that told us nothing and so on, and then I spoke to a different doctor. After telling him all my current symptoms he told me I may have developed FMS, or Fibromyalgia Syndrome as it’s commonly known. Now I know people who have Fibromyalgia and they do NOT handle life well. To see that as my future, I was gutted.
So I turned to prayer.
I’m guessing some of you now think this is the point where the story turns around and becomes an amazing, motivational piece about how wonderful God is, and how he healed me and how my life is overflowing with blessings and joy. Well it isn’t. God is wonderful anyway, regardless, and he has blessed me, but not in the ways that I want. As is so often the case, God uses the situation we find ourselves in for good. The greater good, not necessarily our own personal “good”, or what we think is, or should be, that good for our own personal self.
Am I dying? No. Do I have a roof over my head? Yes. Do I have family and friends that love and care for me? Yes. I still have all these blessings, and sometimes, I take them for granted, especially when I miss the super fit healthy body, I used to have. The doctors can’t find what’s wrong, and I can’t fix it myself, so I decided all I could do is pray.
And that’s where God has chosen to bless me, by giving me a prayer life.
As a rational bloke, with a scientific background at degree level, and as someone who can service and fix his own, and often other peoples’ cars, I like to know how things work – this is also why I’m a music tech. Maybe this was why I never really felt I could get to grips with praying. I don’t really know how prayer works. We are told, commanded even, to pray, but there often doesn’t seem to be any direct correlation between prayer requests, and prayer results – for a creator God, this just seems to me to be unscientific and very unsatisfactory – and I really don’t like that because it simply doesn’t fit into my world view. However…
I do know prayer works. I have been prayed over and seen spectacular things happen in my life. I have prayed with others and seen spectacular answers to prayer in other people’s lives. Things that simply wouldn’t have happened without His intervention. Then sometimes I’ve prayed for other peoples’ desperate situations, expecting something miraculous, …and nothing. Nothing seems to happen. I am led to believe that prayer moves something in the Heavenly dimensions, and that it somehow aligns us with God’s will, and that the answer isn’t always the one we hoped for. I just don’t know the How or the Why. I guess I’m still looking at it as some sort of utility, or tool, and it’s neither, but the more I am “forced” to rely on God and prayer, the richer my internal spiritual life becomes.
And that’s the blessing.
Every day, as adults, we get older and slightly weaker. Time marches on regardless. One day, you find you can’t run quite as fast as you used to, or something happens to your health, and you have to step back and be more dependent on others to do stuff for you. The odd friend or relative here and there passes on, and it suddenly hits you, you have to lean on God more as well. Specifically for me, Fibromyalgia doesn’t currently have any “cure”. The symptoms can be managed so far, but I face the possibility of it never going away, and I don’t think it’s in God’s will for me to be healed of it anytime soon…
But Why??
Well, for starters, Prayer is not all about oneself. It is also about others. Prayer is a place where we can bring others before God, we can put others before ourselves and help carry their burdens too, calling on Yeshua’s name. I don’t need to be superfit to sit down and pray, and I don’t need to be in perfect health to help others, in fact, it gives me insight into the lives of other people who are not as fortunate as I am/was. Paul had his thorn in his side, maybe this is something similar? Maybe, as it appears, my prayer life is all the better for it, and more effective because of this blight? Although, part of me doesn’t feel like celebrating that any time soon, I suspect this may be the case, and that means I will need to learn to somehow give thanks for this “gift”, and how it is bringing me closer to God, in both my own pain and the pain and hurt of others.
And so I pray.
I pray when I really don’t feel like it, and I try and pray regularly throughout the day. I say quick prayers when I’m in the middle of something and remember someone else, and sometimes I sit down, put everything else aside and concentrate on just talking to God. And you know what? In my mental anguish at having to put up with FMS, or the physical pain that comes with it, I can take comfort in knowing that the great I AM is always there, and if I just reach out to him, he will respond.
The hardest part definitely is praying when I don’t feel like it – Praying when I’m low. Praying when I don’t feel worthy. Praying when I’ve let God down. Praying when I’m angry or upset. Praying when I’ve just said or done something really stupid or hurtful – but these are the times when we can draw closer to God, by bringing him into the worst parts of our lives, we draw most from his love.
As Jesus/Yeshua said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Praying, praying, praying, regardless of circumstances, seems to be a bit of an ongoing theme in the Bible…
“Pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
“Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:20)
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” (Phillipians 4:6)
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