When you're vehemently living
In the Winter of 2013, I traveled from New Hampshire to Haiti with a small team of... strangers. I was a new graduate, a new Christian, and a new face at that church. Unfortunately for me, the first impression I was about to make would be memorable in the worst way.
The evening that our plane touched down on Haitian soil, in the close quarters of the guest house that we were to share, I was overtaken by a forceful fever, and an inconsolably upset stomach. I locked myself in our single bathroom and commenced a marathon of painful vomiting, diarrhea, sobbing and gasping for breath.
The knocks of these barely-made acquaintances on the bathroom door began right away. "Emilyyyyy?? Are you ok in there?"
If it had been in my power to answer with any words at all, I would have surely lied: "I'm fine!"
But I could not manage to breathe even a word, between refilling my lungs with oxygen and the toilet with bile. It was taking every ounce of my strength just to hold my damp body up, hands and knees on the tile floor. When I did find a moment of respite, instead of answering my teammates, I used it to beg God for death.
Though I hear how overly dramatic that request may sound, I can still go back to that exact moment, and remember exactly why I felt that way-- why giving in was so tempting. I vividly remember weighing the discomfort of pressing on in living-- magnified by the embarrassment of facing my new teammates in my frailty and filth-- against the ease of "falling asleep", and waking up in a world without sickness or sweat. I found the choice simple enough. I asked for death.
The knocking on the door persisted. "Emily. Open the door."
I laid there, waiting for the Lord to rescue me out of this misery and shame. I tried hiding for so long, that I honestly can't remember whether I finally buckled and opened the door, or whether they broke it down. When my teammates came to me, their voices were attentive and gentle. There was a cool cloth being pressed to my forehead, and there was a circle of women praying together at my bedside. "Jesus, restore her."
I can not remember a time ever before or since that day that I was so worn out from groaning. That is, until this year's battle against the rabies virus.
My musings in the post, "When You're Casually Dying" spring from the idea that it's helpful, when facing death, to feel cool about it. That viewing death as simply a pause/shift in the good work you're up to can actually be a source of motivation to 'keep on keeping on' until that "last" moment comes. And I do feel cool about that. Perhaps too much so!
These past months of fighting against so many unsettling, unknown symptoms, I've felt as though I've had a standing appointment with death in my bedroom every midnight hour. In those isolating, powerless moments, I have had to make a choice. Wrestle against death, or give in to it. Prefer death, lying down as I once did on a bathroom floor in Haiti, or gird my will, and stand up, unyielding against it.
Though I had asked God many times to "just heal me", he had chosen to let me sweat and struggle, for months on end. And unlike in Haiti, now I wasn't physically surrounded by a team of prayerful Christians, contending and believing for restoration and life. In China, I was alone.
If God was going to heal me in the end, Why didn't he answer my prayer to heal me quickly?
I believe it was because he was teaching me to fight for my own life. To desire the fulfilled potential of my time on Earth. And to prove where I needed to adjust my "que sera, sera" attitude. That philosophy had its merits, and its time and place, but it also had a potential danger: my worst nature could use the comfort of God's sovereignty, not to bolster faith, but to justify laziness, and half-hearted participation in God's plans.
"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Psalm 90:12
Shouldn’t it have been obvious to me that God’s desire is to protect and uphold life?
The Tree of Life, whose roots twist deep in the soil of Eden, was planted for us. And God has gone to great lengths to make sure that we will attain that Life- in spite of ourselves! It was a privilege of mine to be able to view death "casually", from the perspective that new life for humanity is secured. But God has never viewed death in a casual way. Death grieved him from the very first, and grieves him still.
“Therefore, Strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”
Hebrews 12:12
I've been learning to pray life over myself now, like it's a holy obligation. And I've been attending to the cries of my ailing body... doing whatever little thing I can do to make sure I stay sharp in the fight. When unceasing tingling in my limbs had me worried for my circulation, I grimaced through obedient bites of raw ginger as one of my daily medicines. I took pains to get outside and run, whenever my ship docked anywhere with level ground. I didn't hide behind a bathroom door, pretending to be fine this time. I asked every Christian I could find in China to pray for me. (A powerfully faithful bunch!) And from a distance, every American one too.
And when things seemed exceedingly bleak one day, when my whole right half went numb for hours; from my right toes, up to my right cheek, I imposed on my Chinese colleagues to take me to the hospital for a CT scan. I was afraid that the numbness might be the warning for an impending stroke, and, unlike when the dog had bit me and I had taken my sweet time to seek care, I wanted to get ahead of the threat this time.
(The hospital visit didn't provide any clues as to my condition-- but it did yield a couple valuable benefits. One, the doctors could at least confirm that there was no blood clot in my brain. So, no impending stroke! Huzzah! And Two, I got to keep this artsy printout from my CT scan. Unique Wall Art for the low, low price of USD $29. I promptly gifted it to my Mother.)
I've had to recognize that it is the sin in me that is all too happy to casually die, and effectively 'clock out' of my work day early. But God isn't nearly as laissez faire about it. He desires that I should learn to vehemently live.
Though he could have answered my prayer for healing quickly, he delayed. And in so doing, he shook me awake to participation, in craving every morsel of life the way he does. Yes, he wanted to heal me, but more than that, he wanted me to Want to be healed.
“Do not go gentle into that good night..... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. “
Dylan Thomas
Though God can accomplish every one of his good purposes without us, the most startling and wonderful thing is, he doesn't wish to! He prepared good works for us in advance, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10) To a certain degree, I think God even wants us to have a little bit of FOMO at the idea of not getting to walk in all of them.
"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
Hebrews 12:1
Let’s prize our invitation to be those runners. Even when some of the miles may have to be run through tears, fears, and unknown territories. However much the running of them may make us want to throw up…. or actually throw up. And no matter who sees us in the worst of our messy and matted humanity.
In fact, let them see. Maybe some of those onlooking strangers will rise to the occasion and tend to us in our weakest moments, becoming as dear as family, and providing enduring strength for the roads ahead, as my team members in Haiti did for me. Or maybe the vomit on our shirts, and the beads of sweat on our foreheads will radiate from us like badges of honor- to help cheer others on to stay the course as well. We won’t be counted out so easily. We’ve got good works still to walk in. We’ve got a lot of living left to do.
