Physically Stuck: Together

Every moment of long-term illness, is a moment spent alone...in your mind. Days go by with their opportunities, seconds, minutes, hours, leaving you stuck back behind even the starting line sometimes. It is only when you cannot move, that you see everyone else is, carelessly and carefree.

One after another in Matthew 8, Jesus instantly heals a leperous man, a Roman centurion's servant, and Peter's mother. In each instance the individuals are better equipped to serve, and leap to their feet to accomplish more specific actions of service post-healing than they were before He touched their lives. As I read that on Sunday, the sun warmed my skin as I leaned my back against a railing on the arched, wooden foot-bridge where I sat.

I shut my Bible, with my finger keeping my place, and squeezed my eyes shut. "Why, Lord? Why must I be sick for so long, when I just know I could serve you more if I were healed?" I swallowed hard and raised my free hand up, "Here I am. If I can be better used by You, healthy, then please, please make me better. I so desperately want to just get better, once and for all! But if I am the best servant to You in my current condition, then I will stay here...completely alone, and honestly...hurting so bad."

Sighing and opening my eyes, I flipped the book back open on my lap, catching back the pages from the breeze's grasp. I continued to read along, admiring the kindness, and wondering at the impossible schedule of my friend Jesus in His packed schedule that day. And then I read, "...Himself took our infirmities, and bear our sicknesses" (Matthew 8:17). That's when I shut the book.

Wait. What? He even feels your body's pains. He even takes on what we are physically enduring upon His own consciousness. How could He possibly care enough about me to do a thing like that?  Its unfathomable already to actually grasp His desire to cleanse our minds, spirits, and save us and all that of spiritual import. But He bothers to actually bear with you, your mere physical sicknesses! 

I stood to my feet and leaned against the rail, squinting back the sun and some guilty tears. "You didn't have to do that, You know." I half mumbled, stupified that I would begin to complain when He obviously knew all about it and feels it with me, to the last little detail. "In fact, how? I mean, why? Why are you so kind? You are here with me in this: the two of us. I'll never be sick and alone again." It just doesn't matter anymore to physically suffer: it's the least I can do patiently, if He is doing it with me voluntarily.

He's really the Best Friend you can't possibly begin to imagine. Whatever hurts you in this life, my friend, it is hurting on His clock, too.