'Saved and Sick'

Chrissy's very, very proud Mom sent this to me in an email this morning. I wish you could know Chrissy before and after. She has always been a Child of God and had no problem expressing that fact to others. She was a loud and crazy, sometimes stubborn teenager. But the Chrissy I see now is a very mature woman with deep thoughts and deeper values. As I read this article that was printed in Christian Century Magazine in Chicago I smiled, laughed, and of course cried. Chrissy you amaze me! And I, like you parents, am so very, very proud of you in so many ways!


September 27, 2009
James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50
“Saved and Sick”
Christine R. Bartholomew
Youth Minister at First Baptist Church of Oak Park, IL
136 Elgin Ave.
Forest Park, IL 60130

“The prayers of faith will save the sick.” —James 5:15a
The Lord taught me how to pray when I became sick. The Lord changed my faith in my sickness. The Lord gave me a present faith in my time of need. The Lord gave me the certainty of being saved through pain.
I can still remember the sad, soul sick prayer I made when I realized that my hair was falling out from chemotherapy treatment. I held myself up against the wall and sobbed, “This is too much.”
The silence answered, “Where does my strength come from?”
I responded, “From the Lord, but this is still too much.”
Now the Lord heard my prayer, but he did not make my hair grow back or take the lupus from my DNA. The Lord heard my prayer and saved me. What is it to be “saved” when you are sick?
The Lord saved me in my time of sickness and need. He sent me friends and family who did all they could. The Lord also saved me with laughter. Laughter is a gift. It is the uncontrollable spasm of air and noise that heals and cures so many intangible things. The Lord heard my prayers. The Lord heard my laughter.
During one of my infusions I got in a little bit of trouble with one of my nurses due to all my laughter. I found the best way to do chemo was to come armed. I was armed with my faith, friends, and delightful distractions. I always felt love and hope with my friends gathered around me, and I forgot about the poison that was being pumped into me. The jokes my friends told I have forgotten, but the feeling of laughter and peace I had I will never be able to forget.
One day during a treatment we were laughing a little too hard, and a nurse came storming over to us and said, “Shhh! There are sick people here!”
Without skipping a beat, with my bald head and I.V. sticking out of my arm I asked, “Then what am I?”
She had no response for that, but I know what I am. I am a child of God. I am loved and saved through Christ. The Holy Spirit moves through me and was in every hospital room I was in. The Spirit was in that room as we laughed. My friends’ laughter turned into the prayers of the faithful. I am not a sick person for faithful people have prayed over me. I am not a sick person because I can still laugh. I am saved. I am saved from my fear of death through the death of Christ.
Even now, one year after my successful completion of chemo, I still carry a dormant disease within my body. I have had to develop my own theology of sickness. What happens to our bodies we must reconcile with God. It becomes part of you and your understanding of God. My God loves me and does not want me to be in pain, but he uses all things to his glory and will use my weaknesses.
I know my God can do anything, but I find myself staying away from healing services. It is not that I am averse to people praying over my healing. I have had many people lay their hands of healing on me and talk with our Lord. I have even had literal anointing oil put on my head. But I do stay away from the charismatic services that call for people to get out of their wheelchairs and walk. I stay away from places where people would be tempted to ask the Lord to take the lupus out of my body. I stay away from those services because I fear that there they cannot see that I am already saved. I do not want them to be disappointed and doubt our God if my lupus attacks my body again. I am saved even if a lifelong disease like lupus stays in my body. God is still to be glorified if I am sick. God is still the great creator. God is still good. They sometimes cannot see that God works in spite of this body. It is through this broken vessel that he demands I be formed for his purposes.
Sometimes He uses our weaknesses as a way of refining us and bringing about change that makes us able to walk a little closer with him. “For everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49). It is through the fire of pain and suffering that we gain our depth, our flavor, our salt. Through all the pain I have suffered, I got the gift of God’s undeniable presence. His Spirit clearly walked into rooms, sat beside my bedside, and held my hand. I was changed. The change that God brings is to refine us. To burn away all the things of this world that get between us and God.
I have a favorite wild flower that grows in the hills of the Appalachians. It is called Queen Ann’s Lace. It has a beautiful big white blossom with a small red dot directly in the center of it. The rare thing about this flower is that it cannot blossom unless it gets infested with bugs. It cannot become all that the Lord created it to be unless it allows the bugs to enter it and coerce the blossom to open. We are like Queen Ann’s Lace. We cannot become all that God has planned for us to be if we do not allow the bugs to come in and help change us. God uses the bugs in our life to help us blossom.
God is constantly refining us with fire. Your fire might be that of conflict, persecution, or sacrifice. It is these things that happen in our lives that change us and draw us closer to God. This is a work of sanctification, not salvation. We walk into heaven suffering, limp, and lame from the battle that was earth. But we walk tall, for we know that we have been saved.