the unexpected good
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Videos
  • Contact
a blog for Christian women about

discovering joy

in the challenges of singleness,
marriage, motherhood, chronic illness,
​and every day faith

The Story Behind My Prayer LIfe

4/24/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
This is Chapter 8 in "Discovering Joy," a devotion-style coronavirus self-isolation diary that I'm posting chapter by chapter on Wattpad. Enjoy!

​[We] never get around to praying. Why? Because we don't think prayer makes much difference.
​- Paul E. Miller in A Praying Life


​In 2017, I was in my first year of marriage to my incredible husband Paul. I say "incredible" because, not only does he model Christ-like love and understanding in the daily ups and downs, but he has also weathered some really rough things with me since our marriage began.
Within two months of our wedding, I got mono, which (prior to COVID-19) I would have described as the worst and longest flu you can imagine. For two weeks, Paul did everything for me because I was helplessly sick, with throat glands so swollen that just swallowing my own spit made me cry out in pain and shed tears. (I was blessed, by the way. Most people who get mono spend months in recovery.) All those newlywed expressions of delight in one another were unromantically swept aside in favor of midnight vomit-cleaning, the constant stink of feverish sweat, and my need to have Paul help me with the least little thing. We learned to pray together, not out of joyous bursts of spirituality, but out of physical and emotional exhaustion.

The mono virus at last retreated, but it triggered something worse in its wake: a mysterious condition that it would take eight specialists and a year to eventually diagnose as a Functional Neurological Disorder, sometimes called conversion disorder. I developed increasingly violent convulsive episodes. A fifteen minute episode could take me a day to recover from, and when I had multiple episodes in a day--well, I didn't get much done. These episodes were increasingly followed by periods of partial or full paralysis, during which I could only communicate with Paul by blinking--once for "yes," twice for "no." And then there was the pain, so intense that if Paul so much as put his arm around me, my whole body seized. Given my uncertain medical future, my employer and I agreed to separate. This was around the same time that I became so ill, Paul began to fear I might never recover and I lost almost all memory of two full weeks.
​
And yet, when I started to seize for the third time at night and Paul roused himself from sleep to hold me through the episode, he kept whispering, "If this is given to us for no other reason than to pray, then it's worth it."
Picture
You might think that that would be a moment I wanted to slap him. But I never did. His grief for me was so deep and his helplessness so real. He was made to be my protector, but the best he could do was bring my need to our Father and petition for my recovery. For the believer, there is a confidence in the midst of deep trial, a confidence that prizes spiritual treasure over physical relief. If Paul and I had to suffer this condition together--me in body and he in spirit--then we dared not miss the glimpses of God that we might see within it. So we spent those long nights in prayer, interspersed by the soft singing of worship songs and the unpredictable convulsions of my body.


When we finally had a name for my condition--Functional Neurological Disorder or (the older term) conversion disorder--there were still many unanswered questions. What caused it? Anything from an undiagnosed autoimmune or neurological condition to a severe PTSD response to past trauma. Would I ever be cured of it? Uncertain. What was the long-term prognosis? Impossible to know. Were there any medications that could help? Unknown. Could we have children safely? Who could say?
​

We were driven to prayer like shipwrecked sailors upon wreckage. The medical community was doing their best to help, but they weren't the God who had made my body. Only He could give us these answers and we had to keep praying until we learned what we needed to know.
Picture
Some of the answers came slowly, like the ability to manage my condition solely through lifestyle choices, no medication. Bit by bit, I learned how to read the signs of my body and respond preemptively to my triggers.


Some of the answers came all at once, like the day when Paul and I realized that, for both of us, the fear of childbearing was gone. We were able to move forward with planning pregnancy, despite the unknown risks to my health. This did not mean that we stopped praying. If anything, we prayed more fervently. As I type this, I'm 32 weeks pregnant with our precious, much-prayed-for daughter, and my disorder has been of very little concern through this whole experience. I'm in awe of God's provision of health to me and our little one.


This is a long introduction to my prayer life, but I wanted to share it because it highlights three important realities.
​

First, God answers prayer. It's not a "Well, I hope maybe God will listen." It's the petition of a child to a loving Father who, in His wisdom, knows exactly what answer and what timing is most beneficial to His child. 

​No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11)

Secondly, we often do not pray until we have a pressing need or a consuming desire at the forefront of our minds. It is therefore God's kindness that He permits desperate times in the lives of His children, so that we don't live in our deceptively complacent little bubbles, in which we can handle whatever comes along and don't need Dad's help. Because He knows that fullness of joy and protection are impossible without close communion with Him, He shakes us out of our spiritual apathy into an acknowledgement of our continual and foundational need for Him. 

​I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Picture
Third, we are very poor learners. As soon as the initial danger is past or the fear subsides, we go right back to our self-sufficient lifestyles. We might ride on the spiritual high for a little while, convincing ourselves that this time, the lessons will stick, but we almost always slide back into our default mode of making our relationship with the Lord a mundane discipline, rather than the pursuit and passion of our souls. We become Christ's housekeeper and not His bride.

You would think that, after all that drama in the first year of our marriage, Paul and I would be experts in prayer.

I wish.

But the reality is that we revert to the exact same default setting that Adam and Eve chose in the garden--trusting our own judgment and taking action on our own, without fully acknowledging the authority and the relational intimacy of our Father.

That is why, even though the Lord has used our physical struggles to prompt us to pray, He has also used other means to force us into communion with Him.

Like this virus.

The coronavirus has injected new urgency into the necessity of prayer. People are dying. People are losing their livelihoods. People are losing the ability to care for their families. People are struggling with depression and anxiety. People are trapped in abusive situations. People are in conflict with one another over the wisest way to respond to the virus. We need the Lord's intervention desperately.
​
Now is the time to learn how to pray.
Picture
Stay tuned for the next chapter, in which I talk about the things I've learned about prayer over the last few years.

Like this post? Subscribe to the email list!

* indicates required
2 Comments
Matthew Wheeler
4/19/2021 10:34:32 am

About a year ago, after substantial research, I began to regularly ingest 4-12 garlic capsules a day(cheap from Walmart). At the time, i had endured many months of meningitis and encephalitis, bad sleep disturbances, and other signs of chronic Lyme having invaded my brain and spine, and everything else. Relief began within a month of starting the garlic.
I strongly recommend that you try garlic capsules, at least three caps at a time, three times a day. Much research indicates broad anti biotic, anti fungal, anti viral, anti parasite actions with an excellent safety profile.
If no results after six weeks try another brand. Its a cheap experiment that may revolutionize your health.
I have had Much better results for my Lyme than from prescription anti biotics.

Reply
Carlos Parker link
10/17/2022 04:05:44 am

Understand area everything center. My deal push shoulder.
Training rich cold follow bill. Newspaper plant maybe street although. Expect agreement home even group deep.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

      Never miss a post.

    Subscribe to Email List
    Picture

    Meet Yaasha

    None of my life has gone the way it was "supposed to go," but I don't love my life any less because of the hardships and new directions. I see so much unexpected good in it, and I want others to see the good in theirs.

    Learn more about me here.


    Picture

    Archives

    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013


    Categories

    All
    Adoption
    Bible Verse
    Book Excerpt
    Book Excerpts
    Christian Community
    Chronic Illness
    Courtship
    Dating
    Depression
    Discovering Joy
    Evangelism
    Excellent Relationships
    Faith
    Family Relationships
    Fearless
    Forgiveness
    God And Christianity
    Godly Womanhood
    How We See Ourselves
    Identity
    Incredible Journey
    Joy
    Life Direction
    Marriage
    Ministry
    Miscarriage
    Motherhood
    Our Story
    Overcoming Sin
    Persecution
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Pro-life
    Ready For Him Today
    Relationship With God
    Service To Others
    Singleness
    Spiritual Growth
    Suffering
    Womanhood

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Videos
  • Contact