darkness is as light with you

Last week, a trusted friend told me that he does not believe God authored my disease. Immediately upon hearing this my heart became tense. God's presence in all things has formed the basis of my faith for as far back as I can remember. I grew up in a beautiful church where we were not afraid to admit there is pain in the world or claim the original cause as our own depravity. At some point, I heard that God used suffering to bring us closer to him - to get our attention. And not only used, but caused. Authored. But I am staring to wonder if that's the God that loved us before the foundation of the world - the God that is coming in four days to save us. I think at some point I misunderstood.

Maybe my disease was caused by a wrinkle in my timeline a few generations back, a blip that went unnoticed and grew silently over time, undiscovered. Years later, it surfaced in my body and when it did it grieved the Lord. He knew it was coming but he didn't author it. He didn't select me to hurt in this way to strengthen me, or bring souls to Himself, or show His glory by the way I react to pain. I think this view makes Him no less sovereign.

My friend's comment has bothered me all week but not in the way I expected. It is bringing everything to light. I think a while back my theology veered off track. I leaned half a degree off course and now, a couple years later, I'm a thousand miles away. Alone in a desert that is dry and hot and without shelter and the Lord isn't here. My misdirection started because I was afraid of creating a God in my own image - a God that hates disease as much as I do. The fear of getting Him wrong left me with a God that is hard and without compassion. A God that tells me to suck it up, to get my shit together, to stop crying. A God in whom I can't confide. But I know the real God rescues.

If God did not author the pain, it changes everything. It changes the depth at which I am free to grieve. It releases gratitude in my heart without having to reason it into release. It alters the way I see my medication, from a sign of human brokenness to a sign of God's mercy.

I fight off a constant wave of shame each day when I take my medicine - specifically my pain medication. I feel like a failure. Like I should be able to improve my health in a more sustainable way - yoga, diets, holistic medicine. Pain meds don't require anything from me and as the dose creeps up over time I get scared that I am too reliant, or that somehow a part of me is being lost in them. But today, when I considered that God may not have caused this illness the shame over the drugs suddenly flipped into joy and gratitude. The medication became a mercy that He set apart for me as an avenue for joy and peace. This isa profound  compassion I had not been able to understand before now.

I thought that when a fundamental belief is questioned everything around it shakes and breaks down; Faith becomes brittle and we lose our sense of self. But nothing broke. Instead, mysteries have started sorting out and a weight has lifted from my soul. Something inside is healing. Light is outweighing darkness. Maybe this life is not as treacherously long as it feels.

Whether I ever figure out God's role in sickness or not, there is hope today in the thought that I have so much more to learn about love and mercy. And lately hope has been hard to come by.