Faith Archives - Page 2 of 3

Why you shouldn’t be like Jesus (Watchers, we are not Saviours)

Do you ever get discouraged because you can’t seem to do anything right? You can’t cheer up your Loved One, you can’t heal them, you can’t even be a ‘good’ Watcher?

You read blog posts and Bible passages about loving selflessly and encouraging others and being joyful – and you try, you really do, but you never quite succeed.

Everyone around you seems to be able to hold their life together and love others as well – and you lose your temper daily, are often discouraged, and sometimes wonder why you’re even here at all.

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3 places not to place your hope in during chronic illness (and one place you need to!)

In every day life, most of us depend on our health – for the future, for happiness, for security. When your health or the health of a loved one is ripped away because of chronic illness, it’s easy to be left despondent.

After that awful, sinking feeling of having the foundation of your life pulled out from underneath your feet, our natural response it often to quickly rebuild.

We hunt desperately for a new foundation, a new hope. But what will it be? Sometimes it’s easy to break our hope into little bits and place it in different baskets.

3 places not to place your hope in during chronic illness

ONE: Medical Intervention

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Why must we express our anger to God? (Book Review: A Sacred Sorrow)

“Lament” is an old fashioned word. I can often be more of a ‘let’s just move on’ sort of person myself. Yet the Bible teaches that there’s something sacred about our sorrow.

I’ve recently finished A Sacred Sorrow: reaching out to God in the lost language of Lament. This book by Michael Card was given to me by a friend after my mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

I must admit I thought I knew quite a bit about turning to God in the midst of sorrow, but this book helped clarify and stretch my understanding.

Most of all, it helped me understand why it’s important to cry out to God – even when I’d prefer just to ‘move on’.

If you want to an overview of the book, read on. If you want to skip to my assessment, scroll down!

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Celebrate Endings not Beginnings this New Year

Happy New Year!

It’s that time again.
The time when we celebrate new beginnings and new life.
Fresh starts and bright futures.

The New Year is a wonderfully invigorating time. It’s so empowering to be able to ‘reset’ your life, to hope anew, to re-make plans.

Yet as lovely as it is, sometimes we don’t have the emotional (or physical) energy to look forward. There are seasons where life has worn us down and we don’t dare envision a better year ahead.

In chronic illness, there is often no healing to look forward to. Only the hard reality that this is just going to get worse. Even in diseases which aren’t degenerative, times goes on, bodies get older, and circumstances get more difficult.

Perhaps this year you are in this camp. The ‘I find it hard to have hope’ camp. The ‘there are not going to be any brighter futures for me’ camp.

If this is the case, I’m not going to try and convince you that you’re wrong. That you should hardheadedly believe that ‘things WILL get better’.

Instead, I’m going to recommend that instead of celebrating Beginnings this New Year, you celebrate Endings.

Continue reading “Celebrate Endings not Beginnings this New Year”

Can I be a missionary if my family member is sick?

You have a family member who is sick. It’s a chronic illness, but you feel called to be a missionary overseas.

Such a calling is a blessing, but it raises a problem.

I’ve been gone a while, and in the next few months I would love to do a few blog posts on what my life looks like after my mum’s diagnosis, and what God’s teaching me. For now though:

Is it right to leave your chronically ill family member behind?

Or are you bound to your home country to serve them as long as they live?

These are hard questions. There are 4 areas we need to examine before we can make a decision:

1. Examine your ‘calling’ to be a missionary

Why do you want to go? It’s easy to be filled with a desire and hide behind the phrase ‘God is calling me’ – but are you sure He is?

Excitement?

Do you want to go overseas because it sounds more exciting than caring for your Loved One? Perhaps it seems like an escape or even a retreat!

Continue reading “Can I be a missionary if my family member is sick?”

Talking about suffering: When we miss our chance to have the conversation

I know I should talk about it,
I want to talk about it,
I planned to talk about it,
I prepared to talk about it…
But I missed my chance.
Am I a failure?

When we miss our chance to talk about illness

Why is there suffering? My friend asks. Does God care?

I open my mouth – but don’t reply.

Perhaps I was afraid. Perhaps I couldn’t find the words in time. Perhaps someone interrupts, or I misjudge the situation and think it would be best not to respond.

Has this ever been you?
If so, you know about the disappointment and guilt, when you later realise that you’ve missed your chance to speak truth with love.

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Prayer, chronic illness & healing (Part 1)

Prayer. Healing. Chronic Illness.
These are tricky topics, and ones I’ve struggled with quite a bit. In these two posts you will find my thoughts… and why prayer has often seemed like a simple ‘wish’ when really it’s more like a magic wand.

Prayer, chronic illness & healing

{POST 1}

Prayer + Chronic illness = ? (Or, why we need to make up our minds about prayer)

When I was little I used to search the chip packet for wish chips.

Chips in general were rare, and those double folded chips were even rarer. When you ate them you were meant to make a wish. Like wish bones in chickens and blowing out birthday candles.

Every time I crunched a wish chip, I wished for the same thing… read more

{POST 2}

Why we should pray for healing in chronic illness (and 3 reasons it is so hard)

If a wizard doesn’t have a wand, we begin to doubt whether he truly is a wizard. If he has one, and doesn’t use it… well that’s just silly! …
Often my prayers for my Mum’s healing seem repetitive.

They exhaust me.

I don’t feel like dragging sickness into my prayer life… read more.

{HAPPY CHRISTMAS}

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Sickness and Jesus’ response

We can talk on and on about how we ought to respond to our chronically sick Loved Ones.

We can outline what the Right Thing to do is, or make lists of What Not To Do.

But in the end, if we claim Jesus as our Saviour and role model, the only thing that really matters is how He responded.

Like father, like son.

Like Saviour, like saved.

Being a Christian is copying Jesus.

But Jesus is impossible to copy!

When we think about Jesus’ response to the sick, we think immediately of his miraculous healings – and then we give up.

In case you haven’t realised … we can’t heal.

Of course we can implement medicine or relief strategies, but we can’t wave our hands and miraculously banish sickness.

If only.

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Can Jesus really sympathise?

“Jesus knows what you’re going through.”

The Bible tells us that Jesus as a High Priest can sympathise with all of our sufferings. That He knows what it is to be human.

I have often rebelled against that.

Was Mary sick with an incurable disease? Was Joseph? Did one of Jesus’ brothers or sisters suffer from epilepsy or depression or MS?

If not, then how can He possibly know what it’s like to be a Watcher?

How can He possibly sympathise with me?
Continue reading “Can Jesus really sympathise?”

Jesus prayed, I prayed, and neither of us were answered: how to pray for healing

When I sit down to pray for my sick loved one, I want to pray for healing.
That’s natural.
And yet I know that immediate physical healing is not always in God’s plan. Are there other specific things I should be praying about then?
Or ought I simply add a disclaimer, like “may your Will be done”?

I’ve written about prayer in Why we need to make up our minds about prayer and Why we should pray for healing from chronic illness.

I’ve asked whether the Bible promises to answer prayer in Why praying for healing is tricky.

Now it’s time to answer the question: what should we pray?

To answer this, I think it’s helpful to look at how Jesus prayed.

Contents

Jesus prayed contradictory prayers

Jesus prayed huge prayers

I have prayed prayers that were not answered and others that were (God healed my sister but not my mum)

This is why I keep praying

Continue reading “Jesus prayed, I prayed, and neither of us were answered: how to pray for healing”