And Now, we wait.
This pic was taken the last time I was home for this long, after one of the dozens of doctors appointments I had that summer waiting to be healed.
It was the summer of 2013. I had just graduated Biola University with my degree in Journalism & Public Relations and was fielding job offers in Los Angeles. I had been feeling tired for months prior to getting officially sick — pulling over on the side of the freeway to close my eyes for two minutes on my way to work, drinking up to 10 caffeinated teas a day, taking tons of Vitamin B, and napping in my car on my lunch break. I was convinced I was just tired.
(True Story: At some point during this season, I drove by myself from Northern California back to Southern California and was so tired that I pulled over 4 times to take naps at truck stops on the 5… I told my family I was taking my time and shopping so they wouldn’t worry. Sorry, Mom & Dad, I legit should have known something was wrong with me at that point.)
That August, a few girlfriends and I decided to drive up to Northern California to surprise my two sisters for the weekend. I was so tired that I slept almost the whole 6 hours. During that trip, I came down with a bizarre viral infection that gave me severe chronic fatigue, brain fog and vertigo. What started as an ER trip with my parents became months of doctors visits, specialist visits and months of sleeping and waiting.
I couldn’t stay awake longer than 30 minutes at a time and I was sensitive to lights and sounds. I developed crazy anxiety and couldn’t drive for almost two years. I got sick in August 2013, bought a car that I could barely drive and actually gave it to my sister for a few months in March of 2015. On March 26, 2015, my rheumatologist diagnosed me with fibromyalgia and told me the trauma I had experienced was a crazy fibro flare. That season left me scarred and terrified of living. I was convinced that doing things I normally had done had caused the flare — like taking Vitamin B, sitting in the sun, and eating gluten-free donuts. I’m not kidding, I was a mess.
Y’all, I’d be lying if I said that this new normal, this COVID-19, shelter at home situation isn’t oddly familiar and somewhat triggering, but as I reflect back on that season, I am so thankful for the tools I developed in my three months of bed rest, waiting and the two years of modified living that followed. I’ve never felt closer to God than in those three months, something I’ve been praying to experience again without the pain and anxiety. And now I get that season back, the time to do what I couldn’t do then, where I am fully awake and able to open my Bible and read, actually able to listen to worship and sermons without them making me dizzy.
You see, in that season I was crying all day every day, grieving the loss of a healthy body. I was supposed to be living in Los Angeles, working, I had just graduated. There were things I was supposed to do. Instead, I was living with my parents, barely able to stay awake, had lost my appetite, couldn’t work, and couldn’t drive. I didn’t want to be left alone, I needed someone around me because I was afraid if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t be able to wake up. I had no control over when my body decided it needed to sleep. There were actually nights I was so terrified, I, at 20 years old, slept in the bed with my parents, convinced I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.
Because noise was triggering for me, there were only two things that I could hear without experiencing bizarre reactions: the 6 hour BBC version of Pride & Prejudice playing on the television while I slept or a sermon.
I’ve written about this before, but there was one sermon I listened to over and over and over again during those months, “But What About Your Heart” by Ricky Jenkins. It’s literally saved in my phone as “best sermon ever”. No lie, if God hadn’t given that sermon to Pastor Ricky, I don’t know if I would be saved. Whenever I became anxious, I would play this sermon. I would fall asleep to this sermon. Wake up listening to this sermon. Y’all I would have it playing all day, every day.
Ricky preached on Genesis 45:1-15 when Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Egypt as the second in command after they had sold him into slavery and all the years he spent waiting in captivity. In the sermon, there is a line that he says over and over again that renders so much comfort. He says, “Coincidence? I don’t think so. Nothing just happens. If God wants to, God certainly can deliver anyone out of anything.”
There was no coincidence that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and he landed in Egypt. God knew that a famine was coming to Israel and he allowed Joseph to go through hardship in order to prepare Egypt to become the nation that would have the resources to provide for Joseph’s family.
Pastor Ricky goes on to highlight story after story of deliverance in the Bible, the moments when God’s people may have thought that He had left them, the stories of their trials, the waiting, and the celebration of their deliverances. Friends, these are not coincidences. Every one of those stories is a set up for a miraculous work of God.
I used to listen to this sermon as a reminder when I was having a physically painful day, but in this season I am listening to it with expectation. Y’all, I never thought I would say this, but today I am SO thankful for my season of bed rest and waiting. Had I not been in that season, then I would not know how to handle today. You see, in that season God allowed everything to be taken away from me: my home, my car, my job, physical health. You name it, it was gone. I learned then how important He was and needed to be because God was all I had. Very similar to this season now.
I just came off of a crazy busy season of teaching at USC, working on one of the projects I am most proud of in my professional career, and finishing a master’s. I just started applying to full-time jobs and I’m supposed to be walking across a stage in May, but yet again, I am home, waiting. However, I see this season differently. I understand that everything I have and comes from God. While I thought my season of bedrest in 2013 was just meant to bring me pain, it was actually rooted in purpose.
The bedrest season of 2013 prepared me for the shelter in place season of 2020.
In the months and years that have followed the bedrest season of 2013, I have been so in awe of God and the things He has allowed me to do in spite of my physical circumstances and my own lack of belief in His promises. It’s because of his faithfulness through 2013, that I am believing that God can do anything in this shelter-in-place season of 2020.
Every day there is a conscious decision not to worry about the future whether that be about my career, finances, or health. But instead, I am saying out loud this season, it’s not a coincidence, “if God wants to, God certainly can deliver anyone, out of anything.”
And now, we wait. We wait to see how He moves next.