When Your Body Becomes Your Enemy

I leaned against the bathroom wall to brace myself as the room began to tilt and a rush of heat coursed through my veins. My legs turned to jello as my heart beat with chaotic rhythm, and the mirror across from me reflected a ghostly look upon my face. I could feel a blackout descending upon me as I fought against it with every ounce of my being. But my resolve was no match for the autonomic dysfunction overwhelming my system. My body was betraying me once again. I sunk to the ground as my daughter and those around me looked on with sudden concern. 

As I hit the floor with a half-conscious thud, I temporarily staved off a complete blackout—at least for the moment. I pleaded with the Lord under my breath. “Please, God. Please get me through this without needing to be wheeled out on a stretcher. Please don’t let this rob my daughter of a night out with her mom.” Fear, embarrassment, and panic gripped me, but I forced a smile and assured the ladies around me that I was going to be okay (trying to convince myself as well). 

By God’s grace, I was able to stabilize enough that my daughter could help me trudge one weak leg in front of the other until we reached our seats. I sat in the Air Force Gymnastics gym with my daughter and “mind over mattered” myself through the night, minute by minute, breath by breath. 

These sudden episodes, which affect every major system in my body, have been a relatively new symptom for me. As it continues to intensify, each time leaves me wondering if this day will be my last. It’s as torturous as it is terrifying. And since that night, I continue to pray my way through, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, as I endure the daily torment of this hijacked frame I live within—one that so often seems unfit for this world. 

I know I’m not alone in facing such a difficult daily battle. Severe chronic illness is an all-too common and complex mystery that the brightest minds struggle to understand, let alone treat with success. In fact, it’s the very efforts to treat the numerous infections and immune diseases within me that have sent me into an uncontrollable tailspin. I often say, “it’s a toss up whether the disease or the attempt to treat it will kill me first.” The verdict is still out.

But along the way, I’ve learned that there’s a deeper, non-physical struggle that can arise for those of us who endure severe chronic illness. It’s the battle of living in fear of your own body—traumatized by the pain and agony that can be triggered at any given moment. You aren’t just afraid of the very real threats in the world around you, you live in constant fear of the pain and uncertainty within the very frame you’re housed. Frequent, reoccurring pain hard-wires your brain to expect it around every corner. You fear it because you’ve come to expect it. You expect it because fear tells you it’s coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Despair tells you it will never end. 

Even more, it’s a mostly invisible battle. 

While others pour out their energy and focus in pursuit of desired outcomes, you pour out the little energy you have to simply get out of bed to fight another day. Decisions are not merely a “yes” or “no”, they are intermingled with the evaluative cost and toll such actions will take on your already-depleted being.

I often describe it like this: day in and day out, you stand before a mountain to climb, but as many others begin to scale the mountain of the day with various degrees of strength and speed, you look down and see your hands and feet are tied with invisible string. You have the same mountain of choices, to-do lists, and desires as those around you, but you must do so with limitations and handicaps that no one can see but you. It’s defeating, demoralizing, and discouraging. But you smile through it anyway, even as others look on and wonder why you can’t get your act together. 

This is life in a broken frame. A frame that often feels like my enemy, and reminds me on a daily basis that this isn’t my home. 

And yet, as much as I’ve been tempted to despise the earthly tent I’ve been housed in, it’s also brought me to a new level of dependence and trust in the One who designed it. I am keenly aware at any given moment that I cannot control the nerves that fire within me, the mast cells that react violently to the very nutrients God designed for my healing, the neurotransmitters that dysregulate my brain and distort reality, or the microscopic organisms waging an invisible war within me. 

All I can do is control my response to what I can’t control. And so, like a helpless, anxious child, I either succumb to the crushing weight of fear and pain, or I bring my fears, weary heart, and hurting body to the One who holds every breath and heartbeat in his sovereign hand. And all I can muster up in those moments is to ask him to sustain and carry me through what I cannot endure in my own strength. 

When the fears loom large and the pain looms larger, God is the only one who can put either in their proper place. 

Fight the Lies of Fear

Lately, however, as I’ve faced new degrees of physical suffering as I go to war against the diseases within me, I’ve realized just how important it is to fight the battles within the mind as well. 

Can you relate? Do you have thoughts and fears that have created well-worn paths within your mind when pain is chronic and unceasing?

• “Don’t look forward to that special day or event. You know you’ll end up sick and in pain anyway. Expect the worst and you won’t be quite as disappointed when it happens.” 
• “This will never end. What’s the point of continuing to pray for relief if God hasn’t answered that prayer after so many months/years of praying?”
• “This body is my enemy. It isn’t good, and it will only ever be a source of pain and suffering.” 
• “The limitations I face make me nothing more than an inconvenience and burden to those around me.” 
• “Sickness and pain have robbed me of all value, worth, and purpose.”
• “I could do so much more for the Lord if I were healthy and strong.”
• “It is impossible for me to thrive in this life. The most I can hope for is to merely survive it.” 

These thoughts often stem from past experiences that have been cemented in our mind as future guarantees. If it’s proven true before, it will likely prove true again, we presume. Of course, all of these thoughts are based off of what we feel and perceive in the moment, void of God’s sovereignty and goodness. 

That’s why it’s crucial that we don’t get trapped in these through patterns, but rehearse what God says is true to create new, hope-filled paths in our hearts and minds. 

For example, although it doesn’t always feel like it, the body you and I have been given, and all its intricate designs, is good, beautiful, and masterfully created. God designed it to work in perfect harmony, often able to heal itself when given the tools to do so. But the curse of sin in this world has corrupted and broken God’s good design. We aren’t to despise God’s creation, we’re to despise the sin that has corrupted his perfect creation. Pain is a palpable reminder of how wretched sin and its consequences really are. And yet, the presence and peace of Christ in our pain are also a palpable reminder of what he’s saved us from for an eternity. 

Therefore, when we’re faced with the afflictions of a sin-cursed frame, we must lift our eyes to the One who came to redeem and restore all things. We pray for God’s healing because he has promised to bring it, whether that be physical healing in our lifetime or physically sustaining us until full healing comes in eternity. Either way, while we wait for that full redemption, we can come to know Jesus’s comfort and presence in a way we never would have apart from these afflictions. In the words of Robert Hawker: 

“Lord, my Redeemer, grant me frequent visits, and sweet messages of your grace. And if your wise and kind providence, sickness, or, or affliction are appointed me, stay by me, Lord. Keep my heart in sweet recollection of you. That way, in the multitude of my heart’s sorrows, your comforts may refresh my soul. Amen.” 

His comforts refresh our soul by rehearsing them to ourselves over and over when our bodies and minds scream otherwise. Lately, Psalm 23 has been on repeat as I try to coax my nervous system into submission. 

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Unlike some of life’s sorrows and pain, you cannot escape the frame you are housed within. You cannot distract, numb, or run from the afflictions and dysfunctions that wreak havoc within your own heart, lungs, nerves, muscles, brain, and blood. There is no physical escape. There is no vacation from it. And rarely is there an easy answer or solution. It is, however, where we learn how truly dependent we are on the One who sustains our very breath and holds our days in his hands. He alone can give us true rest. He alone can restore our soul. He alone can bring goodness out of brokenness. 

What a painful privilege it is to walk with Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death—even when that shadow of death is experienced in your own body on a daily basis.

Because this place of desperation for our most basic need of survival and endurance teaches us to run to God with child-like faith, dependent on our Father to carry us one moment at a time. Literally, one breath and moment at a time.

Are you there now—battling your own God-given body as if it’s your enemy? Are you battling the endless thoughts of fear and despair? 

If so, I see you. Even more, God sees you. Like a Father embraces and carries his fearful or hurting child, God will carry you through every moment of pain until the day he says, “enough, no more.” He says to you as he said to the Israelites when they faced a threat before them,

“The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.” Deuteronomy 1:30-32.

Speak those words back to the fear of endless pain that threatens you today. 

When your body fails you, Jesus will not. When fear grips you, Jesus offers the peace of his sovereignty. When pain debilitates you, Jesus meets you with the strength to endure. When the brokenness of this world takes up residence within you, Jesus promises to redeem what’s been broken. And when you long to be free from this body of death, remember: wholeness and healing are coming. And when they do, you will experience greater heights of joy and gratitude because of the depths of pain and sorrow you have endured. 

Today, let your pain drive your aching body and racing thoughts to the steady arms of Christ. You will find his presence all the sweeter in contrast to the bitterness of pain. 

Home is around the corner, 

Sarah 

To pre-order Sarah’s most recent book, co-authored with Kristen Wetherell (co-authors of the best-selling book, Hope When It Hurts), you can do so here: Jesus Will Meet You There. To read more of Sarah’s writings, check out Hope When It Hurts, He Gives More Grace (motherhood), Tears and Tossings (evangelistic), or Together Through the Storms(marriage). Lastly, Sarah’s Pilgrim’s Progress inspired children’s book based on the account of the Prodigal Son, titled “The Long Road Home” (Crossway).