My New Walk
Oct 10, 2021 | by The Fellowship
Shortly after giving birth to our son, I got diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, an Inflammatory Bowel Disease that causes ulcerations in the lining of the colon. This leads to severe pain, blood in stool, diarrhea, fever, malnourishment, and about 15 restroom trips a day. I had learned to manage it for the most part, but its ugly head rears when things get really stressful!
When my father suffered severe stroke two-and-a-half years ago, I basically moved to Texas overnight to care for him. This was a huge stressor and life change for my family – so, of course, my Colitis flared up. Recently, my father passed away and my Colitis flared again. Within two days of his passing, I started seeing blood in my stool and having really bad cramps to the point where I could not speak or stand during them. I pushed through the two-week trip for his “celebrations of life” back east. When I returned home, symptoms got pretty bad.
My GI doctor put me on Prednisone, a strong steroid which normally calms things down immediately. After a few days, all I saw were things getting worse and knew from past experience that hospitalization was needed to get stabilized. However, due to the surge from the Delta Variant of Covid, the hospital turned me away! I did not know how much longer I could bear the pain and symptoms of this flare.
At the point of desperation, I turned to a book a friend had recommended a long time ago about the spiritual underpinnings of disease. I also reached out for prayer by a trusted elder in our church.
Reading that book was life-changing! It talked about how the onset of all disease is separation from God, yourself, and others. The beginning of being healed from disease starts with making peace with God and accepting His love once and for all -- as well as accepting yourself and accepting others. It opened my eyes to all the bitterness, burdens, anger, resentment, guilt, fear, and anxiety I had been holding onto since my father’s stroke. It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, and I could not keep my head above water. This had separated me from the love of God.
I released everything to God! Realizing that even though I may have thought I was relying on God during the traumatic times, holding onto the negative emotions put me in a position that said, “I do not trust You, God.” We can see in the work of Jesus that it was faith in the Father that led to His healings and miracles. If we do not trust God with everything, we do not have faith that triumphs. The insights I gained led to a shift in my relationship with God -- and a shift in my Colitis. I felt such a release, like a burden was lifted! My health began to get better and better every day!
I am now in remission! My new walk of enjoying God’s presence and releasing stressors, anxieties, fears, and burdens to Him daily continues as I trust in him. I realize that there have been so many times throughout my journey with Ulcerative Colitis that I looked to special diets, doctors, or supplements to heal me! But in fact, I had the Ultimate Healer near me the whole time, just waiting for me to turn to Him and truly trust Him with all the circumstances of my life.
S. Y.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him …
Psalm 28:7