The other day I was feeling exceptionally weak. I complained to my husband that I could’t see how this, whatever is going on inside my body, could be of any use to God. I complained that I was feeling too sick and too tired to be of much use to God. My husband just looked at me and said, “you put too much confidence in what the flesh can do.” I had to think about that one. Not sure if it relates well with your post Amadeus, but wanted to share it with you. You are such kind blessing here, and I am sure to many others in your life.
My wife has really been accident prone and sickly since I met her back in 1971. She was always cutting herself or breaking a bone or allergic to something or just sick with whatever bug was going around but it was usually something we were able to handle. Around 1990 she moved into a severe chronic asthma.
I learned to be ready during any night to get up quickly and take her to the emergency room. Doing that often cut a big chunk of time out of my sleeping. I would go to work in the morning at times with little or no sleep. That was especially difficult when it would happen a couple times of more per week. When her asthma was very bad during one year we visited the ER more than 100 times. [Eventually our doctor began making house calls to treat her asthma attacks, which helped a lot until his own troubles made it necessary for him to move out of state. He said it was safer for him to visit us than for us to go to the ER or his office. No other doctors would do that.]
I, on the other hand, hardly ever got sick and I have never in my life broken a bone. But, when I got over tired which her frequently nightly episodes caused me to do I would end up getting sick and having to take sick time off from my job, which got me into serious trouble at work. We really needed the Lord's help in order to cope with it. We needed understanding and patience
Finally we learned from the Lord that the trials were not just for her or for me, but for those other brothers and sisters where we attended church services who complained that she had too many problems. She was sick all of the time. They were quick to criticize and tell her directly or me on her behalf that she needed to have more faith. Their own lack of charity was never mentioned by anyone. We were always praying for God to help and He did, but not by eliminating the sicknesses... at least not while I was still working. I retired early in the year 2000.
As we worked together and prayed about it, God taught us to accept the situation and even as Paul had to endure his thorn in the flesh. I loved my wife, but her problems really pressed me hard. She was concerned more about me than herself because I would often had long workdays with almost no rest. God did not heal her, but He gave both of us the patience and understanding that was needed.
As for those who complained against her in the church we learned to trust God alone and forget the opinions of men. Our trust was to be in God. He was the one we needed to please and He understood better than any of us the reason why she had so many physical problems.
Now that I no longer have to go work on a job where my own rest would be involved she has few emergencies in the middle of the night or if she does she is usually able to let me sleep until morning. Her asthma has been stabilized. Give God the glory!
Did we put too much trust in the flesh... that is in the doctors or in the medicine during that period? At times maybe we did, but God was with us in it as well. Our marriage is stronger and we are both closer to God than ever before. There are more important considerations than physical health. I really believe that there was no physical healing because we had some other things to learn. We did. As an extra blessing, she has not had an asthma attack now in several years.
I hope that this has helped you to understand where these things can go. God has been with us through it all even though for many years we both suffered because of her disabled condition. We must trust God whether we receive what we think we need or not. He really is on our side.
