Are you of The Princess Bride generation? I remember my high school friends and I would watch it over and over and over again. A cult classic! I can't count how many times we have quoted "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" My kids were raised on this quirky movie.
There was something so attractive that the young farm boy would come for his love, no matter the cost earnestly looking into her eyes and saying "as you wish" which meant "I love you." Yet each adventure is lined with adversity. Each victory is after a desperate struggle - in my life and maybe even yours. We want adventure, victory, and joy without the pain, the hardship, the cost. And yet, one does not happen without the other.
My struggle, my hardship, my cross to bear, is that out of nowhere, I am broadsided by an intensive health crisis that has no name, has no cause that we are aware of. I can go from traveling the world, speaking and inspiring hundreds of people, to laying out flat on the bed unable to speak. Sometimes accompanied by so much pain I hope for heaven to come quickly. It is a journey that has lasted for many years, over a decade. I am teased with health, and strength, working out at the gym for hours at a time, and event leading events & groups of people confidently, with deep and complex solutions to many problems that came across my desk. And then at other times, I can't even talk without a stutter and feel like a 3rd grader. This from the girl whose greatest fear was to appear incompetent is now desperately so, with this unknown neurological demon that has tormented my body with what mirrors strokes and hundreds of Transient Ischemic Attacks - TIAS and seizures. Kind of like when the main characters in The Princess Bride are traveling through the Fire Swamp and out of nowhere different kinds of attacks jump out at them/you/me and 1/2 the time they don't know what is happening to them/you/me, but somehow, they/you/me survive.
And yet, in the midst of the dark parts of this journey of life, there is a victory that has been won this time around. This time around, (there have been about 5 times this has illness has happened to me lasting for weeks, months or years depending...) this time... I am not afraid. I am not sad. I am not discouraged. Not at all. My joy is made full in Christ. It's an unexplainable joy, confidence in God and hope. That if I must suffer, I will suffer well. If I must wait, I will wait patiently. If I must lose all the ground I have gained, all the milestones I have achieved, I freely and humbly offer all my crowns to the feet of Jesus. If I can do nothing, if I can say nothing, if I can achieve nothing, I am still pleasing to God, He loves me. I harbor no resentment. No confusion. No "why me." No, that is not my jam. My heart is to fully offer all that I am, functioning high or low, fast or slow, to Jesus, my savior and soon coming King of my life.
Back to The Princess Bride. There is this scene that is not my favorite, in fact, I think it is the saddest scene in the movie. The one where the farm boy turned pirate is captured and held underground at an undisclosed location called "the pit of despair" hooked up to a torture device that sucks the years out of his life.
I can relate to this. The years of my life spent in bed, or in a chair looking out the window in a hazy fog of mental nothingness, the years of my children growing up around me while I lay on the sofa barely unable to move, again, with no diagnosis really, no cause, therefore no treatment besides green juices, gluten-free and dairy-free diets, vitamins and prayer. Years of my life have been sucked away due to illness. More than I want to count. And now, as I lay in bed once again, watching the day turn into night, and then again and again and again day night, day night, day night.... as I look out the window not able to think, talk... Now leaning into week 11 of being incapacitated (actually upon posting this blog I found today - we are in month 7), I could be sad. As sad as the young farmboy in The Princess Bride was after suffering pain and loss and then even what seemed to be his time of death in the movie after the torture was just too much to bear, and he cried. I cry as well sometimes.... but honestly, just like Jesus rises from the dead, even death has no power over me. For when that day comes, I will also rise, rise into my new healthy spiritual body, free from sickness, free from pain, and be truly physically free to match my spirit and my heart that already is so.
At one point in the movie, the young farmboy turned pirate fights with such determination, that he shouts death first! Meaning he will die fighting; fighting for his Love. And I will do the same. I will fight until the end to return to health, fulfill my call on this earth to preach, to teach, to mentor, to love, to help, to advise, to guide, to start, to build, to plant. As long as I am here, which in "God time" is like a breath, I will use what mental capacity I have, what strength I have, to love Jesus, my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, my church, and every person and situation He has placed before me with all of my might. Death first! Even unto death, I will fight to stand, and to stand strong in the power of His might, that no weapon formed against me would prosper and that the healing that is in His wings would wrap around my body and set me free.
Maybe now, maybe here, maybe not. But regardless of what happens, I am thankful that I am growing in the fruit of the Spirit that no one wants to have, that no one prays for, that no one covets. It is called "LONG-SUFFERING." It looks different for each of us. To some, it may be a marriage that has found its way into a dark place, for others it may be a job that you despise. For another, it may be a person in your family who acts badly toward you continually, for years and years. For me, it's this health crisis that causes my whole life to be set on hold once again. Regardless, like the old hymn, "It is Well with My Soul" and I know that my "healing will quickly appear" in God's timing. Until then, I am thankful for each moment, each small victory, and how my story will bring Jesus glory over and over again.
Forever Thankful for your prayers,
Tracy,
His bride.
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