On Faith & Asthma



There are just mornings I wake up feeling like a cloud, a beautiful cloud I'd rather think, is blocking up my lungs and particles of dusts, I'd like to imagine as bits of pieces that fell out of a rainbow, are temporarily floating up my wind pipes. I try to breathe often with optimism. But sometimes, I just fail to do so.

I'm twenty-three-- and just two years ago, I have been diagnosed with allergic-asthma due to uncontrolled allergic-rhinitis I have acquired since childhood. It used to be just sneezing here and there with an inconvenient stuffy nose. But for the past few years, I have been in a four-cornered hospital room quite more often. One afternoon in August, the specialist said my case has developed to asthma.

There are a couple of reasons why this became a good cause in my life;

One is realizing that, considering how much of a romantic I am, there is something more important than finding someone to fall in love with-- breathing.
After all, how can someone live and find love when she couldn't even breathe to start with. The significance of life has never hit me that hard.

Second is that I  have come to harmoniously acknowledge the fact that I need people to help me out. This was so much different from my college mantra of independence. But I learned. And it's freedom to accept the love that Jesus freely chose to give with my family and friends as the vessels.

Thirdly and most significantly, I have come to rely on FAITH.

It isn't an easy road. More than all, it's my faith that is being tested an overwhelming number of times. Say, when I'm in the hospital bed gasping for breath and everything else seems to fall apart, and when I get a handful of medications and strong 'nebule' doses which makes me palpitate, it becomes a huge effort to keep my faith on track. Health is vital in serving the Lord. It's even as crucial as for the need to pray and meditate.

That sounded really serious didn't it? But for the record I had funny moments too. One instance when I was in the height of praying, slain to the floor, I literally had to stop and quickly rise up because I couldn't breathe. I looked like a soldier straightening his body at the cue of "attention!". My stuffy nose does all sorts of inconvenience from headaches to dizziness. Several times after crying I feel like I'm in an airplane in the worst ear pressure situation possible.

With my respiratory conditions, I shouldn't cry. But that's exactly the irony. I'm a cry baby. Especially in worship and prayer.

There were a lot of instances when I had to refrain from the momentum of prayer, and most of the times back then, my heart would violently react against how the Lord allows that. As much as possible, I didn't really want to complain, but one day I finally confronted Jesus about it. And He smiled. Just like that. No further explanation needed. Because I couldn't help smiling back too. And instantly I knew.

I knew in my heart that those moments I had to stop praying were moments that weren't wasted. He didn't go away just because my verbal prayer stopped, it was the heart that must go on praying. I probably even touched His humor with my "soldier attention manoeuvre". As if in a flashback, He showed me a new way to look at it: My time with Him didn't stop when I had to refrain, He was still there, even closer-- He was holding me, keeping my lungs together.

So those were my questions about Asthma and why God would allow it to His servant. I always hear my mother preach about Paul's "thorn" and God's Grace in 2Corinthians 12.. and please bear to read this my dear readers, it is wonderful for our aching body and souls:

7b Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 
But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 
10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12:7b-10

I guess the verse explains itself. "Thorns" in our flesh are sometimes allowed by the Lord so we could grow in His Grace.

For my part, a lot of times I fail this. It's not because this entry is perky and lively that I've already passed the test and mastered the art of faith. No. It's even likely that I'm now writing this semi-inspirational, semi-testimonial blog because for most parts, I failed. For so many times during my asthma attacks and random illnesses, I have failed to utilize the Grace of God. Or if not, I have failed to utilize it at its full extent. I have even turned away from His grace at some point.

There were times I chose to mumble and be grumpy. I've pushed away the people who loves me, even intentionally gave them a hard time. There are reasons to believe that all the anxieties and mood swings are part of what the drugs do (after all, antihistamines are to rhinitis as sedatives are to cancer), but I'm certain that's not something the grace of God couldn't overcome.

So yes, by one wrong move to another, I have turned away from His grace, intimidated by this so called "lifetime sickness" which have just invaded my life. But I wish I haven't. I wish I have stayed faithful because He has. And every time the picture of Jesus himself steadying my lungs flashes before me, a pang of conscience races through. How could I turn away from something so beautiful. I've never seen such a magnificent healer working through the most impeccable ways. So really. How can I turn away from that. And how could something I turned away from still chase me.

Because if it wasn't for grace, I don't even know how I could be this motivated and transparent writing this today.
If it wasn't for grace, I wouldn't have the relief of having this matter settled in my mind, heart and soul today.
If it wasn't for grace, I wouldn't even be breathing.

But I still am, and this is my testimony. I thank the Lord for His love, for His mercy in forgiveness, and His abundant grace for giving me understanding about all this. I know in my spirit that for the coming days, I will do better. :)

We live in a world full of sickness and pain. But the more we go further in our journey of faith, we will come to realize that more than getting healed in the flesh, it's really all about inner healing. The world can go on throwing around all the ugly stuff, but it can't necessarily break our inner well-being.. The Cross already took care of that.

"...And by His wounds, we are healed." -Isaiah 53:5



Future HEALED patient from Asthma,
Tara Zamora





Image Source: Trisha Thompson Adams

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