I Just Want To Help!” When People Comment On Your Illness
We may find ourselves shocked to find out just how much we are the on the prayers of loved ones who are a part of our inner circle. They may actually be concerned about us more than we realize in regard to our health. So when they say hurtful things we are left wondering about their intent.
We can do our best to rise above the hurt feelings we experience set us back emotionally. We see that we need to and recognize the concern in their hearts.
There are times, the “wounds from a friend can be trusted”, as it says in Proverbs 27:6. This is due to the fact that the things they have said are completely communicated out of ignorance. The people we are counting on to support us are grasping to say whatever it is that will get across their concern. It, however, just come out in a way that sometimes ends up being taken all wrong.
It was 1993 when I received a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis my life changed rapidly. Those individuals at my church body and people at work felt no reluctance in telling me their their thoughts about my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis –which I was without a doubt not old enough to have–in their ‘expert’ opinion.
As a 24-year-old young woman, living over a thousand miles away from the place I grew up, the decisions I was forced into making about the treatment choices felt serious and overwhelming. I meticulously poured through brochures and paperwork researching medications, therapies and alternative treatments.
I consulted more doctors, like rheumatologists. I compared different medications and their instant side effects, with the delayed outcomes of deciding not to use certain drugs.
The mixed up advice from people who had never even heard of my chronic condition felt like a personal attack on my level of common sense. I know that may sound as though I was too sensitive, however. . . that is how it felt. My emotional side thought “The nerve!’
All things considered, of those who simply made ignorant statements, it is those that were opinions about the genuineness of my faith that hurt the most.
Have you once had what Proverbs 18:2 says is a friend who “finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions”?
When I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, seeking advice from people who had traveled this unexpected road, I read the inspirational autobiographies of Christians who who had endured physically suffering, Joni Eareckson Tada and Dave Dravecky.
They have, and continue to hear, the same sort of comments and even insults, that I was told. I gripped onto the oath that the Lord was the only one who really saw my heart.
If people I did not know were able to tell these leaders in the ministry of suffering about how they came up short in having enough faith to be completely be given the gift of healing, what caused me to imagine that I was exempt from similar criticisms and skepticism? If for a moment you are wondering if something is not right with you since people suggest that you are deficient in faith to be healed, know what? You are not alone.
I’ve also heard some rather derogatory remarks, and it is always an emotional choice to simply smile and say, “I appreciate your concern, but I do not necessarily agree.”
Many times it feels as though everyone who is well, desires me to be in a ministry for those who are healed or a ministry that focuses on how to “get people healed” by discovering a secret formula that they believe God uses.
Personally, I just don’t have a passion for a ministry that focuses solely on healing. Many of those already are available. And I would be thrilled to wake up tomorrow and find I was healed, but the zeal that God has called my heart to is a ministry where people are today– usually, still sick. I want to meet each individual wherever they are before they have experienced a healing. I want to be a part of in the ministry that stands by them if healing doesn’t comes on this side of heaven.
Through the Christian nonprofit I started in 1996, Rest Ministries, for people who live with chronic illness I have been blessed to have the opportunity to exhibit and speak to many audiences, including those on pastoral staff and hospital visitation teams, as well as those living with chronic pain. At every event, however, I am at risk of hearing, “If you had enough faith you would experience healing.”
Often people observe the table of our resources and books and then exclaim, “This is wonderful, but you should try ‘fill-in-the-blank-alternative-treatment-here,’ and then God would heal you, and then that could be your new ministry!”
In some strange way, though I continue to get furious with my disease, I am just beginning to grasp the verse 1 Peter 4:13 about considering it “pure joy to suffer for Christ.” If this results in the fact that I will have to “walk the walk” (or someday wheel?), then I will do so.
And I am not alone in this regard. You may find many people with chronic illnesses claim that though they are not especially “happy” about their limitations they have found that life is filled with deeper friendships and meaning due to the suffering they have experienced.
Yes. . . I hate pain! And I become exhausted of dealing with it. God does give us grace and endurance to survive another 24 hours. He also gave the Israelites manna so they could hang in there one more day, solely depending on Him. I admit, as the Israelites, I have my frustrations when I want to whine, “Father, I can’t deal with one more day of the manna!”
One will find, however, that as she grows closer to the Lord the things people say will become less important and they will slide off of us much easier than we once believed. Though it can feel like people are intentionally trying to say things that will bring us emotional pain, usually the pain they cause is not even realized to them. Grow close to the Father and your faith in man will decrease and the emotions won’t be so painful.
Does it feel like no one understands what you are going through? Author, Lisa Copen shares in her book “Why Can’t I Make People Understand?” more ways to get past the need for friends to empathize. Read it today so your life can be overflow with joy, not frustration.
