A Prayer for Hard Medical Anniversaries

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A Prayer for Hard Medical Anniversaries

 

God of Hope, God of all comfort, God of healing:

This day marks a sorrowful anniversary—

So many years since the illness that continues to change my life,

Since the cancer diagnosis,

Since the accident,

Since the medical label that transformed every aspect of my days.

It is a death without a grave,

Grief without a funeral

Or other rights of communal mourning and lament.

 

You alone truly understand the depth of my heartache

And the distinct sorrow of those who love me and share my burden,

Weighted by it alongside but outside me.

 

I grieve the old me that may never return,

The holistic, multifaceted cost of this illness, this disability,

The choices my body makes for me,

The freedoms and dreams and hope stripped away,

The damage to cherished relationships,

The missed community celebrations, the exclusions, the lost opportunities,

The time redirected to medical tasks,

The increased energy required for the most basic personal tasks.

 

I grieve the invisible, unspoken milestones

like the last time I was healthy in my dreams,

The last time I went to church or a concert or a wedding or a graduation,

The last time I ran or hiked or danced

Or worked or cleaned or cooked

Or spent a day making music or curled up in a bookshop chair,

The last time I could take a shower without careful planning and pacing.

 

I grieve the hurtful words denying or blaming me for my weakness,

The realization that much of society regards me as both "less than" and "too much,"

The shame and gaslighting.

 

Come alongside me today, Abba Father,

Suffering Savior,

Counselor, Comforter, Advocate.

Comfort the sadness;

Make Your loving presence known;

Guide and provide in medical care;

Cure this affliction if You will;

Heal my heart, even if my body never recovers in the land of the living.

Thank You for Your promises,

Your presence,

Your intimate companionship even when I am most alone.

 

Thank You for knowing, loving, and holding me in my brokenness,

Though all others forsake me.

 

Thank You for what You have disclosed of Yourself through my desperate dependence,

For Your strength in my weakness,

For the sufficiency of Your grace in my thorn.

 

Thank You for the precious gifts of kind words and practical help,

For the foul-weather friends who have stood fast at my side and wept with me,

For the companions in the same medical storm

And our fellowship in these sufferings.

 

Thank You for the hope that this same trial is actively producing for me

An exceeding, eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,

that it is not wasted but generative.

 

Thank You for Your love which conquers, redeems, and transforms all,

Even this,

Into glorious good.

 

Thank You for using this to make me more like my Savior.

 

Thank You that nothing disables me from knowing You—

Which is true and eternal life—

Or from knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection

And the fellowship of His sufferings.

 

Thank You for the hope of glory,

For the whole, glorious, redeemed body You are preparing for me

in the day of resurrection,

For the hope of no more death, no more alienation, no more tears,

For the hope of all these locust-eaten years to be restored.

 

Thank You for the everlasting promise You will be with me now,

In the pain and weakness and difficulty,

In the loneliness,

That You will hold my hand,

That underneath are the everlasting arms,

That I am loved with an everlasting love.

 

But today, Lord, I grieve.

I hurt. I lament.

The brokenness overwhelms.

I want enduring hope, but even that must be Your gift.

I believe; help my unbelief,

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

 

A Prayer When You Don’t Know What to Pray

 

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“Lord,

I know not what I ought to ask of Thee;

Thou only knowest what I need:

Thou lovest me better than I know how to love myself.

O Father! Give to Thy child that which he himself knows not how to ask.

I dare not ask for crosses or consolations,

I simply present myself before Thee,

I open my heart to Thee.

Behold my needs which I know not myself;

See and do according to Thy tender mercy.

Smite or heal; depress me or raise me up;

I adore all Thy purposes without knowing them;

I am silent; I offer myself in sacrifice;

I yield myself to Thee;

I would have no other desire than to accomplish Thy will.

Teach me to pray. 

Pray Thyself in me.

Amen.”

~François de la Mothe Fénelon (1651-1715)

Anchorhold

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Anchorhold: A Poem

  

Here I am, suburban anchorite:

Chronic illness my cloister,

My home my hermitage,

Caregiving my enclosure.

My bare voice sings praise alone in my cell

With the absent-present congregants in my ears.

The mockingbird leads the avian chorus;

I pass the peace to the dragonfly on perched on the other side of the glass.

I pass along the comfort I receive

From the Father of mercies.

A living stone, embedded in the temple of the Body,

Walled in, communion mediated by windows 

In my wall, on my desk, in my hand,

Attached yet excluded—

Invisible illness hiding me invisibly away

From the rest of the body—yet still part of it,

Never parted from my Head, the Beloved.

I am a suburban anchorite,

But the burdens and bricks which anchor me here

Anchor me to Christ.