The answer to the question seems obvious… of course He can heal you. Have you read the Bible? In just the New Testament alone Jesus healed 20+ people (and performed countless miracles) and those are just the ones written down. Knowing that God is fully able to heal likely brings another question…“Then why hasn’t He healed me?” That’s a great question and one that I’d like to dive into today. This is a question that I asked more times than I can count during my struggle with postpartum depression. 

I remember one day in particular as if it were today (I know the saying is yesterday, but #mombrain means yesterday is a distant memory). I was standing in the bathroom looking into the mirror. Tears were streaming down my face. I’d had it up to my eyeballs with anxiety. I was so tired of fighting. Every moment felt like a battle. As I stared into the mirror with the shell of the woman I used to be staring back at me, I said “God, if you’re real then why aren’t you helping me? Why won’t you heal me?” 

By this point in my journey, I felt like I had tried everything. I was going to church multiple times a week, active in my small group, I was praying constantly and crying out to God every day. I even had a group of church friends come to my house to pray over me. I was careful to select the holiest of people (in my eyes). They prayed over me, Jere, the kids and even anointed the doors with oil. Like they were holy, holy and yet I was still in the struggle. I didn’t understand. How could a loving God allow His child to go through this amount of pain?

I know now what I did not know then; there was a part of me that didn’t want to be healed. 

Hear me out, I’m not saying I enjoyed suffering, crying daily and living in misery. Quite the opposite, I absolutely hated it and didn’t feel like I could go on for another moment, but my actions told a different story. 

Today, I want to ask you a question Jesus once asked a man at a well some 2,000 years ago… “Do you want to get well?”

Now before you answer, I invite you to examine your behaviors and your beliefs and then answer that question honestly. 

Just a heads up: this blog post requires a bit of work on your part, I recommend having pen and paper handy. 

I want to ask you a few questions to help you determine if you truly want to get well.

Are you making space for and accommodating the thing you say you want to be healed of? 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been somewhat claustrophobic. When I was around eight, I got stuck in my winter coat and you would have thought I was dying from the way I panicked. I was outside with a few friends having a snowball fight when snow made its way into my jacket. In a rush to get the snow out before it melted, I ended up catching the zipper on the side of the jacket. I tried with all my might, but I was unable to unzip it fully – in other words, I was stuck. I remember screaming for my friend in sheer terror. I thought for sure I’d be stuck in that jacket for the rest of my life. In case it needs to be said, I’m not…

Instead of rationally making my way inside the house to get help from an adult, I made way for anxiety.

Shortly after that incident, a friend of mine got stuck in an elevator while visiting her grandmother. She was stuck in the elevator ALONE for God only knows how long (this was before the day of cell phones). As she recounted the story, internally, I vowed to never allow that to happen to me. I’ve been committed to that vow since the day I made it (till death do us part). 

I was so committed that at nine years old, I climbed at least 15 flights of stairs (SEVERAL times) instead of taking the elevator during a three-day trip to Boston with my mom. I literally would only take the elevator if my mom forced me. If that’s not a major accommodation of your fears, I don’t know what is. Sadly, my avoidance of elevators only made me more afraid. I’m now 32 years old and still hate taking elevators alone. 

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve asked God to take this fear away from me and He hasn’t. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that although I’ve said I wanted to be healed, I’ve spent the last 20ish years accommodating this fear, allowing it to grow into the giant it is today.

So, what about you, are you accommodating anxiety and depression in your life? If so, in what ways? Take a moment to truly think about it. 

Hint: now’s a great time to pause and actually put pen to paper.

Are you living in something you were meant to walk through?

Walking through something is transitional and temporary. For example, I walk through the living room to get to the kitchen and make donuts :). Living in something is permanent. Depression and anxiety, like all emotions, are transitional. They are meant to be walked through, not lived in. That’s why I don’t consider anxiety (or depression) to be mine. I’m intentional about saying the anxiety, or I feel anxious vs. I am anxious. When we start to label ourselves as anxious, depressed, etc., we live in those feelings when we were never meant to.

I remember getting the diagnosis of major depressive disorder after the birth of my first son. I felt like there was no hope, like something was wrong with me. Like this diagnosis would follow me for the rest of my life. Medically speaking, I’m not healed, I’m in remission. And one day, major depressive disorder could rear its ugly head and I’d be right back where I started nine years ago. 

How terrible does that sound? 

Thankfully for me, I don’t accept that as a fact because I know that deep sadness (depression) is an emotion I was never meant to live in or be labeled by. Imagine if we labeled all emotions as disorders. Have you ever met a person who just always seemed too happy? Perhaps they have major happiness disorder. On the rare occasions they get in a funk, they’re in remission. 

On a serious note, we don’t live in a perpetual state of any emotion and when you think you do, it causes an issue. It removes the hope of change ever coming. Don’t camp out in a diagnosis and throw a pity party, walk through it, as you were meant to. I promise it doesn’t last forever. 

What have you been living in that you were simply meant to walk through? Think about it for a moment… is there anything that comes to mind? If so, jot it down before moving forward.

Do you believe you can/will be healed?

What you believe changes the way you behave. Don’t believe me? Where are you sitting or standing right now? Let’s say for example you’re sitting in a chair at your kitchen table. Before you ever sat down, you believed the chair would hold you up… that’s the only reason you sat in it. If you didn’t believe it would hold you, you wouldn’t have sat down. 

The same way you decided to take a seat because you had faith the chair would hold you up, you’ll take specific actions if you believe you can/will be healed. 

I once met a man who was diagnosed with stage iv cancer. If you’re unfamiliar with the stages, stage iv means it has spread from its original location to other parts of the body and requires aggressive treatment. Although not always considered terminal, his case was. He was given six months to live and he refused to believe that he would die in six months time. In fact, he believed he would be completely healed. He went through the treatments, but took radical steps, even going as far as not waiting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office because he insisted that the waiting room was for sick people and he wasn’t sick. Sure enough, he was completely healed. Much to the surprise of his doctors, there is no evidence of cancer in his body.

Science is just recently starting to catch up, finding evidence that faith can play a role in healing. Jesus himself said “your faith has made you well.” 

I’m not saying that you’re where you are today because of your faith, I simply want you to examine your heart and answer the question that Jesus asked in Matthew 9:28 “Do you believe that I can heal you?” I encourage you to answer it honestly. What do your actions say? 

Now that you’ve had some time to think, let’s come back to the opening question, “do you want to get well?” Your responses to the three questions above should clearly answer His question. And if your answer is somewhere between “I think so,” and “yes,” we want to help. Take the first step today and check out our programs.

 

Praying for you,

Arielle Wozniak