According to the neurologists, I am an unsolvable mystery. My apparently incurable epilepsy is a prime example of why even the wisest doctors say they only practice medicine.
Neurologists loved gazing at the statistics of my young life, seeming to hope their next perusal would give a cure. The doctors never received their wish. It seemed as if all they truly knew were the two most basic things about my case: my name and the disease that rocked my body without mercy.
At sixteen years old, I had undergone two brain surgeries and tried hundreds of medications to find relief from the disease that had become my identity. Regardless of the doctors’ relentless efforts, I experienced nearly thirty seizures a day with no light at the end of the tunnel. I was in survival mode.
I lived in a paradox. Understandably, I hated the seizures that took my mind and body captive. With my type of epilepsy, if anyone tried to help me during a seizure, they ran the risk of causing permanent brain damage.
I hated the loneliness I was forced to endure because of the disease. However, as a born-again Christian, I found that within the seizures I was granted an unfathomable audience with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My loved ones couldn’t touch or talk to me without causing me harm, but Jesus could.
As anyone who bears a chronic disorder will tell you, trusting God’s love gets more difficult the longer you wait on answers. I knew God loved me. I knew the Scripture verses to prove that God is who He says He is and He will do what He says He will do. I had the head knowledge.
But the head knowledge often broke my heart when I faced baffled confusion. God is good? If God is good, why won’t He heal me?
If I wasn’t faced with questions of God’s goodness, His mere existence was often questioned when people looked at my life.
I begged God to reveal His love for me in undeniable ways. I had accepted the reality that I may not be healed this side of heaven. Whether healing would be a part of my story or not, I was desperate for proof that I was not the only human being God’s mercy hadn’t reach. I longed to have a story of miraculous healing to tell my children and grandchildren for years to come. What would be better than telling a story of a faithful God who took a child at death’s door and restored her to full health?
Over time, God revealed the beauty of not healing me. In firm yet merciful ways, He showed me how my life spoke of His miraculous grace and mercy because He didn’t heal me. I was made to glorify Him; who was I to tell Him He’d messed up so badly He couldn’t use my diseased body? Who was I to declare that God’s deity was not strong enough to supersede my disabilities, to work within them, not in spite of them?
“You may not understand how I’m using your trials,” He seemed to whisper. “Start looking for ways I intervene to spare your life. Look for the small miracles, child. There are so many things I have given you to shout my love for you from the rooftops. The problem is you’re too busy looking for what I haven’t given you. Look for my glory in my interventions and the ways I have stayed by your side. You will find me there.”
One day stands out in my mind when I remember Jesus’ miraculous intervention in my life. On average, my seizures would last only a few minutes, though each second felt like a torturous eternity. We had been told that seizures more than ten minutes could cause permanent brain damage.
On this particular day, the seizure had lasted almost seven minutes. My mother stood near the bed I was lying on, trying to be supportive in a silent, inactive way.
Epileptics are taught how to test their own brain function during a seizure. It is not uncommon to hear an epileptic come out of a seizure muttering simple facts such as his or her name, birthday, and the country’s current president. During bouts of mental lucidity, I formed the one-syllable question I could manage with my disobedient tongue.
“Name?” I couldn’t comprehend what such a word meant, let alone the answer. I simply clung to the fact that somewhere in my mind, an answer to that question would gain my mind’s freedom.
“Name?!” I shouted louder, pounding the bed with my jolting fists. Only silence met my inquiry. Panic filled every fiber of my being.
“Jesus! Jesus! Name?” I screamed desperately.
Somewhere in the dark, tortured recesses of my mind, I heard a man’s voice singing, “I am your maker. I know your name.”
As the seizure continued, hope rushed to the forefront of my mind. I knew that voice. It was the voice of my Maker.
“Child! My name. My name is Child of God,” I forced out between the violent jolts of my muscles. “Child of God! I’m a child of God!”
Instantly, the seizure stopped. I was free!
Quietly, I joined the voice of my maker God in the familiar song He was singing over me. “He knows my name. . . .”
I made eye contact with my mother. Tears sprang to our eyes as we looked at a clock. The seizure had lasted nine minutes and 45 seconds. God had relieved my body of its temporary torture with only seconds to spare.
During that seizure, I grasped an even deeper understanding of God’s miraculous love. His greatest desire for us is that we learn to lean into the power and security we are given as His children. Every other blessing pales in comparison. Because of His miraculous love, I am not a mere survivor of epilepsy. He intervened in my life, and because of my faith in Him, He made me a victor over death.