My Battle with LUPUS

It was in April of 1990 that I experienced a major life change that would redefine for me what it meant to have a real relationship with Christ and learn better the concepts of TRUST, FAITH, and BELIEF in the power of God and His endless and unconditional LOVE.  I was 21 years old, a student at Florida State University.  The campus health center doctors didn’t know how to diagnose it, and then there was one.  She dug deep in her medical doctor resource materials and came up with a diagnosis.  She called it SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus).  My body that once ran laps, marched around a football field, withstood the outside elements of the sun and the cold was now a body with a compromised immune system that seemed to have a major grudge against its own self.  The sun and the cold became my enemy, and every organ was at risk.  The rest of my life would include a regiment of multiple medications and barrage of doctors and regular doctor visits.  Good days and bad days were indeterminate and unpredictable.  Energetic and ready to conquer the world one day, tired with body aches and swelling the next day.  Pleurisy, skin lesions, hair loss, renal kidney disease, high blood pressure, Raynaud syndrome, recurring shingles, joint pain, and swelling have challenged my TRUST and FAITH over the years.

Victory in the Battle

BUT, I was introduced to a man at an early age who I knew loved me and who controls everything.  His name is Jesus Christ.  I knew Him, His Father, and His Holy Spirit.  Thank God I had that foundational relationship because no matter how much I might have doubted or how far I may have strayed, He was my keeper and my sustainer.  He was and is the sparer of my life, for truly He has done so over and over again.  Jeremiah 1:5 says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”  Then in Philippians 1:6, it says, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  While I wait for the complete and full manifestation of my healing that Jesus Christ accomplished for me in His death on the cross, I understand that, just like the Apostle Paul, there is a thorn in my flesh right now, but there is a testimony in the truth of God’s grace that is sufficient for me (2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”).  There is another perspective that must be realized as we go through sickness, pain and trials as children of God.  Because God is with us as we go through, there is a level of God-driven power that comes in the midst of our pain.  There is not only the daily struggle of the infirmity, there is also that that God is seeking to accomplish and fulfill in the midst of it.  I have endured the consequences of my mistakes, wrong choices, and a bad marriage during which the enemy sought to break me and frustrate God’s purpose and plan for my life, but even in the midst of that, God showed me who I was.  God is still at work, and Romans 8:28 tells us, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”  Every day I awake, I realize there is yet more for me to do for Him.  Rather than continuing to ask ‘why me,’ in every instance where I am reminded that HE has yet again spared my life and He continues to sustain me and provide for me, I grow more and more in my TRUST, FAITH and BELIEF in His power and His LOVE that no man fully understands.  Everything revolves around our Almighty God.  Doctors and any who or that would attempt to present themselves as ones who possess all the answers and remedies to our ailments is only that because God has made it so.  I admit that it is in this journey that I have become all that I am for Him, and I am honored and privileged that He has called me and allowed me to know Him like I do.  I yet remain, praise God!

Closing Appeal

This is the message of my testimony.  God is good all the time, even in our pain and struggle.  There is a level of His power that only resonates through that pain, and it enables us to stand and see the salvation of the Lord as we endeavor to continue to do a work for Him.  Know that He is real, His word is true, we are kept by Him, and so it is that we yet remain to tell our testimony of His mercy and His sufficient grace.

Revelation 12:11 states, “And they overcame and conquered him (the enemy) because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, for they did not love their life and renounce their faith even when faced with death.”

Please accept this testimony and be an over-comer in the midst of it, in Jesus’ name.  Amen!