S3-Day 30: God With Those Who Are Sick

Reflecting Verse:

“I will not leave you, nor forsake you” -Hebrew 13: 15 

It was when I was in my final year of my University degree, I got sick and had to discontinue my studies. Initially, I thought it was not serious at all. I believed I will be healed after some time. However, what followed were painful ordeals of visiting hospital after hospital for consultation, checkups, tests, and medications. The most difficult moments were waiting for medical reports after every checkups and tests. Gradually as years went by God restored my health. God restored life and what I missed out during my years of sickness, as God spoke through Prophet Joel in the Bible: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.”

The challenge, however, I face till today is the prejudice because of the health issues I had years back. In our society, if a person had health issues, especially a female, the prejudice and stigma remains forever in her life. I am always judged and criticized by my sickness and my health condition is used to belittle me. The health of the woman, not her personhood, is often the defining factor of her “worth.” After a certain period, most friends and relatives gave up on my prolonged sickness. 

During the initial years of my sickness, I used to ask God, through prayers, to give me signs of assurance that God really exists and is journeying with me. There were times when I did not feel like going on. I vividly remember, one day as I was taken on a stretcher for scanning, there was this frame on the corridor of the hospital with words from Hebrew 13:15 “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I felt assured of God being there even at this time of my sickness. God does not give up on us nor  does God tire away to care during prolonged sicknesses. I felt God’s presence through the scripture, prayers and encouragements from God’s people who gathered around me and my family. 

In spite of prejudices and negativity, God’s assures and is really present with people who go through different sicknesses. God does not judge or belittle the sick, instead God accompanies and heals throughout our sicknesses. How do we care for those who are sick? Do we discriminate them for their sickness? If God is a healer, God’s people must be agents of healing. Are you God’s agent of healing? 

Prayer

Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God you are there with us. You never fail nor abandon us. You bless us, those who are sick or had been sick and faces discrimination. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Author: Anonymous