Anticipation

Following a great victory, the children of Israel were led into the wilderness; it was just a few days before the people began to complain, and we pick up their story in Exodus chapter 15:
24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?"
25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them. And there He tested them,
26 and said, "If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you."

This gives us powerful insight into the nature of God. His primary concern was for the Israelites to get their hearts right before Him - listening and obeying.  He also stated a key element of His nature - as our Healer.  He wants us to be whole - spirit, soul, and body, and He will work in all sorts of ways in the physical realm.  When we face illness, we can continue to trust in Him, praying in anticipation of His glory being expressed through us and abiding in Him in the midst of our pain.

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The goodness of God is expressed in a passage from Psalm 103, which states:
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
3 Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,
4 Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

When Mark Pickup met the Lord back in 1980, he "prayed that Jesus would make him more like Him and less like himself. That’s all that mattered," according to a recent piece on The Stream website. He says, "I must believe that that is what God has been doing — making me more like Christ..."

It wasn't long after he "encountered Christ" that he began to have numbness in the lower part of his body.  He then could not use his right arm.  In 1984, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  The symptoms were sporadic, and Pickup relates:

“I would go to bed at night — I might wake up with lost function and I didn’t know how long it would last or if there would even be a remission. One day [I’d] be walking and the next day [I] wouldn’t. One day I’d be talking and the next day I wouldn’t. It was just that raucous and volatile.”

By 2003, he was in a wheelchair permanently.  A few years later, during a particular cold winter, he called out to the Lord, and he sensed the presence of the Lord; he was led to touch his thumb to his little finger, which he had previously not been able to do.  He did that, and sometime later, he believed he was led of God to use his late mother-in-law's walker and begin to take steps, which he did - five of them at first, then more.  The story relates:

He tried, and walked about 5 steps. “Pandemonium happens at that point and I’m calling LaRee to get up and look at my new athletic prowess. She got up and was stunned.” Before long, he was walking down the hallway with the walker.

He even showed his doctor. As she watched him get out of his wheelchair, he heard her exclaim, “No, no way! No, that’s impossible, it can’t be.” She sent him to a neurologist. The neurologist asked Mark to what he attributed his improvement. “How would I know?” asked Mark. “You’re the doctor!” While an MRI of his brain showed the effects of the disease, there had been no new activity since the previous MRI.

But Mark felt a sense of regret, that 36 years of his life had been taken from him.  But, he had a realization: “God was more concerned with my holiness than my happiness.” And God was there through it all. “He was always with me. There was never a point during the last three-and-a-half decades that His presence was never there. He always was there. At times I didn’t like what was happening with me, but His presence was always with me.”

Mark now walks regularly, even though he will use the wheelchair for long distances or when he tires out from walking.  The story states:

Perhaps God allowed his disease to go into remission to remind that “we must not lose hope in even seemingly hopeless circumstances. That we must never give up on life because we do not know what’s around the corner. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, even supposed miracles, as rare as they may be.”

A few things to remember today as we think about Mark Pickup's story.  First of all, there is always hope.  Because of Jesus.  He loves each one of us so much and we can be convinced that He is working all things together for our good and His glory.  We have to have His perspective, of course, but we know that we have not been forgotten.

We see throughout Scripture the characterization of God as a healer.  Jesus, as God in the flesh, demonstrated that time and again.  So, we know that He heals; and James 5 instructs us to pray for healing.  But, the healing may not always come in the way we think it should nor at the time that we think.  But, we can pray for healing, while we continue to persevere in illness.

Finally, remember He is with you.  There is joy in His presence, and He gives us the grace to live each day - He is completely enough for us.