The other day I received a “one year ago memory reminder” from my photo cloud, and wow did it bring back memories! Some of the memories were good and some not so good. But again, God had a way of turning a bad experience into a blessing.
Normally, for most people, having the shingles virus would be devastating and an uncomfortable disease, and it was for me too in the beginning. However, after I saw the Lord’s hand in it, and felt His comfort, I began to embrace His peace, and the lesson He was teaching me through it.
When I first contracted the virus on my face, eye and in my mouth, it was 10 days before an Aruba vacation that my husband and I had planned to take with some good friends that had a time-share there. We never had a honeymoon so it was going to be our first leisurely trip together without our children in our 29 years of marriage. Needless to say I was devastated with having the virus and the timing of it.
Although things were not looking good for me being able to make the trip, I dug down deep in my faith and kept reminding myself of God’s love for me and how He has always shown me favor throughout my life.
A lot of emotions were flowing through me, as the Lord began to show me my disobedience in certain areas in my life that I was glossing over. I love that I am God’s daughter, and He deals with me in every aspect of the way a father who loves their daughter would, even when it comes to discipline.
The first couple of days after I broke out with the blisters, I didn’t sleep or do much of anything but cry out to the Lord as I hid myself in my sunroom away from my family. I was ashamed at how I looked and could almost relate to how a leper would have felt back in Jesus’ day.
As I sat in my sunroom reading my Bible and clinging to God’s every word, I came across a devotion. There it was right in the midst of the part of the bible I had been reading in 2 Samuel. I couldn’t believe what I was reading; I knew God ordained it all, as He spoke to me through this devotion at one of the lowest points of my life.
The devotion is titled “Cleansed by the Light”
“WHERE DO YOU GO when feel flawed? Where do you find healing when you know you are sick?
For me, the only place to go was to the feet of the only One who is perfect, the only One who fully understands how flawed I am and yet who loves me completely.
Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). When our Lord was being brutally executed, He was taking upon himself all the filth and decay of a diseased world. He knew that we could not make it on our own, so He took our place. Wherever He encountered darkness, He brought light. When He met people who were in hiding, He called them out. Whether it was a ‘scarlet woman’ or a little man hiding up in a tree, His words were words of healing and hope and freedom. Isaiah told us, ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned’ (Isaiah 9:2).
I have a friend who is a missionary on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. One of his concerns is for people suffering from leprosy in the refugee camps. He and his colleagues began to spend time with those men and women, doing what they could to aid them physically and spiritually. Eventually a church was born, right there in the middle of a leper camp. During one of their services, a man who had been among the first to make a commitment to following Christ said, ‘One of the most wonderful things that has happened to me since I met Jesus is that now I can look you in the face. I was too ashamed before because of my disfigurement, but if Jesus loves me so much, then I think that I can hold my head up high.’
That is how it is supposed to be for us all. Jesus has restored our dignity. What we sold so cheaply in Eden, He has bought back for us at a great price. We all struggle with our humanity, with our selfishness, but cleansing is not found in the shadows; it is found in the burning light.’
–Sheila Walsh
You can’t imagine the emotions and feelings of thankfulness that I felt after reading it. I was so overwhelmed, and felt like Jesus Himself was sitting in the sunroom speaking to me directly.
He gave me rest that day, and freed me of the shame I was feeling not only from Shingles but from years of feeling insufficient and irrelevant. I felt His love so deep for me that day that there isn’t anything that will make me go back to those negative feelings again. My outlook on life is so different now. He has filled me with a humble boldness and now I know the reality, without a shadow of a doubt that I am a child of the King of Kings.
God also blessed me with a beautiful Aruba vacation. How great is His faithfulness!
