How To Get Unstuck
Connie Neckers |
March 10, 2021
When our daughter was little we would scoop her up in a big embrace and hold her tight. After a bit, she would get squirmy and exclaim, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck real bad!"
Recently, I had my own experience of being "stuck real bad." Back in August I had one of those "health blips" that culminated in several doctor visits, a trip to the Emergency Room, a fair amount of testing and a referral to a rheumatologist. It took over five months, but I was eventually diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder.
It wasn't that I felt that rotten, but I got tired really easily and I had frequent headaches. I found it frustrating living in the tension for all those months of not knowing what was going on.
The thing that bothered me the most was that I just didn't feel like myself. I was discouraged, and the pep was definitely out of my step! I tried to combat this by praying for myself, having friends pray for me and I had stopped for prayer several times after the weekend service but the malaise didn't lift.
I didn't have the emotional or spiritual reserves to handle the turbulent election, the discord in our country and a medical condition that was becoming chronic. Quite simply, I lost heart, I lost faith.
I started to wonder if I was ever going to feel well again. I didn't doubt God's ability to heal me, I just began to wonder if I was in this place due to his design, his sovereignty, his will. I was trying to think positive; after all, my life verse is Romans 8:28 and I saw it played out time and time again—and I know it to be true:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
If this was God's plan, I wasn't embracing it. I was getting impatient and grouchy. I felt stuck. I was stuck. I was stuck real bad!
One Tuesday at our lunchtime prayer meeting, I had the following lyrics pop into my mind:
"I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies. I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief, I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody, I raise a hallelujah, heaven comes to fight for me."
All of a sudden I began to wonder if I was under some sort of unseen attack. After all, the song said that I had enemies; this wasn't news to me. I also was well aware that I was struggling with unbelief!
I knew that I had been given a weapon—the weapon of praise—but I had to admit that my ability to praise the Lord during this time was really flat.
However, that last line of the lyric, that heaven comes to fight for me, touched me deeply, it made me want to cry. He knew what I was going through and he was going to deploy the resources of heaven to help me! A little later in our prayer time I sensed the Lord whispering that I was cooperating with this illness.
Through the years I have had a fair number of experiences when I lost heart and my faith unraveled. But God was faithful in shepherding me through those really hard seasons.
One of the things he used to help me the most was pairing me up with gifted praying people who would spend a good chunk of time helping me discern underlying wounds and pray for healing of those tender places.
After I understood that I was cooperating with this illness, I knew that once again I needed to contact the Extended Prayer Team that operates out of the Healing Center.
We didn't meet in person due to Covid constraints, but the team scheduled me for two sessions and spent several hours with me on the phone.
It was such a wonder to me that after a relatively short time in their care, my relationship with God and my faith were restored and I found that I was happy and hopeful—I felt like myself again. The autoimmune disorder seems much more manageable now.