Feature Article

A Desire for Healing, A Healing for Desire
By Dick Peterson

When my grandson, Andrew, was three or nearly four years old, I'd ask him to pick up his toys or put his dirty shoes in the box by the door and he'd say, "But Papa, I can't want to."

Some evenings I lie in bed listening to my wife sleep, and I recall the weeks, months and years that have gone by since multiple sclerosis took up residence in our family. I think about the day just past and the days ahead, and I know that as soon as sunlight finds a leak in the bedroom blinds, yesterday's challenges will reappear. They're not apparitions in the night, but stark reality by day.

And I'm inclined to say to my Father, "But Papa, I can't want to."

Elizabeth's multiple sclerosis predated its diagnosis, of course. We look back now and see incidents that could have been early onset. But who's to know? Certainly the weakness in her right leg at the end of the day, and the numbness that came later could have been cause for concern. But it came when she was tired, and then it left. It was easy to dismiss, until it recurred.

We were each raised in a Christian home, we met in church, and we prayed for God's blessing on our marriage. When our children were born, we recognized our responsibility to raise them knowing God. But how well did we know Him? That's a question that can only be answered by a test.

She taught high school Latin and English, and I was a journalist, writing for a big-city newspaper. Neither career was a fast track to upward mobility, but each held special rewards and demands to compete with our relationships with God, with our children and with each other. Even as we sought balance in our lives, it became easier to allow our jobs to elbow their way up our list of spiritual and family priorities until the answer to "Who am I?" became "teacher" for Elizabeth, and "news reporter" for me.

"And who do you say that I am?" Jesus asked His disciple, Peter. It was as if He asked Elizabeth and me the same question, not in some momentous incident or exclamation point in time, but in tiny whispers through irritations, disappointments, conflicts, depression, failures, and physical weakness. Each time He asked the question, He demanded an answer. He wouldn't be put off, though each of us in our own ways tried.

I'll not forget how readily the marriage counselor held out divorce as an option, and I remember how firm my resolve: "That would never be my choice." Money - the lack of it - was usually an issue, magnified by our uncompleted house that I was finishing myself because we couldn't afford to have it built. Time-lapse photography could have shown I was making progress, but otherwise it was hard to tell. Extra jobs provided more money to spend, but nibbled away at the time we could spend together.

Choices popped up like targets on a police firing range. Elizabeth needs me at home, but I'm at work. Daytime errands have to be run, bills have to be paid today, but we're both at work and can't get away. The children have to see the doctor for check-ups; they have soccer games to play, homework to check, grades to improve and clothes to buy.

Most of the time my choices fell on the right side, though each choice came at a price that robbed something else. Most of all, I was determined to make this work. I felt like I was hanging on by fingernails and white knuckles, and I'm sure Elizabeth felt the same. I adopted a philosophical outlook on life that said, "Things don't get better, they get different." And I decided that no matter what, I would not lose my grip and allow it all to fly apart.

But then I began to feel the Lord pry my fingers loose. I didn't see it as His doing it when it was happening, but it was an outside pressure I couldn't control. Elizabeth was with her Latin students at the University of Kansas for a national competition when she called and said that her right leg would not move, she had fallen to the floor and two fellow teachers helped her to her bed and left for the award ceremony.

She had just gotten the diagnosis a few days before. It was multiple sclerosis. It will only get worse. There's no cure. Her doctor was blunt, but how else can news like that be delivered?

Leading up to the diagnosis she had complaints like a heavy arm while writing on the chalk board, a constrictive feeling and numbness in her right leg, weakness after a day of teaching. But even a definitive diagnosis couldn't have the impact of actual paralysis. Use of her leg came back after a day of rest, but she never regained her original level of activity.

Determined to keep teaching, she acquiesced to using a cane, then a walker and a battery-powered scooter. She was a teacher, teachers teach, and to stop teaching would mean no longer being a teacher. Finally there came an agonizing choice: She chose early retirement for disability.

To that point in our marriage, choices had presented themselves and decisions were made. Our values fabricated from childhood, from church, from family models we both tried to imitate helped our marriage survive. Still neither of us would recognize who we really were in light of who Jesus really is.

We prayed for healing. With our church we agonized in prayer that God would let her walk again, that she could change her grandson's diaper, that she could shake hands without extending a clenched fist, that she could turn over in bed without asking me to help, or that she could stand without wobbling. Isn't He the God who heals?

We so grieved the loss, we nearly missed the gain. We saw what multiple sclerosis was doing to Elizabeth, and nearly missed what multiple sclerosis was doing for her. Could it be that God in His wisdom and love gave her this disease to heal her?

The Apostle Paul prayed for healing, and for all we know, it could have been multiple sclerosis that he described as a thorn in his flesh. Some speculate that his vision was impaired. Multiple sclerosis does that to some people. We do know that in his weakness he found strength in Christ. Multiple sclerosis is doing that to Elizabeth.

We prayed that Elizabeth would resume her old life; He healed her to assume a new life. We long for healing on the outside; He desires healing on the inside. "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:1). She thought her identity was in teaching; He taught her that her true identity is "in Christ."

Truth be told, Elizabeth and I are still learning the realities of that revelation. You see, her disease is my disease and we have no choice but to submit to it. She tells me that when she had no choice but to submit to multiple sclerosis, she learned how to submit to her Lord.

When she asked Him what a partially paralyzed woman could do, He gave her an MS support group to lead. We marvel at how her disability validates her leadership, but still allows her to serve the group. When she let go of teaching, He gave her a Sunday morning women's Bible study to teach. Class members say her disabilities encourage them in their walk with the Lord. When she gave Him what she called "my identity" as a Latin teacher, He gave her home-schooled children who come to our house to learn Latin. They come with parents, so gone are the overcrowded classes, administrative duties and discipline problems.

Elizabeth and I are learning to look beyond the weakness of her disability and paralysis for His wisdom and love and beyond the stark realities of morning to face the day's challenges, knowing it is our Lord who lifts our burdens and straightens our paths.

In submission, we discovered His strength, and in this disease of the body, we found healing of the soul. It's an inside-out healing for her and for me. It's a healing that has invigorated our relationship with our Lord and with each other.

I've discovered that He really does give us the desires of our hearts, that the desires He gives us are His desires, and when morning dawns I really can want to, after all.

Dick Peterson is a freelance writer in Summerville, S.C. He and Elizabeth are the parents of two adult children and five grand-boys.