When God Wants You To Be Sick

Thoughts on faith healing, the Gospel, and the cross

I’ve written some pretty vulnerable things on this blog so far, but this might be the most vulnerable thing I’ve written yet.

Because its still something I’m trying to process myself, and still something I’m working on believing.

Throughout the past two years of this illness, my faith has been my lifeline. My church community has been my crutch. And the sacraments have been ports in the storm.

But it remains that I’ve also wrestled with my faith, with God, and with my understanding of the Gospel more than I ever have in the past two years. And I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. But if what St. Paul says is true— that we have to wrestle with the trials of life so that our faith may be mature— it seems the faith that I had in my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood is morphing into something else. I’m in the midst of growing-pains. And these pains and circumstances have forced me to stretch and reevaluate what I know—and what thought I knew— about healing, the Gospel, and the cross.

Our God is a God of miracles. And I firmly believe that the miracles Jesus performed during his public, earthly ministry: healing the sick, the blind, the lame, casting out demons, raising the dead— all such miracles still can and do occur (and often more often than we often see or think). But what happens when the Lord doesn’t heal you? When you pray and have others pray with you— and yet the sickness remains? What happens when others around you are healed in abrupt and even miraculous ways and you…aren’t?

What happens when God wants you to be sick?

This post is a love letter to all my other chronically ill and disabled folks out there, especially those in the Church. Whatever they’ve told you, whatever anyone (whether inside or outside the Church has made you feel): I just want you you to know: this sickness is not your fault.¹

And if you aren’t healed while others are: that’s not your fault either.

And even though the people in your church or your prayer group mean well (and they really do mean well), that doesn’t mean they don’t end up being unintentionally ableist. And its okay to be hurt and confused about that. I’ve been there too.

~

In July of 2023, two months after the onset of my ME/CFS, when I was still undiagnosed and riding the highs and lows of unexplained and mercurial symptoms, I was put in touch with some friends in my area who were involved in the Charismatic renewal. (For those who don’t know, the Charismatic Renewal is a movement in Christianity (and in this instance, Catholicism) that focuses a lot on the Holy Spirit and His gifts—particular in the areas of prophecy, intercessory prayer, faith healings, and words of wisdom.)

So, though it was a little out of my comfort zone (as my spirituality tends more trad than Charismatic), I took the invitation of a friend to attend a several-night seminar/prayer service hosted by a local Charismatic group. I had seen good fruits from their ministry and knew many folks with positive experiences in these circles—so I went. The first night the emphasis was on healing— in particular, physical healing. Group leaders got up in front of those of us gathered and gave powerful testimonies about people who had been physically healed right before their eyes through their intercessory prayer. They even had X-rays, brain scans, and medical records projected as evidence to their claims. I do fully believe these things can and do happen, and I was encouraged by their witness.

As the seminar intended to equip attendees with the tools, vocabulary, and knowledge to intercede for others and their physical healing, we were separated into groups to pray over each other and invoke our Baptismal authority given by Christ to heal and cast out unclean spirits.²

We went around the circle and took turn laying hands on and praying for each member, asking about any physical discomfort, pain, or illnesses they’d like relief from. I explained to my group that I was living with some sort of undiagnosed neurological disorder and would like healing from that. The first group prayed over me, and though my legs shook violently during their prayers (nerves? my broken nervous system? a secret, third thing?), I felt rather much the same.

We remixed our groups and prayed for each other again. By the time we’d begun praying a second time in different groups—there were people in the room who were already experiencing healing. There were people jumping, running, laughing, crying. People with pain that had disappeared, joints that had stopped clicking, sinuses that had cleared, and other maladies dissipated.

When I was prayed over a second time, I felt a peace come over me, but there was no bright light or heavenly voice that spoke. ‘Did it work?’ members of my group asked me. There was only one way to find out.

Typically, when healing is prayed for in settings like these, one experiments to see if prayers were answered by trying a physical feat that had previously been impossible, difficult, or a source of discomfort to see if such an activity was now within their grasp.

Earlier, that same day I had been to the neurologist and had once again had a positive (which is actually a negative thing) Romberg test, meaning, that if I closed my eyes and put my feet together, I would involuntarily fall over. If you have a normal nervous system— this shouldn’t happen.

So, after I was prayed over a second time, I assumed the position to see if I would pass, or fail my Romberg test again. And suddenly, I was able to complete the task without falling over— when earlier that day I hadn’t been. My breath caught in my throat and a sob that was half-relief/half-surprise squeaked out of me and I remember thinking: ‘is this it? Am I free of this?’

Overjoyed, I told everyone excitedly what had happened.

Now, to this day, I still don’t know if my ability to balance after the prayer was God giving me a temporary grace to assure me that he had heard the prayers of my friends, and give me a bit of hope and renewed confidence in intercessory prayer—- or, if due to the relapsing and remitting nature of ME/CFS—I simply got lucky. Perhaps both.

Regardless, I went home that night, excited to return to Part II of the seminar the next day.

When I returned the next day, word had spread among some of the attendees that I’d had a graced moment the night before. They asked me how I was feeling and what I was going to do now that I was ‘healed’.

But the problem was…I wasn’t. My symptoms had come back freshly with the morning and now I was feeling the same pain and unsteadiness as I always did. I woke up that morning with a not only heavy limbs but a heart weighed down by confusion.

Had I done something wrong? Was there a reason the prayers didn’t stick? Did somehow prayers have an expiry date and I needed to renew the ‘Terms & Conditions’ with God each morning in order to continue to reap its benefits?

Well, some of the other folks seemed to think so. When I told them about my symptoms returning I was met with:

‘Thank Jesus ahead of time—He already has healed you and if you dispel your doubt, your symptoms will go away’.

And

‘Well we’ll just have to pray again, and that’ll fix it’.

I left that day feeling like I was the problem. After all, if I really had faith, then God would heal me, like they said. If I wasn’t healed….it was because there was something wrong with me.

Oh, but what a lie that is. Straight from the pits of Hell and the heresy of the prosperity Gospel.

It took me a while to rebuke the lies of the Enemy and reacquaint myself with the actual Gospel. But the truth is:

If God wanted me to be healed— I would be healed. Why I had that momentary relief the night I was prayed over— I still don’t know. But its not due to anything I did or didn’t do that caused the temporary nature of it. I didn’t fumble some metaphorical metaphysical football that would have sent me permanently back into the camp of the able-bodied due to some sliver of doubt or lack of full-hearted participation or consent.

And if you haven’t been healed of your own illness or disability: neither have you.

Because the fact is: God can do whatever He wills.

And sometimes: God wills for us to be sick.

And I know. This is a damn tough pill to swallow. I’ve had to swallow (and nearly choke on it) several times throughout my chronic illness journey. (And I will continue to many more times in the days to come).

And while there is a definite difference between God’s active and passive will.³ Functionally, they are the same. And splitting hairs and trying to distinguish whether God actively or passively wills something is often a fruitless endeavor that is crazy-making at the best of times.

So, yes. I said it. Sometimes God wants you to be sick. Why? Not because He’s a mean and angry God who uses physical sickness as a punishment for our sins and failings, but because sometimes it is only through sickness that our interior can be transformed. Sometimes it is only through sickness that our relationships (with both God and others) can be restored. Sometimes it is only through sickness that we can participate in the salvific mission of the cross in the particular way that He wills for us. (After all, even Paul had a ‘thorn in his flesh’, that the Lord refused to remove in order that he might ‘make up for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ’ in his own body).⁴

And sometimes…it just be like that. After all, in the words of Job ‘the Lord gives and the Lord takes away…blessed be the name of the Lord.’⁵

But the point is: sometimes it is God’s will that we are sick. But also, sometimes, an over-emphasis on faith healing, casting out infirmity, and God’s desire for our wholeness (especially in more Charismatic circles) can really make you feel like shit. And it’s okay if you’ve been hurt by that. And its okay if you’re angry. Tell God about how angry you are. And take those lies from the prosperity Gospel, and take the platitudes from the mouths of your well-intentioned (but ableist) brethren and ask God to cast them back to Hell where they belong.

So why are some of us still sick while others are healed? God only knows. And its something I’m still wrestling with. (And it really, really is okay and healthy to wrestle with this. To rage. To cry. To grieve.) But God wasted nothing of the suffering of His only Son. Not a single drop of it was wasted. And so it is with you.

Now, is it still possible that God will permanently heal me (or other disabled folks) this side of Heaven, even after years of asking? Sure. But, as no healing has come, I have to accept that it’s not His will that I am healed at this juncture.

And at a certain point, its fitting that one stops praying to let the cup pass, but to simply drink it in obedience to the Father. After all, Jesus didn’t keep begging the Father to spare him from crucifixion His entire way to Calvary. Paul asked that his thorn might leave him three times before he accepted, in obedience, this cross that God had given.

So until He takes this cross away, I’m trying to trust that He wills it and that it is somehow good for me to bear it. (That doesn’t mean I always have to be happy about it or pleased to do it, though).

But one thing I’ve also had to struggle with in this journey of acceptance, is others around me that aren’t so ready to accept this aspect of God’s will for my life...

~

About seven months into my illness I went to a retreat in Michigan. One of the nights we were there we had an evening of Eucharistic adoration, and there were prayer teams that were there to intercede for us should we decide to come to them with our prayer intentions.

About six months into this illness, I’d begun to get the inklings in prayer that I was in this disease for the long-haul. I was still wrestling with this idea and wanted to seek prayers for my perseverance and docility of spirit. So, during this evening of retreat, I sought prayer from two women who made themselves available to me for intercession.

Seated in the organ loft of the chapel with them, they asked me to describe my current circumstances and what I was seeking prayers for. I began describing my illness, but before I could even mention what I wanted prayers for—perseverance and grace not physical healing— one of the women cut me off to begin praying enthusiastically for my physical healing. After a long-winded prayer in which she rebuked my disease and sickness, she asked me if any of my pain had diminished. ‘Um. No.’ I said awkwardly, trying to regain control of the conversation.

But this only launched her into another prayer, this time with more fervor, as if with enough determination she could pray the joint pain right out of me. She didn’t.

And so I walked away from that encounter this time not feeling inadequate or like I hadn’t earned my own healing—but with a misplaced guilt, like I’d somehow disappointed the woman praying over me. And that somehow it was due to some lack of cooperation and stubbornness that her prayers didn’t yield the response she expected.

This wouldn’t be the last time such a thing happened.

I’ve asked for prayers in other circumstances since, but whether because I’ve mentioned my chronic illness, or because I’ve had visible mobility aides with me, all attention shifted from praying for the intentions I actually asked for to those praying with me focusing on curing me of my illness.

To my other sick/disabled readers: even if you come to accept your circumstances, sometimes others might not be able to. And sometimes they’ll focus on praying for not what you want prayers for, but what they think you should receive.

Don’t let them steal your peace. They mean well. Shake the dust from your sandals and continue on. And maybe even pray for them. After all, if they think that the only way you can be happy is if you disability/illness is taken away: they probably (unknowingly) believe some backwards stuff about what makes life worth living and the Gospel itself.

Because when we say God wants your good, we oughtn’t mean that He only and foremost wants your bodily and temporal good. God can still want your good, and not change or take away your temporal sufferings. But this is a hard teaching, and not everyone can accept it. And if some of the able people in your life are making it hard for you to accept it—offer up prayers on your own behalf. Not only for understanding, but for the graces you really want to keep living your sick little life.

Because if we spend all of our earthly life rebelling against our material circumstances and trying to rid ourselves of bodily or temporal maladies— we might be missing not only the things we really need healing from (false images of God, false beliefs about ourselves, and lies of the Evil One). If we view bodily illness and disability as the ultimate evil we need to be rid of, we might overlook the greater and more pressing evils (our own sinfulness, our lack of love and charity, our own blindness to our interior poverty). And we might fail to ask for the graces we really need and would benefit from if we only ever ask for the one thing we think (or others think) that we need.

If we say that God’s will always and inevitably involves the physical healing of the sick and disabled, we put Him into far too small a box. A box we humans can understand. A box where He plays by the rules we want Him to. A box made in our own image. And we distort the Gospel and the real promises He gave us.

Not that our lives would be easy. Not that we wouldn’t have troubles in this world. But that at the end of all things, He has overcome the world. And all of the crosses, trials, tribulations, and waiting will have somehow, in His Providence, been worth it.

So have I given up hope that God will heal me? No. After all, as Jesus says to Little James in this wonderful scene from ‘The Chosen’— in the end, all things will be made right. Its only a matter of time.

To my other sweet, sweet spoonies: I know it's hard. And its hard enough fighting the ableism of the world, its even harder receiving it from among your fellow believers. But I’ve been there too. And it sucks. It sucks ass. And it hurts. And watching others get what you want is never easy. But that doesn’t mean that they deserve it more than you. It doesn’t mean that you did something wrong. And it doesn’t mean that He isn’t listening.

So if God wants you to be sick? What do you do?

To be honest: I’m still trying to figure that out myself. But I’m trying to live in these circumstances God has given me the best I can and to pray for the grace to live well. After all, I need God’s grace far more than I need to be healed.

But one thing I’m learning not to do is spend my time blaming myself for not being healed or for being sick in the first place. I’m not viewing my disability as a badge of shame.

And neither should you.

Now, come, even with our broken little bodies, there’s still Life to be lived. Let’s go out there and find Him.

1. I think about the Gospel passage about the man born blind (John 9:3) ‘Jesus answered: ‘neither he nor his parents sinned, but so that the works of God might be made visible through him’.

2. Now, I do believe that all baptized, believers have certain rights and responsibilities that come with being made a child of God and belonging to His Kingdom through a sacramental Baptism. And while God may choose to work through anyone, there are certain authorities that belong only to those who have received Holy Orders. In particular, the ability to act In Persona Christi, (in the person of Christ) and rebuke disease, infirmity, and unclean spirits in the name of Jesus and with all of the authority of Jesus ought to be reserved for priests and ordained ministers alone. (ie, instead of praying; ‘I ask God that He might deliver you,’ but saying ‘in the name of Jesus— I cast out—’, that would be an example of acting In Persona Christi). For that is why Jesus gave the apostles certain faculties, and why He gave His Church, the priestly order. While certain Charismatic groups encourage lay people to exercise the authority of Jesus because of the 'universal priesthood of all believers’, I don’t think that we ought to view acting In Persona Christi as something that ought to belong to the laity so long as we have a designated priestly class. After all, the laws of the material, unclean spirits, and demons alike are all sticklers for authority, and if one tries to evoke an authority they don’t possess….well lets just say it might not end well. Just ask any practiced exorcist for horror stories about amateurs or wanna-be’s flying a little too close to the sun and they’ll tell you all you need to know.

3. If you want a thorough and good read about the nature of God’s will (and abandonment to it), I highly recommend Wilfred Stinison’s Into Your Hands, Father, a short, accessible, and indispensable read.

4. See 2 Corinthians 12 and Colossians 1

5. Job 1:21 (also, I though I would include my favorite meme about the Book of Job for your enjoyment as a special treat for those who actually read the footnotes)