I’m Not Praying For Healing
(Or: Why I Didn’t Stand Up at Church Last Sunday)
“Anyone else?” the pastor asked, scanning the sanctuary. “Anyone else need healing?” The lights had been dimmed and there were people on their feet dotted throughout the room. I felt a rustling on my right as the man sitting next to me put his phone on the floor and stood up. A woman two rows in front of me looked around skittishly before rising to her feet as well.
Given my recent diagnosis, the one that everyone seems to know about but skillfully avoids should they find themselves in unexpected conversation with me, I knew what was expected of me. But I stayed in my seat with my hands clasped firmly in my lap, hoping I would appear pious enough for a pass. Probably no one was looking at me or thinking about me at all. People rarely are. But I felt a warmth blossoming across my neck all the same.
I learned last year that I have multiple sclerosis. An illness that is incurable, degenerative and highly unpredictable. But it’s not typically terminal. I may need walking assistance in the not-too-distant future. Or Depends for incontinence. Or any number of assistive devices to help me get out of bed in the morning. For now, while I await this seemingly inevitable decline, my days are often filled with considerable pain and crushing fatigue. And when they aren’t, they’re filled with a near-paralyzing sense that I must breathe-it-all-in-enjoy-every- moment-give-thanks-for-what-I’ve-got because it probably won’t last. Usually it’s somewhere in the middle.
So I really should have been on my feet that day at church. I know that. There’s a creeping numbness already working its way up my left ankle, one side of my face tingles wildly every time I open the oven to check on dinner, and my left hand is heavy even as I type this. My body is in need of some divine intervention, no doubt. But I didn’t stand up. I didn’t even consider standing up.
I knew that it would buoy my family and friends to see me standing. To see me hoping. To see me rise with the rest of our congregation’s weak-bodied cohort, humble before a God we claim holds the ability to either grant or deny us our requests for deliverance. But I didn’t stand up. I didn’t allow the people sitting in my vicinity to surround me and lay their hands on me. I didn’t allow them to pray…
