Fibromyalgia Healed

I am so glad I get to tell you about my Sarah. Mostly because I love her a lot but deep down because in telling you about my Sarah, I am telling you about my God.

Sarah is my sixteen-year-old sister. When I describe her as ‘really cool’, you can take that to mean that she loves fiercely, relates warmly, judges mercifully, works diligently, and looks nice even after playing twelve softball games in one weekend. Sarah knows God in a particularly permanent way because He healed her of fibromyalgia.

To give you the whole play-by-play would hardly be feasible in this context, but I will give you the game stats so the next time you are one strike away from winning or losing the World Series, you will have the courage to swing the bat.

Fibromyalgia is an incurable, life-long syndrome characterized by incessant, intense pain and fatigue. There is no scientific explanation for its onset and no medical treatment for its relief. Basically, for no physically discernable reason, Sarah’s body amplified each physical sensation way beyond its due until her threshold of pain quit functioning as a threshold altogether.

She had to quit playing sports because even sliding into second would wrack her body with aches for days. She had to start taking prescription sleep medication just to sleep through her body’s natural tossing and turnings. And we her family had to invent new ways of communication our comfort and love because each hug, pat, or back rub send Sarah’s sense reeling in pain.

And, of course, we prayed.

We prayed for a full recovery and for full restoration. Do you know what I discovered? God always desires us to be healed. Always. He has destined our bodies to spend eternity glorified in fullness of health and beauty. And freedom from infirmity, physical death, is inextricably coupled with the freedom from sin, eternal death. He clearly broke the backs of both powers of death at the Cross. He always and forever desires to heal you. So we doggedly asked Him for just that in Sarah’s body.

We also prepared her to receive it by responsibly employing means available to us for managing her syndrome: a strict schedule, sleeping medication, Aleve, anointing her with oil, regular exercise, etc.

Another thing I discovered: God’s redemption. He encountered Sarah in her intimate place of constant pain. He gave her grace to get up out of bed every morning. Grace to go to school and sit in desks that made her hips throb for hours. Grace to be patient until the hour of healing arrived. Grace to face friends that accused her of lying about her condition. He redeemed her years of affliction by using them to extend deep roots into the soil of His love. The creative God did not waste anything: He used every means to draw her into intimacy with Him.

He didn’t let fibromyalgia get away with Sarah’s heart. He let it run for a while because He is the only wise One. He knew the exact moment to take it all back and vindicate Sarah to the fullest measure.

That moment was sprinkled in nanoseconds through her illness in the form of grace but it matured in an instant on November 9th, 2008.

I knew she had been fully and completely restored when I hugged her. She had a human back—not a rigid board stiff with pain and the fear of pain.

Yesterday she was a starter for her high school’s varsity girls basketball team.

Now she has full health and new solidarity in her secret place. Our God loves us well. My God loved my Sarah well. In it all.

-Jessica Reis