What is your biggest fear in life? That’s a question I find very easy to answer lately, solely because it’s been the same one I’ve been facing ever since my health began a sharp decline one evening almost five years ago now.
That evening was on April 27th, 2010, a mere few weeks after I had muttered a prayer to God asking to go through whatever I needed to become free of all my addictions and toxic behaviors in life. At the time I said it, I was deeply engrossed in an extremely toxic intimate relationship and saw no way of ever breaking free from it. What I didn’t know when I said that prayer out of sheer hopelessness though was how it would soon put me on a path where I’d face my deepest fear in life, which was to have severe physical health issues that grossly limited my day-to-day functioning. And since this day five years ago, when the first of many aches, pains, and ailments kicked off within me, I’ve been doing everything I can to not let this fear rule my life, but sometimes it has and still does like today, much to my dismay.
As I sit here and type this, I’m struggling to get comfortable and have honestly spent the entire day in the same way. At various times throughout today, as well as many prior days in recent months, I’ve thought that death or going back to addictions would be a far better path than the one I’m currently on. Frankly, I don’t understand the path I’m on anymore, probably because of how long these health issues have lasted.
The good news though is that all these health issues led me to explore avenues I probably never would have given how preoccupied I was with my addictions. The not so good news though is the price that came along with discovering those avenues, which was to become riddled with myofascial pain. My muscles feel constantly tight and sore these days and I hurt in more places than not. I’ve totally done what I can to treat this condition both medicinally and holistically over the years and am now at a stage where neither brings me any relief. Trust me, I exhausted ridiculous amounts of time, energy, and money exploring every avenue of healing until I realized that the rest of this process was going to be in God’s hands. Now I do my best to remain healthy on every level, mind, body, and soul, but on days like today, when I can’t think straight because of the pain I’m feeling, I question my sanity and occasionally allow my fear of having chronic health issues plague me.
I so long for the days when I could walk for miles, hike up huge mountains, play exceedingly aggressive sports, and was an all around overly active individual. Nowadays, I’m lucky if I even have enough stamina to stand for a few minutes without aching and it often feels like I’m 80 years old. I even use a bench in the shower because it hurts to stand when I take one.
Frankly, I’m really not sure what God has in store for me, but I’ve definitely been facing my ultimate fear in life for almost five years now since I prayed for that great change to happen. Well that change definitely happened, just not in the way I thought it would. But I continue to tell myself over and over again that God isn’t going to leave me in this state. And people remind me quite often that God wouldn’t bring me down this path this far only to leave me feeling like this. I’m doing my very best to believe that to be true, but I know that I feel like I’m hanging on for dear life lately and am constantly trying to prevent my brain from convincing me to follow in either of my parents’ tragic footsteps.
So I’m not sure how much longer this is going to last, but I know I’m doing my absolute best to keep the faith, to stay positive, and to not give up. I’m also doing my absolute best to trust in God and remain as healthy as humanly possible. I do hope all of you who end up reading this will pray for me. Pray for me to make it to the other side of this. Because I do believe I’m going to witness the return of my good health soon and when I do, you can be sure I’ll be writing an uplifting post expressing my gratitude to God, to all of you, and to myself, for finally overcoming the biggest fear I’ve ever had in my entire life…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
I have never had to face a fear of physical well-being as you have. For me, the one great fear that I had as I went to seminary was that my faith, beliefs, or past life would not be acceptable to the gatekeepers of the church, and I would both fail my church, my God, and disappoint all those who had supported me and lifted me up in my journey.
And, in fact, that is exactly what did happen. My financial past came back to bite me, and my indebtedness was deemed to be too much of a burden for a pastor-to-be. After moving 600 miles from Kansas City to Chicago, I found myself without my calling, without a career, and no one in my former profession would touch me with a 10-foot-pole (not wanting a religious-nut causing problems). I was a failure, personally, financially, religiously, and felt completely unredeemable.
My failure was real; but the scope of it was 90% in my mind. Twelve years later, I have a new life, and new direction – and God has indeed “restored the years that the locusts have eaten.” Everything that kept me out of seminary and out of ministry has now been redeemed in relationship with others and in my service activity.
I also know, however, that the same Gethsemane experience you are having could well be ahead of me, too – that the damage done to me by diabetes and hypertension could well cause some truly horrific health issues – open sores, amputations, gangrene, even death. I may be coming back to you, in the days to come, asking you how you survived and walked through the pain and the suffering.