The Soul And The Self: Do I Believe In Miracles?

Yesterday marked the seven year anniversary of when Stills Disease first onset October 22, 2004. Yesterday and mainly tonight my mind, heart, and soul have been wandering around in my past.

Seven years...my word. When did that happen?

I think about miracles a lot. About how I think there are a lot of people who are just waiting for God to heal me instead of just being here for me. Who question whether or not I believe in miracles, and trust me, I've been asked that question a number of times, and each time it hurts me that they would ask and it saddens me that they don't know the answer.

I often think about what would happen or what I would do first-or last-if I were suddenly healed. Suddenly healthy. To be honest, really honest, the thought scares me.

It's such a responsibility to be healthy. You have so many more choices to make, and with more choices comes more chances of choosing wrong.

Often my days consist of just thanking God I got out of bed, eating, and then trying to go back to bed. But when you could technically do anything with your time, my word! God have mercy on us as we try to choose what to do and what not to do! To choose God over ourselves...

When I first got sick I was so self centered I'm disgusted when I look back. I tried to convince myself I was an authentic Christian, but I learned I wasn't. It was and still is dehumanizing. I'm afraid of the next time I look back and am disgusted by the self I am right now...It will probably be in an hour.

So, being afraid of the decisions I made when I was healthy worries me when I think of having the responsibility to have to make those decisions again. I'm so afraid I will revert back to older me and choose self over God. That He will get the rest of me and not all of me. That I will no longer be aware with every quark of myself that I need Him all day every day. That I will become self-sufficient and forget I need Him.

Miracles.

C. S. Lewis says, "That God can and does, on occasions, modify the behavior of matter and produce what we call miracles, is part of Christian faith; but the very conception of a common, and therefore stable, world, demands that these occasions should be extremely rare." And his words help me breathe and sleep easier at night. (a gentle smile is inserted here)

So, where do we land for real? Do I want a miracle? Do I want to be healed of Stills Disease and everything else and be healthy again? Yes. And no...

You see, I learned something six and a half years ago. I learned that--are you sitting down? You are going to want to be sitting down because this is going to sound CRAZY--Stills Disease was and is my miracle.


The Soul And The Self

"In the life of every man there occurs at least one epoch, when the spirit seems to abandon, for a brief period, the body, and, elevating itself above mortal affairs just so far as to get a comprehensive and general view, makes thus an estimate of it's humanity, as accurate as is possible, under any circumstances, to that particular spirit. The soul here separates itself from its own idiosyncrasy, or individuality, and considers its own being, not as appertaining solely to itself, but as a portion of the universal Ens.1 All the important good resolutions which we keep--all startling, marked regenerations of character--are brought about at these crises of life. And thus it is our intense sense of self which debases, and which keeps us debased."

1. Entity or real thing

- Edgar Allen Poe,The Opal, 1845



Stills took away everything I ever wanted. But that showed me God had already given me everything I ever needed, and because of Stills I finally realized that, saw it, and appreciated it for the first time.

Stills debased me and...it keeps me debased. It makes me know everyday that I need God. That I need love. That I need community, even when I'm too tired and achy to create it, if not especially then! It made me see the whole picture and not just a mirror image of myself.

God, via Stills, saved me, from me. And that made me a much more authentic Christian, and not one "Whose love did read by rote that could not spell" or who was doting the moon her first 18 years instead of loving the Sun (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet). That, my friends and family, is the greatest miracle of all. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

May all of you be so fully aware of all the miracles you've already experienced it stuns you into awe of the Numinous. God Bless you always in the ways He knows are best. Love! Hugs!

- Zoe