Broken Faith, Broken Me

By Wendy Duckworth Vance

“If you would just have more faith” or “If you would just put your trust in Jesus” then you would be healed, you would see, walk, talk, hear … just as anyone else. Many often follow this up with “by His stripes we are healed” from Isaiah 53:5-6. There are many other variations of this narrative which have been a refrain that myself and many others have heard so many times that it would be impossible to count. These simple phrases, often meant with the best intention, bring more pain, self-loathing, anger, and have driven many right out of the church door never to return. Dear reader you may be asking why? Why would these statements of guidance to physical healing elicit such emotion?

The answer is a relatively simple one when you step back and look at the situation in a different way, especially, if these comments are made publicly. For example, I once had a perfect stranger walk up to me on the city bus and say “if you just had faith and would pray, God would heal you”. I sincerely wished to crawl under a rock at that moment. I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I don’t know what anyone else on that bus thought, but I felt as if she just told everyone on the bus that I did not believe in God and that because of my unbelief, I was effectively choosing to continue having a disability. I felt as if I was just told that not only is my body broken, but that my faith was broken – not good enough. I just looked at her and I thought, how do you know anything about my faith or my relationship with God and who gave you authority to judge me? I was crushed and devastated, by what was most likely an innocent comment. She probably thought that she was giving me hope, because surely I must want to be healed because my life must surely be awful as a person with a disability. And at one time, she would have been right, before I accepted who I was created to be in this life.

She had no idea how many times I had cried out to God, begging that this thorn be taken from me. She could not know about the self-hatred that has been a part of my inner self because of all the messages that surround us in society about what it is to be “normal”, acceptable, beautiful or frankly even considered to be a human being for that matter. She had no idea how I had been tortured by bullies in school, constantly reminded that I am broken, not good enough, and unworthy of the very air that I breath. She and so many others could not know how many times growing up, that the weight of such crushing alienation had caused me to contemplate ending my life. And none but myself and God could know how many times God had stayed my hand as I sat on my mom’s kitchen floor with a knife to my wrist as I cried out to Him in the agony of a broken existence.

Or as a second example, my husband and I had a close friend with Cerebral Palsy. He could only physically use one hand and his speech was difficult to understand. He had become a believer, to my knowledge, loved the Lord deeply. His church family, however, I can only assume, did not believe this. He was regularly told that if he would just have faith, he would be healed. They would weekly pull him from his wheelchair and tell him to get up and walk – to “be healed”. And each week, he would be left laying on the church floor, unable to get back in his chair and blamed for his lack of faith. He felt that his faith was broken, that God was leaving him this way because he had not solved or executed the correct faith formula in order to be healed. He was so broken by this repeated assault and insult to his faith. He would cry and tell my husband how much he hated himself and how he felt that his mother had given birth to his chair as much as his physical body. He was tortured and racked with the pain of wondering if he would ever be good enough, faithful enough for God to heal him, to make his physical being something that would be deemed acceptable to society, to his brothers and sisters in Christ. I am sure that the believers in his congregation meant no harm, they wanted healing for him, but they did not stop to think that the healing that they were so desperately seeking for the physical body was leaving gaping, bleeding wounds to his inner self that were killing him from the inside out.

Yes, by His (Yeshua/Jesus) stripes we are healed, but please know healing is not just physical healing – it is spiritual – it is healing the brokenness inside that is our sin nature. Analyze the rest of the verse and understand that this is less about what people see on the outside and more about the inside – the heart – the part that God really wants. The Word says “He was pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities”. The verse then follows up with “by His stripes we are healed. Healed from what? Transgression and iniquity – both words meaning sin or immorality. The fact that this verse refers to spiritual rather than physical healing is further illustrated when the verse states that our punishment was placed on Him. Does it seem logical that there would be punishment for someone being born, getting into an accident, being harmed by someone else or getting older leading to disability? Or is it far more logical that there would be punishment for breaking the laws of God (sin) for which we needed forgiveness, restoration and spiritual healing from the soul sickness of sin? Dear reader, I believe the answer is yes, healing and restoration from sin sickness to spiritual health is far more logical.

Now does this mean that I do not believe that God can and does provide physical healing, no it does not. I believe that the Word is clear that God heals the physical body. It is, however, also clear that healing of the body is to glorify God. “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” John 9:3. The blind man discussed in this verse, had a plan and a purpose from God – to glorify Him. We are all made for that purpose and for each of us, God has a plan that brings glory to His name. You are not broken; you are a vessel created by the Father who loves you and has a purpose for you just as He made you to be. Find your identity in Him and not as the world or even fellow believers see you. Be healed of spirit and know that you are forgiven and free – live your purpose as a child of the King!