“Well you guys, looks like little Liv has strep throat,” the Doctor said after swabbing the back of Liv’s throat.
(which oh by the way took 4 grown adults to pull off…all the drama and trauma)
I let out a deep sigh of relief.
What I wanted to do was jump up and down with excitement. YAY!! She has strep!!!
Now, before you call the kiddy-police on me…let me give you the glorious back story:
A week ago my spicy little congolese princess just decided to stop eating. She was a steel trap, nothing going into that little mouth of hers.
The first day wasn’t too worrisome. We just let her do her thang (which she’s good at) and hoped for better luck the next day. But by three days in we were getting a bit worried. When we offered her food she would panic and start crying. Begging us to not make her eat. She told us every once in a while that her throat hurt, but on other occasions told us it didn’t.
Now pause. I know you’re reading this blog, knowing the final diagnosis of strep, and you are thinking… “well DUH…of course she didn’t want to eat, she had strep”. But hold your pointed finger for a moment and put yourself in the NO INFO zone of two first-time parents with a VERY stubborn and saucy three year old.
We named this battle “Hunger Strike 2015” and began feverishly trying to diagnose the problem.
And this is when this mama went down the rabbit hole in my search to figure out the brain of my little.
What could be causing her to not eat?
Was she scared of food?
Was this some sort of delayed orphan reaction to food?
Was she detaching from food?
Did her throat hurt?
Was she playing us?
I mean Lord, the questions were endless.
You know what threw us off the most?? Miraculously her issue, whatever it was, was “healed” twice in the presence of cookie cake.
So, this was a real stand off in our minds.
This was Liv deciding that she didn’t want to eat and us figuring out how to make her eat. It was a competition and we were determined to win.
We tried everything.
I laid hands on her and cast that issue out in Jesus’ name on our front porch one morning. We had “church” and I made it clear that we weren’t gonna dwell here anymore. Didn’t work.
Then we moved to a different ministry of “laying on of hands” (spanking) and when she wouldn’t eat, she got ministered to.
We put her in the corner multiple times saying things like, “Well if you’re not going to eat then you have to go to the corner until you can figure out why you’re not eating.”
We offered her a candy-only diet, ice cream-only, milkshakes…ANYTHING to get her to eat.
She held her ground. (except those miraculous cookie cake moments)
You guys, I even went to a counselor trying to figure out what to do. (I am not low on the drama end of life obvs…tend to jump to the worst case scenario)
To which the counselor said, “Maybe her throat does hurt.” (cool…thanks)
There were no other symptoms. No redness in throat, no fever, no nothing.
Until one afternoon, all of a sudden, she came down with a high fever, and that night we fought off 104.8 till morning.
Which brought us to the doctor’s office that morning to receive the GOOD NEWS that she had strep.
Why was it good news?
Because we had a reason now for the behavior. We could now tether the last 7 days to some truth that would make it all fall into place….it all of a sudden made sense.
We had an answer.
Getting into the car I said to Liv, “Baby, I’m so sorry you have strep throat.” To which Liv responded, “It’s ok mama. But I told ya.”
AND THE WINNER FOR MAMA OF THE YEAR GOES TO…..(drum rolllll)
Antibiotics in her system, advil taken and VOILA my baby scarfed down a personal pan pizza in no time flat.
Truth changes everything.
A diagnosis brings resolution; a strategy and a pathway to solving the puzzle.
The unknown leaves us guessing, stabbing in the dark, and misdiagnosing a problem.
Don’t we do this same sort of thing in our own life?
Our own sort of hunger strike?
It may look different than Liv’s. Maybe we have behaviors that we are repeating over and over again that are causing us pain, frustration, anger, heart ache, loneliness..etc. We are self-destructing before our own eyes, in small and big ways, and we can’t seem to get a grip on the solution.
Maybe we have misdiagnosed the problem.
We have looked at our behavior, the symptoms that are showing themselves, and we have begun applying the wrong discipline, the wrong medicine, the wrong strategy.
We beat ourselves up, stick ourselves in the corner, try every which way to find an answer to the problem as we see it…and nothing seems to work…that problem is standing its ground in our lives. It becomes a good ole’ fashion stand off.
Maybe we’re missing the ACTUAL PROBLEM.
You see, we see problems by their symptoms. We see our missteps and failures and label those the problem.
We can’t stop dating the wrong people, we can’t shake an addictive behavior, we lash out in anger all the time, we feel anxious and depressed. Those are all symptoms, but not the actual diagnosis. They are simply pointing towards what’s really going on.
We have a God who sees the symptoms as an invitation to dig deep and reveal the problem. He wants to give us the truth about what drives all our behaviors…the root issues causing that thorny, ugly and painful plant to grow.
For every symptom that shows on the outside of our lives, there is a deep pulsating spiritual place that is broken. One that only Jesus can heal. And that root, that specific deep down open wound…that’s what He’s after.
Do you want proof?
A woman found herself at a well one afternoon, there to address her physical thirst. She tried to hide her serial-dating/roommate problem when Jesus asked her to go get her husband.
“I don’t have a husband.” she stated. Which was true…sort of. If she would have elaborated she may have said, “I’m just thirsty man….just here to get some water…that’s my only problem.” Left to her own strategy she would have drawn from that well, taken a drink and been back the very next day with the same physical thirst….and the same nagging other, much deeper, thing she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Jesus digs a little deeper for her and offers her the thing that she actually needs. Eternal satisfaction. Never thirsting again. She obviously lacked a quenching. She was constantly filling the need with one cheap replacement after the other.
Jesus knew. He knew that He could give her something that would satisfy that deep down, root issue, of thirst. Not just the physical dryness, but the emotional and spiritual wasteland her heart was in. He gave the diagnosis that set her free. The truth given to her made it all make sense. All her behaviors, desires, repeat patterns…all given an anchor when Jesus revealed the true spot of brokenness.
A group of friends were so desperate to get their friend to Jesus that they cut a whole in the roof to lower him down into the room where He was teaching. You see, their friend had never walked and he, and his friends, wanted healing. They were desperate. They shook as they lowered their lame bestie to the ground. The man on the mat took a deep breath in as Jesus turned His gaze on him. Maybe this was it. Maybe his feeble, lame legs would find the ability to put one foot in front of the other. Were all of his dreams about to come true? Desperation filled his heart…yet hope was present too…or else he wouldn’t have Mission Impossible-styled his way into the room.
Jesus looked at him and said. “Your sins are forgiven.”
“Annnnddd….” the man probably thought in his mind, ever so subtly looking down at his legs.
Can you imagine what his friends must have felt?
“Oh no, Jesus missed it. We should have told him what we came for.” “Pssst. Jesus. Up here. Yeah we lowered him down there because…he can’t walk. He can’t walk Jesus and we want you to fix that.”
Jesus Knew. “What’s the greater thing? That a man is healed and can walk or that his sins are forgiven? What is the bigger miracle…the physical being healed or sins being forgiven completely?”
Jesus knew the true need of that lame man. He knew, of course, that he couldn’t walk. But he knew much more about his loved one. He knew that without a healing of sins he would spend eternity away from him. He knew that sin was causing a different kind of lameness, a deeper kind of disability. Knowing Jesus and being forgiven was a far greater miracle than those fleshly legs being healed.
The real problem. The real brokenness. That was what Jesus was after healing.
Jesus then healed the man’s lame legs and that man got up for the first time and put his first foot in front of the other.
Both walked away healed and quenched more completely than they ever set out to be. Healed and fulfilled both body and soul.
Ask Jesus to reveal to you the real ache in your life. The thing that’s causing all the symptoms.
What’s really going on that would bring you a sigh of relief if you knew a diagnosis?
What truth can you tether your behaviors to that gives them resolution?
All we have to do is ask:
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5
Don’t just treat the symptoms. Don’t stop until you’re healed, quenched and satisfied. Completely healed, forever quenched and eternally satisfied.
READ MORE ABOUT IT:
John 4
Mark 2
