Healing Service

I gave the message at my church's Holy Week healing service tonight.  Here's what I said....

Hi, my name is Kathy Koontz and as many of you know, in February of 2013 I was diagnosed with Primary Amyloidosis, a rare, fatal, incurable blood disorder.  I chose to undergo a stem cell transplant last April because it gave me the greatest chance of some version of a normal life for a period of time.  For some people, that period of time might be 3 years and for others it could be 30.  Doctors can’t predict how long the transplant will be successful. I remember reading one article that said about 96% of patients will eventually relapse.  The documentation about a study in which I’m enrolled at Ohio State puts it pretty succinctly when describing its purpose—“Because nearly all amyloid patients relapse and treatment is eventually unsuccessful” dot, dot, dot.

96% relapse rate, treatment is eventually unsuccessful?!?!?!  I know you may be wondering why I’m delivering the message at the Healing Service.  No, it’s not another practical joke from Cricket and Stephen….although I wouldn’t put it past them.

There’s a difference between the word “cured” and the word “healed”.   The definition of the word cured is—“relieve a person of the symptoms of a disease or condition.” While the definition of the word healed is—“cause a wound, injury, or person to become sound or healthy again.”  To become sound again.  Finding relief from symptoms is so temporary and focused only on the physical being while, to me, being made sound, or perhaps even made whole, covers all aspects of being—physical, spiritual, emotional and intellectual.  A cure is rooted in circumstance and seems fragile and temporary.  Being healed transcends those circumstances.

My stem cell transplant was aimed at getting me as close to a cure as possible.    And while the transplant worked and my disease is in remission, it’s not the medical treatment that has healed me.  Yes, it’s relieved the symptoms, moved me closer to a cure and helped give me hope for the future, but it hasn’t made me sound.  That took something more.

I was in a great deal of pain that I’d describe as significant and despair-inducing for about 2 weeks during my month-long hospitalization.  Bear in mind, I delivered 2 kids without epidurals..I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance.  When Cricket used the words “dark, somber and frightening” yesterday to describe the emotions of Holy Week for Jesus, I knew a little of what that felt like.  Now, I’m not comparing what I went through with what happened to Jesus during Holy Week but I’ll say it’s about as close to that as I ever want to get.  The physical pain was bad enough but the emotional pain was even worse.  The days weren’t too bad because my family would be there and there was a lot of distracting activity.  But, at night, I was alone for many hours with my pain and my thoughts, but also and most importantly, my God and my faith.

Many nights, I would think about the Bible passage about the woman who was healed from her hemorrhages of 12 years merely by touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak.  On those nights, I would rest my elbow on the bed, hold my hand up and rub my fingers together begging in my morphine-induced haze “Please just tell me where the cloak is.  I will do whatever it takes to get there but you have to tell me where it is.  Please, tell me where it is!!”

I also thought a lot about the story of the Cherokee right of passage where the young man is taken into the forest at sundown by his father, blindfolded and left sitting on a stump until the sun rises.  He experiences many fears through the night and when he removes the blindfold in the morning, he realizes his father has been sitting next to him all night.  I felt that way during many scary nights when I was in so much pain and fearful about my recovery.  I kept reminding myself that God was sitting there with me.  But one night, I started thinking about everyone who was praying for me, thinking about me and sending me positive vibes.  I pictured them as a ring around me on that stump helping to keep anything negative or harmful away from me.  I held on to that image many times through my hospitalization and recovery.

There were certainly some “dark, somber and frightening” times.  But at every turn, at each dark moment I felt the love and presence of God and of His people…all of you.  God, and His people, have been there at each step bringing mercies and gifts, both large and small, to make the path a little easier to walk.  As I see this happen with such consistency, it gives me confidence that no matter what medical twists and turns may happen with this disease, I can fully trust in the goodness of a loving God, the sufficiency of His grace and the love and support from my faith family.

This trust in God is like a muscle that gets stronger and stronger the more I use it.  Sometimes, I think about the relapse statistics for my disease and wonder if God is giving me opportunities for my trust to become so strong because I’m going to need it in the future.  Sure, I’ll start to worry but then I’ll think about how blessed I’ve been throughout this process and know that God, and His people, will be there for me regardless of what I face in the future.

And because of that trust, I don’t have to worry about being cured.  It’s proof that I’ve already been healed.