Changed Woman

As I was sitting in the emergency room yesterday becuase of an asthma problem, I found myself contemplating once again the subject of healing that I wrote about earlier this week. At 28, I feel too young to have medicine to take every day and to have a phsyical breakdown that leaves me in the hopsital instead of at work, where I should have been at that time and where I actually would have preferred to be (yes, some places do rank lower than work). It feels unfair to me that I should take so many steps to live healthier and still end up in the ER. I could wallow in self-pity for days, it is one of my exceptional skills that I omit from my resume. But yesterday I started thinking again about the healing God chose to give me in my eating disorder. I don't want to leave anyone with the false impression that God healed me, and I left that old woman behind for good. I've certainly remembered her and felt the temptation to be her again. I have even dabbled in the old behavior on occasion since my deliverance. But the reason I know I'm free now is that I never toy with my old ways long enough for them to control me again. God reminds every time I act like I used to be that I am a changed woman now. I am not who I was. God has healed me and made me different and my old ways no longer work or stick. My eating disorder used to be shackles around my feet, and now I walk freely thanks to my Savior. I praise Him for that healing every day. But I still occaionally need to remind myself of the sufficiency of His grace and how nothing else matters. As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8, "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Even healing from my asthma, no matter how badly I think I want it, would be rubbish compared to Christ. Healing would be nice, but it wouldn't matter at all. I can squelch the feelings of self-pity that swarm in the ER air by remembering Paul's words in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." This life is only temporary. I have been blessed tremendously with freedom from my eating disorder, and I can certainly learn to persevere through a chronic health problem. After all, it is only "chronic" while I am in my phsyical body and that one day, when I walk with Him in glory, I won't even remember how much it got me down to have to leave work early one day to get emergency medical treatment for it.