As many know, I have been battling ticks and Lyme disease since April, 2017. My first tick encounter happened then, and I developed Lyme 10 days later. Each Spring, I have been blessed with healing and relief from the suffering of Lyme…. But each Spring in the last week of April, I have been bitten again – and Lyme happened again and again.
Last Spring, I discovered a remedy against being bitten over and over again in pure sulfur taken orally as a preventative. Thankfully, the torment of being bitten by ticks and other critters daily abated after I began the sulfur.
This Spring I began sulfur in early March, and seemed to have “dodged the bullet” so to speak. No bites…. until mid-May, that is. I found a tick then and was unable to get the head out and headed to urgent care 10 days later (June 10, 2021) to get help. The “surgery” was successful, but my heart was in a very bad place….. with God.
The devil knows each of us really well – he’s made a long study of the human race, and those who are God’s, and he has figured out just what buttons to push to send us into the pit of (mental/emotional) hell. For me particularly, my vulnerabilities are in a pattern that was established when I was young (long before my husband, Ben, and I were together). The pattern goes like this: Seduced first, then used, betrayed and finally abandoned.
That Thursday, I cracked jokes with the doctor as he did what was necessary – better to crack a joke then to cry! After I left the clinic, my heart plummeted into the pit. I was believing that God was the agent Who had brought this suffering upon me (again!!). That He was the One Who had seduced me into believing that He would protect me from this suffering. That He had been using me for some terrible purpose. That He had betrayed me… and was abandoning me to navigate the (anticipated) terrible journey back into Lyme territory.
My heart and my mind were devastated… lost…. angry… the agony of my heartache at the thought of the God I worship being such an agent was almost unbearable. And the foulness of the tick and its invasion into my body filled me with disgust.
Most of the day, as I drove and worked, I was overcome with grief and tears…. I cried myself to sleep crying out to God to please please please send me help.
One of my dear friends sent me a teaching on Friday morning and I listened to it as I worked outside. Out of that teaching came an incredible insight into my own false beliefs about God – and insights into the enemy, the devil, and how he operates.
You see, I believed in my heart of heart (still! – despite His promise to me in Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the plans I have for you (Deborah), plans for your welfare, and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.”) that God was a hostile wrathful God – and that in His nature was His wrath poured out on sin and sinners… and on those whom He loves. I thought about Jesus and the long hours from Gethsemane to the tomb. How could a God Who said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”, do to Jesus (or allow it!!) all the dreadful suffering and torture He endured in His agony before the LORD in the garden, His mocking and shaming and torture at the hands of men?
What if I was misunderstanding this whole thing?
Jesus’s purpose was to bring salvation to sinful mankind. The only way legally (per God’s holy Law of the Old Testament) that sin could be made right before a holy God was for a perfect sacrifice to be made. In the Old Testament times, the sacrifices of animals were only of perfect, unblemished, innocent creatures. These sacrifices did not permanently fix the sin problem as people left the sacrifice and promptly went on to sin again.
Jesus kept perfectly the Old Testament Law, and He was innocent. As such, He could be the final, perfect, innocent creature sacrificed to atone for sin (make payment for, rid sin of its power to curse a person forever).
The devil knew that Jesus in His humanity could be attacked with the hope that He would sin in word, deed or thought against God during the agonies of suffering. This would render Jesus imperfect, and it would thwart God’s plan of redemption and freedom for His beloved peoples. Only if Jesus remained pure in every way could His sacrifice do what He and the Father intended it to do.
The realization that the enemy of Jesus (and of me!) was not, and is not God the Father, and the insight of who the enemy was that caused men to do the dreadful things they did to Jesus, was shocking to me. The depth of my misunderstanding, and the depth of my sin in attributing to God the things only to be attributed to satan was profound.
I understood that the Father loves me. That the enemy, satan, hates me murderously, and he will do anything to cause me to disbelieve and mistrust God. He is the perpetrator of all evil, and is the source of the lies I had believed as far as God being the One Who had seduced, used, betrayed and abandoned me. NO! The enemy is he who does all those things through the actions of people and circumstances.
Jesus, the Creator of all things became a man that He might, as a man, bear the cost of sin in Himself. He did this in order to free us, His children. (Hebrews 2:14b…. that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery [to the fear of dying].)
The amazing blessings that have come out of my journey with Lyme disease are many. This most recent episode opened my eyes to the reality of the true enemy, the devil, and how he works to use my vulnerable areas to hurt me and to cause me to mistrust God.
“For I know the plans (as He is all-knowing and He loves me) I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for your welfare, and not for evil, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
Following the insight on Friday, June 11, God gave me such a peace, such a joy, such an awesome love for my Savior, Who bore incredible suffering at the hands of the enemy’s minions and yet stayed pure and holy right to the end so that He might give me the gift of life. His plans for me ARE for my welfare – and even in the midst of these challenges. He is with me. He alone is faithful. He loves me (He never seduces me to use me). He longs to bless me, and He never betrays those He loves. He has promised to never leave nor forsake me… AND He is faithful. He is the Promise-keeper.