I have just arrived home from a ten day trip to Utah, that time including travel. The past day has been a long one, and in spite of being extremely tired, my ultimate desire came down to spending tonight in my own bed and the two-and-a-half hour drive home to achieve that goal became an unfortunate requirement. So I stocked up on dinner/snacks/hydration, put in the current disc of my latest Book on CD listening project, and turned myself more or less westward.
A little more than an hour from home, this passage came along. I had to rewind it three times to allow it to sink in and penetrate my thoughts.
[The time-traveling narrator, Jim, is speaking with Jude, the youngest brother of Jesus, about an injury to one of his eyes, after the younger man had told another character that there was nothing wrong with it for Jesus to heal.]
"I have not asked him to heal it," said Jude, his voice as innocent as ever. "I can see everything that I need to see." ... "My brother came to me once--before all this, his ministry and miracles. I was six years old when a scraping plane fell from my father's shelf. It hit me here." He drew a much longer line near his eyes than what was currently evident. Jude continued, "Yeshua told me at that time, he said the injury was like a gift, a gift from Heavenly Father. By giving me this weakness, he said the Father would nurture in me far greater strengths. My brother was right; as I have said, I see all I need to see, and sometimes more."
I gazed at him in astonishment. I found myself reciting a verse of scripture. "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble, and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, for if they humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."
"Beautiful words," said Jude. "I have not heard them before. Who spoke them?"
"A prophet," I said. "His name was Moroni." ... "He's from another place," I said, "another land. Besides, for you the words are already written here." I tapped two fingers to my heart. It seemed funny. I'd memorized that verse a long time ago as a teenager. I'd recited it often during my life, and yet it had taken a fourteen year old boy--the youngest brother of Jesus Christ--to help me really understand what it meant.
I paused the book and pondered the ideas. The main thing on my mind was the same thing that has been on my mind for approximately half of my life: my "faulty" period. It--and its sister act, a hypothyroid condition--has been what I would characterize as my major physical, emotional, and spiritual weakness since my early and mid teens. It has caused me grief, frustration, embarrassment, fatigue, despair, worry, anger, and all manner of other troubles over the years, in spite of thousands of dollars and hours spent on various treatments, tests, and (personally failed) regimens. I have very much I identified all too well with the despair, pain, and hope of the woman in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8, she who had endured a twelve year issue of blood (menstrual period) and spent all her money on various physicians, seeking a cure before she made her way through the crowd to touch Jesus' hem. Time and again, I sought out the Priesthood as an antidote, a remedy, and never found it. Was my faith that weak? I began to severely doubt myself. In time, I thankfully learned not to see myself as broken, but I could not shake the feeling of incomparable weakness.
Given all of this, I began to think; How had this "problem" humbled me? And how had it become my strength? I knew that I was humble; I cannot count the hours and the tearful prayers I have spoke with God, trying to accept my lot in life while also seeking to do the best I could with what I had. My struggles had made me frugal in that way, or as I once heard it: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." My life seemed a perpetual endurance race, wanting to do some much with so little on hand.
I knew that I was promised by God to have"numerous posterity", that I would become a mother and raise my children. I have struggled with this so many times; How could such a "faulty" organ, a faulty endocrine system ever support a child, much less several of them, no matter how much I wanted them? Clearly, this must be something that, in time, the Lord would strengthen in me. Right? I have always believed this, though sometimes it seemed utterly impossible.
Since first seeing my GP at fifteen years old, I've been on this roller coaster of constantly seeking for my cure, seeking out my wholeness, seeking for a way not only to keep my blood inside my body three-quarters of the time-where it belongs-but to also lose weight and overcome my other various obstacles. My GP wanted to put me on the pill at first, an idea that I rejected. It just didn't ring true to me, forcing artificial hormones into my body. Then there was the thyroid replacement pill. Both of these plans had a fatal flaw: me. I hate pills. I hate taking them: short-term, long-term, on a schedule, with a meal, it doesn't matter. I am notoriously bad at remembering to take my pills or supplements, or wanting to when I do remember. Nevertheless, I tried. I really tried. I've tried many times over the years, and it just never quite works for more than a couple of weeks or months to stay on a schedule.
About age sixteen, I turned to herbs to try and find a way out of or through my predicament. I walked into Rosemary's Garden and bought my first herb book, Herbal Healing for Women by Rosemary Gladstar, the store's original owner. I began to read and to test out various herbs. It was a lazy, meandering sort of study, but as time went on, I bought a lot of books (that I never heard the whole way through) and did several bouts of research on my ailments. Then the ailments of others. I began trying teas and tinctures for colds and flus, and ointments for aches and pains. By age 21, I was enrolled at the California School of Herbal Studies, though I barely attended more than half of the first semester before the wind was knocked out of my sails. So I turned to massage, the path my parents had often encouraged me to follow, and it was the right fit for me. By this time I had an inkling of what a doula was, and I became interested in pregnancy and birth and babies. Again, my course was slow for several years, but in time, I trained and began to learn and study. I became a budding birth geek. I supported, I advised, I referred, I helped, I touched, and sometimes I even healed. Still, I struggled with my blood, never recognizing too profoundly what it had done for me.
As I thought through this journey, I came back around to those blessings I had received, the ones promising that my providers would have the answers to stop my bleeding, answers I never accepted. Blessings I never accepted. I had always felt ashamed at my stiffneckedness, but in a rush, I understood: God knew me. He knew that I would choose another path, but he always, always let me know that if I wanted a way out, it was there for me to take. I could have had the cure of medicine at any time I wished to claim it, but I chose this other path, whether through rebellion, stubbornness, weakness, or misunderstanding. God knew this would be my choice, and instead, set me on this path I have followed for some dozen years. Had I chosen the path of allopathic medicine to heal me, I would not be who I am. I would not have these great interests. I would not use my hands to ease pain and make my wage. I would care very little about birth or reproductive health in the ways that I do. I would not be myself. I would be someone else entirely. He used the weakness he knew I had--knowing still that I loved him, that I wanted to do his will--and used it to His purpose, all the while letting me think that it was my idea.
Perhaps most importantly, I know that my faith remains intact. I have been accountable for my choices, accountable for the fact that I still struggle with my issue of blood, but my weakness--the "failure" that I allowed to continue--has now become another, greater strength. I know I have another mission here in this life, to touch and to teach and to uphold and to heal, a mission I could not have fulfilled without my weakness.
This is my health, my wholeness, my holiness. This is my blood mystery.
