Through the Fog: 6 Days of God's Goodness Amidst Physical Suffering, Chronic Pain, and Chronic IllnessSýnishorn

HEALING TRUTH

You were not made for the fog, but there is a journey with Jesus to be taken through the fog.

DEVOTIONAL

Physical suffering is often like fog. It can be a creeping pain. Slow and sure, like a fog gently spreading across a field, it begins to consume your life: body, mind, heart, and soul. As you’re walking around, you might notice a little mist in your vision, but you figure it’s nothing to worry about. After all, you can still see where you’re going. But after a while, your vision blurs. You know you’re walking in a field, and the landscape is predictable, so you figure it shouldn’t cause you too much harm to continue.

Then, before you know it you’re surrounded. The fog is so thick that you could cut it with a knife. It closes in around you, suffocating all your senses. Your vision is destroyed, and your perspective becomes disoriented. Panic begins to set in. You claw at the air, trying to clear a visible path. You spin in circles, frantically searching for any sign of light penetrating the darkness, only to find more gray fog. It is unchanging and imperceptibly grows denser. No matter where you run or turn, the fog is there. It is immovable, unrelenting, and unforgiving.

Then the panic fades, and apathy replaces it. You accept the fog and succumb to your new reality. You learn to live within its confines. Sometimes you curl up into a ball of hopelessness, tears streaming down your cheeks in a slight mental breakdown, as something in the recesses of your mind recalls what a sunny day looked like. You know nothing will truly change, so you eventually get up and start walking again, but this time you’re resigned to your blindness. You may throw a small pity party for yourself occasionally, but honestly, you’ve become comfortable in the fog. You’ve found safety in the obscurity. To the rest of the world, you have become invisible.

But your comfort in the fog only lasts so long. You were created for the day, not the night. You wake to the reality that you have no idea where you are. The people you leaned on have all disappeared, and the truths you built your life around have faded into oblivion. You are utterly lost and alone, and it’s too late to find your way out. These lies begin to suffocate you until you believe the fog has become impossible to escape. Then the suffocation turns to desperation.

Through my seven-year journey of misdiagnosed, horrendous pain in my shoulder, the fog of physical suffering had crept in around me for years, but I didn’t know it. It was when my hope was hanging on by a thread when I started lingering on thoughts about freezing my arm to where they’d have to amputate it, that I realized I was surrounded by gray mist. But at that point, there seemed little I could do to find my way out of the murk that had consumed my life.

I had tried controlling my health myself; that didn’t work. I had tried surrendering to God and asking for His healing; that hadn’t worked, either. I felt like there was nothing to do except sit down in the fog and wait for someone to come find me. Though I outwardly continued on with life, it was like my inner child sat down and waited, begging someone to come through the fog and lead me out.

This week, I want to be the person who comes looking for you in the middle of your fog. My prayer is that through the days of this devotional, you will find practical healing truths that will shine a way forward through the dark, no matter how thick your fog has become.

To start with, I want you to know that you are not made for the fog. As a child of God, you were made to have vision, to unveil the shadows of darkness in the unseen realm, and to discern who God is even amidst suffering and pain. His Word, His people, and His Spirit can shine light into the darkest places. And yet even in the fog, the goal is not for the fog to be removed, but to find your God in the midst of it. There is a journey with Jesus to be taken through the fog, and the journey is the reward. The way out is through, Friend. Let’s walk with Jesus through our fog.

PRAYER

God, reading about the metaphorical fog of physical suffering leaves me conflicted. Part of me feels dejected because I didn’t realize how far the fog had crept into my life. Yet part of me feels hope, which I haven’t felt for a long time. It feels dangerous to hope while in the fog, because I can’t see how far the fog extends or where it ends. But I know that those who hope in you will never be put to shame (Psalm 25:3), so I ask you to help me risk my fear of disappointment. Help me step out in hope today to look for the light you send into my darkness. Lead me through this fog, God. In Jesus’ name, Amen.