Across
Pacific Magazine
Do You Want to
Get Well?
Susan Peabody
One
of the men lying
there had been sick for 38 years. When Jesus saw him and knew how long
he had
been ill, He asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
“I can’t,” the sick man said, “for I have no
one to help me into the pool at the movement of the water. While I am
trying to
get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me.” Jesus told him,
“Stand up,
roll up your sleeping mat and go on home.”
John 5:5-8, The
Living New Testament
I believe
that to reach our full potential, and to serve Christ to an optimal
degree, we must
heal the
wounds of our past. By wounds, I mean the legacy of neglect and
abuse—such
things as fear, anger, and shame. Healing our wounds also guarantees
that we
will not pass our pain on to others and destroy their lives. This is
important
to me because I carry around many wounds. Most of them are the legacy
of a
childhood filled with loneliness and depression.
Of course,
it took me a long time to realize that I was being held back by my
emotional
problems, and, when I finally did, I still lacked the motivation to do
anything
about the situation. Then, one day, while discussing all of this with a
friend,
she asked me, “What holds you back from getting better? What do you
think the
block is?” Without thinking, I found myself blurting out, “I am afraid
to get
better. Mental health
is unfamiliar. It is a mystery that lies beyond a closed
door and
I have no peep hole. That mystery feels
like a beast ready to devour me if I open the door. What if getting
better is
worse than being sick? It can happen. Besides, I think I have bonded to
my
vision of myself as a victim. I prefer self-pity to self-esteem” “My
friend
looked at me in surprise, but before she could say anything I left. I
really
didn’t want to talk about this because it made me feel ashamed.
Not long
after this conversation, I sat down to read The Living Bible.
Without
thinking, I turned to the gospel of
John. Soon, I got to the story of the
sick man by the pool (John 5:6-8). I had read this story before,
and
liked it, but this time when I got to the words, “Would you like to get
better?”
a loud voice boomed in my head, “No.” At first I was shocked by this
passionate
and spontaneous response to the question Jesus had posed, and I didn’t
know
what to make of it. Then I remembered my earlier conversation with my
friend.
As I began
to reflect on this story in John, in terms of what I had
revealed to my
friend about my fear of getting better and my victim mentality, I found
it
particularly fascinating that once Christ confronts the sick man about
whether
or not he wants to get well, the man in question begins to make
excuses. (Don’t
we all.) And the man never really answers
Christ. (If
he is anything like me he probably just lay there looking sheepish,
trying to
find more excuses for staying in bed.) Fortunately for the man (and for
me)
Jesus let him off the hook and simply gave him the answer to his
dilemma. “Stand
up, roll up your sleeping mat and go home.” In other words, do
something—take
action—don’t sit around the pool in a state of suspended animation.
So this is
what I did. I got down on my knees and prayed for the willingness,
courage, and
guidance to change. I said out loud, “Yes! Lord! I want to get well!” Then I picked up my mat, or in my case got
out of bed both literally or figuratively, and went home.
Home, as it
turned out, is both a metaphorical and physical place. Metaphorically, it is
that place in my heart where my soul resided before the trauma and
where today
I am a free and unblemished spirit unencumbered by my fears and
illusions.
Literally, it is the church where I can incorporate the Christian
disciplines
of prayer, meditation, confession, study, submission, and worship into
my life—all
the things that are helping me get better. Most of all, it is behind
that door
I was so afraid of where the Holy Sprit teaches me everything I need to
know
about reaching my full potential as a human being.
So remember
the lesson of the sick man by the pool. Christ is not going to heal us
without
our permission. We must say yes to mental health. We must get past your
reservations about being happy (as strange as that sounds). And we must
do
something—sometimes even before the willingness comes.
brightertomorrow.net
Susan Peabody is the
author of Addiction to Love:
Overcoming Obsession and Dependency in Relationships. She has been
writing
about mental health issues for Christians since 1994. Her website is
brightertomorrow.net
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