Colleen Peters - Endearing Pain: Life Lessons from MS Afflictions

He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus .

Phil :

S ince , I have lived with a rare and progressive form of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and have long struggled with giving an adequate answer when people ask me how Im doing. That question has always been difficult for me because there are many facets to the answer. Several years ago, to alleviate my frustration with giving an inadequate short answer to the question, I tried to explain in a letter what it was like to be in my skin and how my illness affected us as a family. I have continued to write letters several times a year, all of which collectively form the backbone of this book.

In my fifty-seven years, God has approached me countless times and in countless ways, to perfect in me the good work he began when he showed me Christ and the cross. Of course, he always allows me to respond as I choose, and my responses have varied. I have ignored, shunned and on occasion embraced his invitations. Despite how I respond, God persists in love to pursue me, and will do this, I know, as long as I live. In 2004 , God took unprecedented initiative with me, and this book tells the story of how God got my attention, how I reacted, and how life has unfolded in the years that ensued.

Just days before Christmas, I underwent brain surgery as doctors tried to diagnose a foreign body in my brain. I had good reason to fear it would be my last Christmas with my husband Len and our kids. The fear was ferocious as days of waiting for biopsy results stretched into weeks, yet beneath it all was a peculiar peace that quelled the fearan assurance that all would be well, come what may.

Though at the time I sensed no purpose in the waiting, Ive come to appreciate those dark fear-filled days as an expression of Gods loving purposes for mea time when my tired faith was validated and then infused with a fresh vitality. Deep inside I knew, beyond a doubt, that God was in control of my chaos and that I was loved.

I was spared the diagnosis of a brain tumor and the waiting finally came to end in mid February when I got news there was no malignancy and it appeared that some sort of demyelinating disease was to blame. Given the rare type of lesions found in my brain, the definitive diagnosis of MS was still months away and the labeling of the specific type of MS I have (progressive relapsing) and accompanying therapy options were many more months in coming. But as God rescued me from crisis fear in 2004 , so too he has been equally gracious with the chronic fears Ive faced since then, as I learn to live with a disease marked by progressive deterioration that has brought much change into my life. Though the changes have been challenging and difficult in many ways, they have also been channels of Gods grace. I live with the draining reality of a chronic illness, but I live too in a Kingdom reality that renews me, and that has made all the difference. It has given me hope that fashions faith from fear and helps me see God speaking through the daily unfolding of events. My illness has certainly served to broaden my awareness of God, which in turn has deepened my understanding and appreciation of a loving sovereign God.

Its hard to say exactly how the events of 2004 affected me, but I do know that God mercifully met me at crucial times and in creative ways, and so impressed his love upon my heart and mind that I couldnt help but love him with new abandon and am compelled to tell of it.