Silent Night

Moments ago I heard a sound that was all too familiar to me in the past. It represented incurable disease and hopelessness, and for a second just now it tried to represent that same thing it used to.

I am at my fiance's and her family and I had plans to spend the day out and about doing things you do on Christmas Eve. I had surgery Tuesday to laser remove massive amounts of scar tissue that allegedly have been causing my digestive system to be stymied.

Since the surgery, instead of the optimal opening of my system, it has closed to the point where as of last night it is not sustainable without copious amounts of prune juice.

This morning I have been up all night dealing with the results of the only viable option to move my system. Due to the current problem, I told Melissa I would be heading home this morning and not joining them out. As I lay in bed I heard the sounds of people busy to get ready to go somewhere. Keys jingling, plates clattering, feet pattering. It was alot of loud noise, the sound of ensuing plans being hashed out and brought to fruition.

See I spent alot of years in a basement, exhaustingly ill, with my family on the floors above me. Somehow the sounds of noise for a special day always resonated differently then the sound of noise on a mundane workday.

It was always the worst feeling when on one of those days where something important was going on,suddenly the noise stopped. The door would slam, the house would creak, and boom they were gone. It was so symbolic of being left behind;the world continuing while you were left fighting illness by yourself. You were indeed missing another life event.

Today when the feet stopped moving and the silence permeated the house, Satan wanted so badly to remind me of how awful that silence was. That is when I decided to write this blog.

I have been preparing a blog for a month trying to explain exactly what led up to me being healed of Crohn's Disease. I have a draft with the details of every encounter, every word spoken over me, every rough patch, and every doctor that said " It's Crohn's," to the last 2 doctors that said, " I don't understand why any doctor ever told you it was Crohn's." Instead I felt God telling me to write this up real fast and publish it. There is someone who needs to hear it. Someone who needs to know that the silence is not always hope lost.

I don't know why my first Christmas Eve with Melissa is going to be spent apart from her. I don't know why I have gotten sicker before I have gotten better. I don't know God's plan. But I know how it all ends. Maybe I have to suffer today to end up somewhere 27.4 years from now, that I could have not have gotten to without this specific circumstance.

Yesterday I scolded God. I told him that being ill on Christmas was not cool. Not after what I have gone through. I started to explain to him what I had been through, as though he didn't understand without my explanation. He quickly reminded me of the miracles he has done in my life; the absolute, concrete,stone cold miracles. He reminded me that I needed to understand that I don't need to understand what's currently happening.


I have been healed and only suffer in the temporal for a greater purpose; For the Glory of my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.(Tebow!!!!!!) I know this is going to pass soon. I pray even today that things would turn around for Christmas Day.


In the bible it says that we should rejoice in our suffering. From suffering comes perseverence , then character, then hope; and hope, the greatest of these, never fails.

I can humbly say that I always assumed once you reached hope that suffering was long behind it. All of those times where the house fell silent after a long rumbling, I was sure I was many steps away from hope. I couldn't wait until my creating noise was part of the fray on a special day; a hope fulfilled.


Today that scuttlebutt left me behind in the utter silence again, just like those years ago where the silence represented hopeless suffering. But today, knowing what I know now of Jesus and 'holy cow', knowing what he has shown me since the last time the house went silent.., Today that sound of silence is a silent sound of hope.

And now that I think about it, I guess it always was.

Addendum: I knew before I wrote this that it was for someone else. That it was God telling me to do it to help someone. I got confirmation of that after I posted it. Also, I wanted to be clear that this was not meant to be a downer or depressing. I was writing in a darker way yes, but with the ultimate message being I am excited and hopeful and know God has a detailed plan here for me health wise. Sorry if it came across as 'woe is me.' Lastly, after I typed this I felt God asking me to stay in Syracuse and I did and it was a good decision. Thanks for reading. Merry Christmas.