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The Search

2014 There is a popular relationship book currently being sold titled The Five Love Languages. It is actually a pretty good book. It identifies five ways that people express and receive love: gifts, acts of service, affirmations, affection, and time spent together. The premise is that we need to identify the love languages of those important to us and do what makes them feel loved, not what feels like love to oneself. That makes a lot of sense to me. As I have been pondering the meaning of Christmas this year, it occurs to me that God speaks my love language. I have two primary love languages. The strongest is acts of service. When someone does a simple act of kindness towards me I feel loved. For me, making a cup of tea for me or just walking beside me implies that I am thought of and cared for. Affection does something similar, but not quite as strong. One can be given a hug or kiss out of habit or convention. But a real hug that last a few moments longer than convention dictates feels like genuine love and concern to me. Now, God doesn’t physically make me tea or give me hugs, but he does speak to me in the same way that these human acts do. Christmas is the greatest example of this. When I speak of Christmas, I am speaking of the celebration of the birth of Christ. I am talking about a spiritual season. Yes, the gift giving and time with family are important to me, but that is not my primary focus. Every year I reflect on what that birth means and every year I find some new perspective to dwell on. Christmas is not about the birth of a baby. It is about God taking on human skin and living with us. It is about an amazing Love that is so desirous of a relationship with us that he gave up all he is; the powerful, eternal, majestic creator becoming weak and dependent, confined to time, and subjected to all kinds of evil. It is about the ultimate act of service. It is the total sacrifice of self for the benefit of mankind and the benefit of me personally. When I open myself up and accept this incomprehensible act of service, I am overwhelmed. And as I give into to the God whose love compelled such a drastic act, I am engulfed in his arms and covered with his kisses. I know I am loved simply because he chooses to do so.

God Speaks My Love Language

Reflecting on the how God shows His love to me in ways I can understand the incomprehensible.

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LIFELONG HEALING By Deborah von Brecht , M.D. Healing has been a lifelong quest for me. Born with heart deformities, I have been surrounded by physicians, nurses, technicians, clinics, hospitals, procedures and tests--all the trappings of modern medicine. I was only 2 when I had my first surgery; the ensuing years included several more. Some necessary, some not. Some successful, some not. Raised to believe in a loving, all-powerful God, I have prayed for healing as long as I can remember. As a child hearing Bible stories of miraculous healing, I prayed God would do the same for me. Sitting alone, watching other kids play, I longed for the day when my heart would be strong enough so I could join in. When I was 16, I believed God had answered my petition once and for all. My doctors performed surgery to permanently correct my heart deformities. I was healed! But life has a way of fooling us believers, challenging us to question God’s love. Over the course of my life, other medical problems have emerged, as they do for many of us. The delusion of perfect health ebbed and flowed, but I went about life believing in my healing. Then in 1999, my heart failed me again. This time, despite the attempts of medicine and fervent prayer, my heart remained damaged. It seemed God had decided to ignore my prayers for complete restoration. A fresh mission During my college years my search for healing took a turn. While pursuing other studies, I sensed God urging me to become a physician. I believed He was calling me to continue my quest for healing--this time for others. I entered medical school like many aspiring doctors, full of idealistic expectations of helping mankind, which were quickly lost in the drudgery of classes, long hours of study and exhaustion. I completed my training, however, and I joined a family-practice group and began serving God as a physician. Through the years of applying what I learned, I discovered that sometimes healing is simple and quick, such as when prescribing penicillin for strep throat. Sometimes healing is controlling a disease so that life may go on. Sometimes healing comes in ways that medicine can’t explain. But many times, healing doesn’t come at all. I have questioned God’s will as I’ve watched a young patient die from an auto accident, a vibrant minister succumb to cancer, an older patient surrender to life’s inevitable end. And in all of this, the question for me remains: If I have faith, will God heal? I will probably have to wait until eternity for an answer that satisfies me, but I have come to terms with the question by following five principles: l. Trust God to heal whom He wants. And that person may not always be the one we identify as sick. The story of David and Bathsheeba’s ill son demonstrates this (2 Samuel 12:15-19). The child conceived in their affair became ill. David fasted and prayed earnestly and intently, but the infant died. This child’s illness brought this arrogant, selfish king to his knees, a place where God restored him as His servant--a man after God’s own heart. As I have watched families gather around a sick loved one, I have witnessed the pain and suffering of those who wait. I have seen caregivers exhausted by the constant demands of tending to a terminally ill person. I have watched grown children struggle with the guilt of an unresolved rift with a parent now unable to respond to them. God knows which person to heal. He may heal that broken relationship, an old emotional wound or a lost soul. I suspect these hidden illnesses, which have eternal significance, are more important to Him than a mortal body. 2. Trust in how God heals. Years ago I diagnosed a patient with a terminal illness. I sadly delivered the news to her, explaining that she had less than a year to prepare for death. Six years later, she remains alive and well. Recently, she alluded to a spiritual incident that I understood as a spiritual experience. Was this a true miracle, or was she just one of the fortunate 3 percent that respond to treatment? All I know is I cannot explain why she is still alive. I also can’t explain why diabetic patients don’t watch their diet or check their blood sugars, why heart patients don’t exercise or stop smoking, or why I struggle with the extra pounds that strain my heart. In 2 Kings 5:l-I4, Naaman sought healing for his leprosy from the prophet Elisha. He was angered by the prophet’s response. Naaman expected Elisha to come out and greet him, call on the God of the Israelites, wave his hands in some dramatic gesture and make the leprosy miraculously disappear. Instead, Elisha sent a servant and instructed Naaman to perform a simple, routine task: Bathe in the Jordan River. Naaman was so incredulous he refused to comply until cajoled by his servants. And he was healed. How many times have friends and family pleaded with us to change habits, attitudes or lifestyles? These adjustments don’t look much like healing to us. We have trouble seeing God’s hand in the process of following wise counsel, adapting to physical limitations or grieving the loss of health. We have our expectations of what God should do for us. And often we don’t see God’s healing when it doesn’t match our idea of how He should intervene. 3. Trust God to know when to heal. Timing is often important for proper healing. A child born with a cleft palate may need to go through a series of surgeries before a final repair of the defect can be done. This is to allow facial structures to grow properly. Closing the defect too soon could lead to a deformed mouth. Jesus waited until Lazarus was dead for four days before showing up in Bethany (John 11: I1-44). When He finally arrived, all hope of healing was gone. By waiting, however, Jesus had a greater opportunity to bring glory to God by raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus revealed His authority over death, further demonstrating His true nature. God’s timing is based on His perspective and His will. When He is ready, He completes His healing. Sometimes He prepares us to leave this world and join Him--the ultimate healing experience. 4. Trust that God knows what needs to be healed. We most often assume that the body should be healed. Mark 2:l-12 tells the story of four men who sought healing for their paralyzed friend. Imagine their surprise when, after hacking through a roof and lowering their friend into the house, Jesus said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus knew something the four friends didn’t. Perhaps the paralyzed man was bitter and angry with God. Perhaps he was filled with shame, believing sin had caused his condition. Jesus did heal the man’s paralysis, but He did so to demonstrate His authority to forgive sins. We often don’t perceive all of the needs of the sick. As I was going thorough various tests and procedures in an attempt to restore my heart function, several people offered to pray for me. Few, however, asked what to pray for. As a physician, I knew my heart could be permanently damaged and no medical procedure would help if it were. From my perspective, prayers that asked for God to guide the surgeon’s hands or provide healing for my heart meant little at that point. What I needed was grace to accept the outcome, be it good or bad. God knows our true disease. It may be a stubborn or doubtful heart, a weak faith, the “I’ll do it myself, thanks” attitude or anything else that keeps us from leaning on Him. 5. Trust in where God chooses to heal. When I think about the places where Jesus healed, I’m struck at how ordinary they were. The woman with the bleeding problem merely touched Jesus’ cloak while He was walking down the road (Matthew 9:20-22). Others were healed by a lake (Luke 8:51-56) and by a pool (John 5:1-9). I am also struck by the fact that Jesus rarely sought the sick but instead waited for them to come to Him. He had no office, hospital or special facility designated for healing, but they came. In the same way, healing occurs today in many different places. It may be in a hospital, at home, in a Sunday School class, at lunch with a friend. It will happen in a place where you come to God willing to be vulnerable and open to Him. It will be a place where you are willing to allow Him to be in control of the situation in whatever manner He chooses. And He will only choose what is best for you. A place of wholeness I don’t want to give the impression that God doesn’t care about our physical health. He does, and He has given us many tools to heal diseases and live long, productive lives. But His perspective is total, so He desires total healing. Christ said the first commandment is to love the Lord with all we are—body, mind, heart, and spirit. As products of man’s fall, our bodies are prone to disease and defect. We are imperfect and mortal. God sometimes uses that fact to bring us closer to a place of wholeness. I don’t understand why God has chosen not to heal my body. But I know He has been working on two other areas of my life—my need to be in control and my reluctance to trust. As a physician, I am expected to be in control. I need to control the treatment given a patient, the actions of the health care team, and most of all myself. When I was in control, I felt I could trust others to perform their duties and carry out my wishes. The outcome seemed to be in my hands. But suddenly I was faced with a situation beyond anyone’s control but God’s. My illness fell on the heels of my husband leaving me and the bankruptcy of the company managing my practice, forcing me to close it. I was just beginning to put my life back together when my physical strength disappeared. Everything I was as a person and physician was gone, with no hope of regaining it. I tried desperately to remain in control, thinking that would bring answers. I looked for ways to accommodate my physical limitations, working as little as two hours a day at a desk job. Eventually, I had to accept the reality of my situation and retire. My prayers were filled with anger, grief and anxiety. I felt useless to God and hated being dependent on others. But as I prayed, God began to change me, often with an intense sense of His sovereignty and passionate love for me. Over time, as I meditated and began to understand more fully the characteristics of God, my anxiety lessened. I began to find comfort in the fact that God is in control, not me. I began to trust His love for me. I began to believe that He has other plans for me, and it’s okay if only He knows what they are. I started to accept that living day to day is enough. I found peace. So can we trust God to heal? Absolutely! Is faith in Him healing me? In ways I could have never imagined and can’t fully explain. Oswald Chambers once wrote, “you have no business trying to find out where God is leading--the only thing He will explain to you is himself.” This certainly has been my experience. God has replaced everything I lost with more of Himself. Job was never told why God allowed great losses in his life, and I haven’t been told either. Like an old-time Marcus Welby, God explains little, smiles and says, “Trust Me.”

Lifelong Healing

This was written in 2008 as I was accepting the reality that I was disabled and no medical intervention would change that. I had been evaluated for a heart transplant but was not sick enough to qualify for that or other options.

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06/16/2022 Just enough I have been on an amazing journey with God. He has challenged me to believe in the Holy Spirit’s power and act on it. He has led me to resources such as The Daily text, Holy Spirit Summer, and Livestream Book club. The journey has been incredible. Today, I received an amazing insight. I have prayed all my life for healing from the heart deformities I was born with. I had surgery to repair these deformities at the age of 16 and I believed that to be my healing. But it was temporary and my heart began to fail again in my late 40’s resulting in an early retirement from my practice as a family physician-the calling I thought would be my life’s work. God has helped me understand my calling to be something much higher and simpler-to bring his love into this world. Although I have accepted this and the fact that God has chosen not to heal me, I still struggle with the grief and loss of being unable to do what my emotional heart and my head say I should. Not knowing what strength I will have from day to day means I don’t know how to plan my time. My to do list often sits unattended with the hope the next day will be better. I recently have connected with a group of women physicians here in Sacramento. At our first meeting, we went around the room and gave a short introduction about our lives. When it became my turn to share and I said, “I was born with Tetralogy of Fallot” I could hear the gasp of surprise. They all know that my survival to this point in my life is very unusual. When I shared the same thing later with one of the women at coffee, she exclaimed, “You are a miracle!” I have been aware of this and I am grateful God has given me this miracle. But it isn’t what I have prayed for. Today, as I was reading about live-streaming the Holy Spirit, a memory came to mind. In my 50’s, I was evaluated for a heart transplant for the first time. Part of the evaluation is a test called a max VO2. During this test, a person walks on a treadmill while wearing a mask to see how quickly the body moves from aerobic metabolism (burning sugar for energy using oxygen) to anaerobic metabolism (burning sugar for energy without oxygen). This metabolism is done by organs in the cells called mitochondria. Anaerobic metabolism is supposed to be for emergency use and the energy is used up very quickly. The test shows what exercise capacity a body has and correlates with predicted survival time. Mine was very low. However, the doctor doing the test was surprised that my curve was unusual. He surmised that it showed my body had been going in and out of anaerobic metabolism for a long time. Then he said, “Wouldn’t you like to know how your mitochondria are different from mine?” That statement stayed in my head for the next several days along with the prayer, “God, are you so intimate that you would change the very nature of the cells in my body?” It was a profound realization. Repeated VO2 tests have continued to show an unusual adaptation that the doctors can’t explain. While reading testimonies of healing this morning, this memory and the profoundness of what God has done began to overwhelm me again. This time, however, God revealed that he did answer my prayers. He healed me just enough. Just enough to live in dependence on him. Just enough to see my boys grow into adulthood. Just enough to continue to serve Him. Was it the full healing I have prayed for all of my life? No. I don’t know why that is. To my mind, I could have done a lot more for him if I had all of the energy I needed. But I also know that he has shaped me and used me for his glory just the way I am. He has healed me just enough. I am processing this new revelation.

Just Enough

This is a story about a revelation given to me by God. He wants all of us to know that we are enough for Him, no matter who we are or what we are dealing with.

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04/14/2015 I think this whole thing about self esteem is just another way for Satan to turn us away from God and rob us of our joy. The very name suggests that: SELF esteem. It is all about self. It is all about how we view and feel about self. Whether we feel valuable or worthless it doesn’t matter. Both views are a lie if based on an evaluation of self. If we feel worthless, we deny what God has said about us. We are His creation and He values us enough to give up all power, knowledge, and immortality to live like us and die for us so we can be with Him. That’s a pretty high value. It’s not based on who we are or what we do, but on God’s evaluation of human life. On the other hand, if we have a high regard for ourselves and take pride in what we have done, we deny God His rightful place. Only God is worthy of esteem. Only God is good. Humans are sinful, weak, and full of failures. To not admit that is to miss God’s grace. It is because of His grace and love that He declares us valuable. It has nothing to do with us and everything to do with who God is. So, how is a person to view him or herself? With truth. The truth is that humans are a crazy mix of good and bad, success and failure, wisdom and ignorance. To ignore either part is to ignore the truth about who we are. And that paralyzes us and keeps us from becoming all we are supposed to be. We are either chasing our dreams or wallowing in our failures. But when we accept ourselves as we are, then we can move forward by the grace of God. Self evaluation is very important, but the point is not to esteem or degrade self. The point is to discover who we are, how we are created (what gifts and talents we have) and where we fall short of being that person so God can redeem that part of us. Our lives are to be all about God-not about self. We are to esteem God so He can make us like HIm. Forget about self esteem and concentrate on esteeming God.

Self Esteem

A reaction to seeing society and the education system focusing on how to get kids to have good self esteem rather than how to become people of honesty and integrity.

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