When the Thorn Remains
By Heather McCuen Dearmon
Heather McCuen Dearmon is a writer, poet and photographer living in Pelion, South Carolina with her husband and son.

From an early age, my father taught me the value of questioning, quoting Euripides, "Question everything." Over time, I learned to ask poignant questions about life, society and myself. By the age of twenty I questioned where I could find peace, and I discovered the answer in Jesus.

Immediately after giving my life to Christ, I put my questioning nature to work. I was like a child going into spiritual kindergarten, and I wanted to learn all I could about God the Father and His Son, Jesus. I soaked up everything. After a year of heavy study, I was certain that I knew the ways of God, what He was like, the manner in which He operated and what He would do in my life.

Not one year later, a terrible and humiliating syndrome suddenly developed in my body and enveloped my life. Right away, I knew what God would do: He was going to heal me, of course. He was going to zap this thing right out of my life so I'd have an awesome testimony of His healing power.

So I prayed and prayed and then prayed some more. I went to healing services, pastors, elders, prayer groups. Each time I was certain that God was going to heal me. But He didn't. So I began questioning. What was the matter? Was it my lack of faith? Was I harboring some unrealized sin or unforgiveness? Was God angry with me? Did God even want to heal me?

My health syndrome became unbearable, a real thorn in the flesh. Because of it I had to stay home more, go to church less, and suffer terrible discomfort which bled over into my emotional well-being. I snapped at my husband more often, cried more often, got just plain upset more often, and on top of all this I was pregnant and longed to cherish each day that my sweet baby was inside of me, but the joy of motherhood was also being stolen from me.

After my baby was born, my health problem remained. I went to doctors and to more healing services. Desperate, I even went through several deliverance sessions where people tried to cast demons out of me, thinking that perhaps this was the reason for my plight. Nothing changed. So then I fasted. Fasted and prayed. Still, no healing. I questioned God even more, yet no answers came, and I began to lose hope.

Years passed, my son turned three, and I admitted myself to the psychiatric hospital. My thorn in the flesh had become far worse. In fact it was so bad that I had fallen into depression, developed anxiety, and become suicidal. Where was God? Why was He letting me suffer so? Why hadn't He just lived up to all those promises that other Christians said He would? I mean, I had recited those scripture verses on healing over and over until my tongue was dry and numb. Was He now going to let me be consumed by distress to the point of suicide?

I stared at the ceiling above my hospital bed, tears streaming down my face. I felt a universe away from God, but still I whispered, "Oh Lord...please, please help me." Suddenly, He was there. He was closer than my breath. He spoke no words, but His message to me was clear: He was with me. He had never ignored or abandoned me. In His presence I did not find the answers to why He had not healed me, but I was comforted by His loving embrace . A new strength arose in me --the strength that can only come from Him.

Ten years have passed, and my thorn remains, though it is less threatening now. Ever since that experience in the hospital, I was determined to fight to live, and to live with joy, even if that meant living with my thorn. Over these trying years God has been my rock, my shelter, my place of security. I now ask different, more meaningful questions, like, what would I do without You, Lord? Why are You such a wonderful God that You would be my strength when I am weak, and be my peace when I am afraid?

I do not know why God has allowed this thorn in my life, and I do not know if He will ever heal me, but the answers to these questions are less important to me now. Just knowing that I have God with me, closer than my breath, every day, every hour for the rest of my life, and even afterwards. That is my security, my hope, my joy.

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