Be Still
On the night of October 17th 2021 I sank into bed with my eyes nearly swollen shut from crying. My headache was so intense I could barely think. It had been one of the hardest days of my life.
That Sunday had started normal enough, but that afternoon things were flipped on their head.
My 41 year old husband suddenly had all the symptoms of a massive stroke. I called 911. The paramedics agreed it was a stroke. After scans at the hospital the neuro resident told me my husband had a stroke. I agreed to an extremely expensive medication that would keep my husband in the hospital for the next three days, based on the fact that I thought he was having a stroke.
By the grace of God, Joel came back to us and within days was his normal self, but the battle was just beginning.
Without health insurance, I knew we were in for a huge bill.
I applied for assistance before we had even left the hospital. It was denied.
As we settled back into normal life I began to feel guilty for calling 911 that day, especially after learning that my husband DID NOT have a stroke, but instead a really bad complex migraine. I became enraged when I learned that the testing in the hospital showed NO SIGNS of a stroke, but the doctor in the ER told me a different story and had insisted on the course of care that kept my husband in the hospital for 3 days.
In December I finally received our first bill that was “due in full”.
83,134.35
Where we live you could buy a decent house for that price.
It could have been worse, but it wasn’t great.
“Now what?” I asked the LORD.
“Be still,” He replied.
That was the only course of action I hadn’t considered.
Believe it or not, I had thought about this situation before. My husband and I chose not to have health insurance for many reasons. Yes it was available through the government, but not at a reasonable or affordable rate. Even the cheapest insurance did not cover any of the basics. We had no health needs and no reasons to even see a doctor.
In my mind, should we ever run into a serious situation like this then we would rely on our community and networks for support. We could hold fundraisers, set up a GoFundMe, ask our church. We would figure it out.
Now that I was in that situation for real, I was ready to go into action.
Except that’s not what the Lord asked me to do.
He told me to “be still” and that did not make sense to me.
How would me not doing anything help the situation?
I wanted to scream from the rooftops about the injustice done to us by the medical system. I wanted to start doing something to start raising money. I wanted to complain to every person I knew.
But that’s not what He told me.
So I started meditating on Exodus 14:14.
The Israelites were complaining. They were facing certain death. Sandwiched between “the sea of reeds” and the Egyptian army, they saw no escape.
They had left the safety of enslavement in Egypt to die in the wilderness.
But Moses encouraged them.
13 “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today will never see you again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
If you honestly think about it, they really had no choice. They did not have the resources to fight the Egyptian army. They didn’t have a way of crossing the sea. Their only choice in the physical was to sit and be slaughtered.
I think Moses was inviting them into a different kind of stillness. A stillness in their souls and spirits.
Moses was telling them to quiet themselves and trust. In the AMP version it says: “keep silent and stay calm”.
So how was I to do that? How could I possibly do nothing and stay calm?
I didn’t know, but the LORD has shown up for me more times than I can count, so I gave it a shot.
In the waiting I received the second denial for financial assistance.
So I gathered the paperwork to apply one more time and waited until I felt the nudging in my spirit. I sent it in on the day when I felt the LORD say “now”.
I did my part, and waited. Weeks went by, but it was always still in the back of my mind. How would we pay this debt?
A few weeks ago I finally got my answer.
Whoever reviewed our paperwork found favor on us and granted our request. 74,038.56 was forgiven. We only had 9,095.79 to pay. It wasn’t 0, but it was doable in my eyes. It was fair for the treatment we received.
Had I listened to my own understanding, I probably wouldn’t have tried one more time for financial assistance through the hospital. I would have been spending all my time and energy looking at other angles. I would still be stressed and trying to figure it out.
I would have been relying on myself to win this battle and quiet my own fears.
Dear one, what fears are you trying to sort out on your own? In what ways are you trying to force a solution through your own understanding?
Are you brave enough to give up control and instead let the LORD take over? Are you OK with being the weirdo that waits on the LORD for the answer to your problems?
It’s a two word command, but so hard to follow through with sometimes.
So dear one, are you okay with that?
Can you just be still?
