Some mornings in a hospital room feel impossibly long. You stare at the IV line, then watch the window slowly brighten, and before you know it your heart has sunk all the way down. On days like that, a single verse you can hold in your hand feels like such a gift. Today I quietly take hold of Ephesians 6 - that one line about being made strong in the Lord, in the strength of His power.
Being made strong here was never about squeezing more willpower out of myself. The truth is, anyone who has been through a long illness knows better than most how quickly that willpower runs dry. Yesterday I was fine, and this morning even getting out from under the covers feels like too much. That is exactly why it comforts me so deeply - that I get through this by His power and not my own. It sounds like permission to stop carrying all of it alone.
The verse goes on to say that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. And maybe the real enemy a patient faces is not just the test numbers or the date of the next round of chemo. It is the fear that visits every night, the endless looping thought of "what if I get worse from here," the self-blame of feeling like a burden to my family. The kind of fight in the heart that weighs more precisely because it cannot be seen. When I read it as an encouragement not to shoulder that fight alone, my shoulders feel a little lighter.
That is why the call to put on the full armor reaches me in a new way too. Not some grand suit of war, but the simple act of putting on a bit of armor for the heart each morning, the way you would get dressed - keeping a short prayer and a verse close. So that when fear comes storming in, you are not meeting it with nothing, having wrapped your heart in something solid beforehand. There is no need to try to accomplish anything enormous. Asking simply to be able to stand through this one day is enough.
So today, let me not be greedy. Let me set down, just for a moment, the resolve to defeat this illness in one blow, and let it be enough simply to pass safely through this morning. We are told that after we have done everything, we are still to stand and not collapse - so to endure without falling is already, in itself, a victory. And remembering that somewhere, at this very same hour, there is someone beginning their day with a heart much like mine, the loneliness eases a little.
This piece is not medical advice but a small act of walking alongside those passing through a season of illness, sharing a corner of the heart. Please always discuss any decisions about treatment with your attending physician.