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What if your body was your prison?
For 1 in 250 people in the UK, it is.

M.E. is a heavy-impact illness that remains little-understood by most. Its main symptoms are: debilitating fatigue, joint pain, muscle pain, migraines, headaches, dizziness, nausea, digestive complaints, sensitivity to chemicals and foods, plus many others. It’s agonising, and can disrupt every single aspect of daily life.

I’ve had M.E. for 25 years, and there are times when it genuinely feels as though my body is my prison. Inside, I have hopes and interests I’d love to pursue, but my body doesn’t allow me the freedom to do so. Year by year, this painful reality threatens to overwhelm. Like a bird in a cage, who can see the sky but can’t fly, the steel bars that encase me threaten to silence my song.

But I’m writing this to tell you, that even in the midst of the pain and limitations, I’m still singing. And it’s a song that nothing can overwhelm or silence. It’s a song of praise to God—the One who gave me life, and gave me new life. For years I didn’t fully realise that there were in fact two prisons I was a captive in. It wasn’t just my body that needed healing: my soul did, too—far more than my body ever could.

The Bible says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God’s glory and holiness is so pure and perfect that even the ‘smallest’ of lies breaks His law (the Ten Commandments), as does theft, lust, adultery, blasphemy, hatred, murder, jealousy, disrespecting our parents, neglecting to keep the Sabbath holy, and failing to love God above all else (see Exodus 20:3-17). Who can honestly say they’ve never broken any of these?

Because of God’s holiness and justice, He must punish all lawbreakers, just as judges sentence civilians who break the law here on earth. Hell is God’s established prison, described as “everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46) and “the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9:45). It sounds horrific, but if you allow your conscience to realise the severity of breaking God’s law, then you might realise what I realised: not only was I heading for hell, but I thoroughly deserved to go there.

When I realised my own wretchedness in light of God’s holiness, I fully saw the necessity of the sacrifice God had provided to save me. He truly is “...longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear the punishment that should have been mine. I broke God’s law, but Jesus paid my sentence with His own life’s blood. He died on the cross, then rose again three days later, forever defeating sin and death.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). I thank God that I am counted among the ‘whosoever’. You can be, too. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). Pray from your heart—confess your sins to God, truly acknowledge your need for forgiveness, and believe that Jesus is who He says He is, trusting in Him alone to reconcile you to God through His atoning death that paid the debt of your sin that you could never pay with good works, rituals or anything else.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

Maybe you’re battling long-term illness, or some other difficulty, and you feel that no one understands your pain and isolation. Jesus does. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:3-5).

Whether I experience physical healing in this earthly life or not, I’ll keep singing praises to God, thankful for His healing grace, and joyful despite my physical pain, because my soul has been set free. And “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

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