WELLNESS IN THE WAITING
SEP 29 | WRITTEN BY MARY ISENBERG
Mary Isenberg shares her journey of navigating infertility, illness, and spiritual growth, highlighting the challenges she faced after being diagnosed with a uterine mass and her decision to follow God’s call despite needing surgery. Throughout her trials, including a near-death experience during medical testing, she reflects on her faith, coming to realize that healing, whether physical or spiritual, is on God's timeline. Ultimately, she finds peace in trusting God's promises, learning that wellness comes through faith, patience, and embracing the waiting process.
I’ve always considered myself a fairly patient person. I enjoy sitting and listening during a conversation. I don’t get road rage from cars passing me on the road. I don’t struggle with the actual practice of waiting, but why is it that my heart does? When I say I have taken thousands of pills in order to help my future self, I literally mean thousands. Being diagnosed with infertility at 18 and continually monitored for my health over the next decade has made me hyper aware of my surroundings. Women tend to seek connection by asking if you’re in a relationship or have kids. When I answer no I don’t have children, women can’t stop themselves from snooping into my personal world of asking when will I be, why I don't, and free “advice”. I thought, if only they knew my story, but oftentimes my heart was too exhausted to answer. On the outside I would smile and just say, maybe one day, and move on with my life.
Two years ago I was at the doctor when they gave me the test results that I had a large mass growing in my uterus and I would need surgery to remove it. My heart dropped. So many years of medication and treatments trying to prevent something like this from happening. It became more complicated when a few weeks later, God called my husband and I to the mission field. The timing wouldn’t work out to get the needed surgery before leaving overseas. Maybe we would go after I could have the surgery first. Yet God spoke to me in my uncertainty.
“Do you not think I will protect you?”
In my spirit, I knew the answer was to go, so we followed in obedience. Over the course of us being away, we put it out to our friends to be in prayer. When we returned home to the states, I started the process of looking into the surgery. As I walked into the fertility clinic, my heart was ready to be accepting that this was the time to be healed. I had patiently waited over a year in obedience to God about the timing. As I started the last test, things were fine, until suddenly, something was very wrong. The worst pain of my life came over my body, my vitals were crashing, I could feel my eyes rolling back. Voices were speaking, but I couldn’t make out the words. To sum it up, the clinic would classify this as a very rare complication, something they had never seen happen before.
The memory of that morning is so vivid in my mind. They told me it would be a few days & I would be fine, but I wasn’t recovering. I walked through more tests to find that nobody knew what was wrong. I have never in my life felt my body so weak and out of control. I would spend my days crying in pain because I felt lifeless. My sadness turned into anger and my glowing patience was now thin. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was just supposed to be the preliminary to surgery and now this had become a lot more painful than the mass that was growing inside of me.
When I had the appointment to go over the test results, I had forgotten the entire point of the testing in the first place. All I had been focused on was my new problem at hand with the sharp pain in my abdomen. As the doctor looked over the paper, he set it down & folded his hands to his face.
“I don’t really know what to tell you, but you don’t need the surgery. There are no signs of a mass in your uterus anymore. It must be a miracle.” I sat there in unbelief because he must have had it wrong. Something was obviously wrong with me, but the uterine mass was no longer the issue. The next morning, I got on my knees to pray and give thanks before the Father. I knew God had performed a miracle and yet I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of it because of the physical pain I was in. I had spent the last two weeks in anger towards a God who showed my unbelieving heart that I could be healed. Did I truly know the God I served?
As my bed rest season extended, I decided to make my way through the gospels chronologically. Sometimes reading the same stories four times in a row. Through this, I was hoping to uncover what God says about miracles and healing. What did Jesus do with those who were sick? I believe in life as Christians, we are taught a lot of things through circumstance, not always what the bible says. Growing up with chronic illness, something I heard quite frequently was not everyone is healed. Which is true, on this earth, not everyone is healed. Yet if we are not healed on this earth, we will have new bodies in heaven.
“He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own,
using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.” Philippians
3:21
What I found interesting is that Jesus heals when someone asks, over and over again. Jesus has 42 accounts in the bible of miracles and healings, but the apostle John says there are more not even accounted for in scripture. There are also three accounts where Mark speaks on Jesus healing many people.
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written
in this book.” John 20:30
“Wherever he went, into villages, towns, or the country, they laid the sick in the
marketplaces and begged him that they might touch just the end of his robe. And
everyone who touched it was healed.” Mark 6:56
I also began to ask myself, Are we expectant of the Lord? People came in expectation of Jesus’s power and ability and repented of their sins. So often I have said to myself, “Well he might not heal me, but he doesn’t heal everyone and it’s fine.” I have come to believe that I need to be in expectation. It’s not about if he heals me, but when. Whether it is here on earth or in heaven, my healing will come because my Father did not curse
me with this sickness.
“'The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has
committed sins, he will be forgiven.” James 5:15
As the months went on, my faith began to grow in a new way. In my waiting season, I set up a prayer corner in our empty baby room. I began each morning there reading through the bible and then hung a colored note to the wall of the promises God has spoken. One at a time my prayers would continually be met. My loneliness of bed rest was met with the companionship of Christ. When my heart craved to be understood with my infertility issues, he led me to an infertility support group of caring women who deeply recognized me. After six months, doctors started to uncover one problem after the next to help support my physical pain.
In a world where not everyone is healed, people are sick, and infertility is growing into a larger statistic, we need the Father. Growing up, I believed God did not see me and designed my life to be one of suffering. Why does He let bad things happen to me? Eventually I believed maybe all these bad things happen in order for testimonies and God makes us suffer to give belief for others. In my current faith, I don’t see things in extremes as much now. God gave humans control to rule the Earth and over time, sin has crept in and caused darkness, disease and suffering.
Matthew 7:9 says, “Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a
stone?”
If I go to my Father asking for help does he give bread or stones? My Father in heaven gives me bread to eat so my body, soul and mind are nourished. If God caused suffering to me, why then would I go pray and ask to be healed if He gave the sickness to me?
“How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.”
Matthew 7:11
The world makes bad things happen. We ourselves are also to be accountable when things go wrong in our lives. On earth we have been given parents to raise and teach us, but they are not perfect and each person will have to work through the pains of their upbringing. Our heavenly Father is perfect though. He raises us and shapes us in a perfect mold and it is us who misbehaves or another child of God who causes sin against us knowingly or unknowingly. If someone else hurts me, I go before my Father & ask for help and He provides. When I sin, He forgives me and corrects me to be on the right path again. When my body fails, I ask Him for healing, peace and relief and He compassionately comforts me.
If I know He has a gift to offer though, why am I not expectant enough to receive it? God holds peace in His hands and offers it to me when I ask and I question it saying, “Are you sure you can give me that?” While it is right in front of me! When I go with empty requests, it will never be answered. If I ask for healing, am I willing to receive it? I think I am, until I doubt if it can be done or not. When I have had prayers I have prayed over & over, my hope diminishes and I doubt that God is listening and cares about myproblem. Forgetting that not everything is in my time, but God does hear my prayers.
“Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for — believe that you have received
it and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24
In my earthly life, if I never talk to my mom and one day decide to call her up to ask for money, she shouldn’t give it to me because we don’t have a strong relationship, yet I know she would. We can go silent on God and He still loves us. However, why only run when it’s one sided or in times of need? We have the foundation to feel comfortable asking for help from our heavenly Father at any time.
My mindset has shifted that some things we will never know the answers to like why isn’t everyone on earth healed and that is okay to me. I know that in my healing journey, God gives peace that surpasses all understanding. He gives patience to my weary heart to find wellness in waiting. As I write this, I am eight months in from my medical mishap.
I am getting better, but even though my physical body isn’t healed, my heart is experiencing true healing. I still see infertility on my medical charts and my womb is barren, but the Lord has promised that is not the plan for my life. Our journeys are not just about the milestones, but the time in between. What are we doing in the waiting?
Are we angry or in prayer? Are we studying the promises of God or words of the world? I wanted to give up because of my anger merely seconds after a miracle was announced because I was missing the point. Each day, I ask for repentance of my sins & I proclaim I am healed in Jesus name. He has already paid the price for my healing.
“He makes a woman who is in a childless home a joyful mother. Hallelujah!”
Psalm 113:9
