In Sickness and in Health

How do I care for my husband when he is sick more than he is well?

I asked myself this question as I sat beside my husband in his hospital room, feeling the weight of living in a sin-cursed world press down on both of us.

Three years into our marriage, this wasn’t what I imagined our life together would look like. On our wedding day, at twenty and twenty-one, the words “in sickness and in health” didn’t feel heavy or serious. They sounded more like promises to fetch cold medicine for sniffles or hand over Tums for an upset stomach.

Most young, healthy couples don’t imagine that these words will be tested in a hospital room just a few years into marriage. Yet there we were, staring at the fleeting reality of life, and I realized I had promised to love and care for my husband “in sickness and in health”—and I had no idea how to do the former.

Facing the Unknown

I had seen my husband sick quite a few times as we served overseas as missionaries in a third-world country. I heard him giving up the entire contents of his stomach on various occasions, and I felt the fever on his forehead as his body fought off a variety of illnesses. Those moments of sickness felt like just that—moments. They passed with the help of antibiotics, fluids, and naps. We were young and living in a third-world country where that kind of sickness was normal. I knew what to do in those moments: give him plenty of water, take him to get more antibiotics, make some light-hearted jokes, and move on.

But when my husband was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after months of sickness and a week-long hospital stay, I found myself at a loss. This was not a stomach bug or the common cold. This had no easy fix—and still has no easy fix. This was night after night of vomiting, weeks of losing blood and increasing weakness, and waking up in the middle of the night to a pain-ridden, feverish, shaking husband, feeling helpless and afraid. This was spending a week in the hospital trying to figure out why his body was failing him.

Yet I was confronted and comforted by the truths of Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”

During my husband’s week-long hospital stay, I repeatedly thought, “This isn’t how it was meant to be.” Our hearts felt drawn to despair as we sat in that hospital room, but thankfully, years of hearing and learning the truth about God, his sovereignty, and his promises were in our hearts. Scripture passages about suffering and pain that had been tucked away for a rainy day became real, and we clung to them. God’s Word became a refuge as we faced the unknown.

Steadfastness in Trials

As we faced the unknown, the words of James shone true: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (Jas. 1:2–4).

Steadfastness. Endurance. The Lord gave it in abundance. We made it through days of physical pain and the spiritual pain that comes with watching your best friend suffer. We weren’t expecting my husband to die that week in the hospital, but not knowing what his diagnosis was at the time brought forth a conversation I didn’t think we would have in our twenties. The unknowns were looming over us: How serious is this? Is it curable, or is it terminal?

We were heading for despair, but again, the Lord was kind as years of abiding in his Word bore the fruit of hope. We both knew that even if the worst happened, our hope was secure in Christ. He would faithfully carry us through whatever lay ahead. He did—and he continues to—as we face a future battling a chronic illness.

As my husband and I have been faced with the harsh reality of our finiteness, Paul’s words have been a comfort: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16–17).

Grieving Properly with Bright Hope for Tomorrow

I just finished reading the Wingfeather Saga for the second time and love how stories we’ve read before can give us fresh insights and emotions during different seasons of life. The youngest character in the story, Leeli, is confronted with the death of her beloved dog, Nugget, and the brokenness of their overall situation. Her brother observes her in her grief and notes, “She seemed older, no longer shocked that such a thing could happen in the world, but heartbroken because it had. Her tears struck Janner as the right kind of tears.”

Later, he notices how their current sufferings were already shaping something good in his sister: “Podo and Leeli finally came back to where the others rested, and though her face still bore the weight of her sorrow, Janner could see that his sister was present. Her eyes didn’t stare into nothing. They saw the situation, grieved for it, and faced it.”

Her tears were right and good. It’s not wrong to grieve what ought to be grieved! Death and suffering were not a part of God’s original design and good creation. Sin brought pain, suffering, and death. So we grieve what God does not call good, but we don’t become stuck in our grief. Like Leeli, we shed the right kind of tears. We grieve, but we face it. And thankfully, as believers, we do not grieve like the world does because we have hope that one day all will be made right. One day, my husband, Brett, will be in eternity with a body that is no longer broken and no longer causes pain and suffering, because his body will be like God intended it to be.

This side of eternity, I seek to care for Brett in sickness by relying on the grace of God to give me the strength to be compassionate and servant-hearted toward him on the hard days. I grieve the loss of health and take that grief before the Lord, knowing that he is the God of all comfort. However, I don’t remain in that grief because the hope of eternity is in my heart. Saying our vows almost nine years ago, I did not think this would be my lot. Even so, it is well with my soul.