"Daughter, Your Faith Has Made You Well"

5 Years ago, on the day I’ve written this, I started my journey with Long Covid. When people share their story of their journey when its their anniversary, it shows their resilience, courage and the fact that it is still a great challenge in the present time. The God of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego, has seen to it that the testimony I will give is more of thanks, rejoicing and no inconveniencing/great challenge. Praise God!

While I give my testimony, please take it that I am giving thanks for my situation and not trying to make anyone struggling with any health challenge feel bad. I want you to see what God has done for me. It is the same God who can do something for you. He did it for so many and that is why I could rely on him to do something for me. This is where my testimony comes from and please take it with that heart.

I thank God for helping my body to move as I please. Yes, I can’t overdo it, but I can do so much more than sitting and resting, which is what my body wanted me to do 5 years ago, with no explanation. I thank God for taking me on a journey where I did not know anything, to a place where I still don’t know what happened, but I have been able to live my life. I thank God the only medicine I’ve had to take are my allergy and preventative asthma medication. I thank God I can stand for more than 5 minutes, in fact I can stand as long as I want until my legs say “em TPA, can we sit now?”

I thank God I can go up and down the stairs without feeling like I’ve done a marathon or without my pulse rate shooting up. In fact, I thank God for helping me do any activity like loading cups in the dishwasher, without feeling like I have done a marathon. I thank God I can peel my potatoes and make mash potatoes or cut them to make chips without feeling breathless or without having to sit and peel 1 potato at 1mph. I thank God I can sleep on my right, left, back and basically tumble dry in the bed as I used to and get restful sleep. I thank God I still find my prone position the most relaxing and comfy. I thank God I am able to iron and the only reason I will not iron is because I hate ironing, back to factory settings for sure.

I thank God in the summer I can lift a dinning room chair to go and sit outside and enjoy the sun. I thank God I can now lift two bags of shopping and walk to the bus stop about 10 minutes away, then walk another 10 minutes home. I thank God when I am in the supermarket, I can move the items from the trolley to the conveyor belt without feeling out of breath. I thank God I can pack the scanned items into my shopping bags without feeling like I’ve done a marathon and with no chest pain at any point and even later. I thank God I can talk and dare do speaking events without getting out of breath.

I thank God that if I’ve overdone it, I am not paying for it for a week.  I thank God, he has helped me to be disciplined not to overdo it in the first place. I thank God he has brought the assertive part of me, and I will not allow anyone to get me to do anything I know will impact my body or recovery. I thank God for the boldness and courage he has given me to receive help and ask for help. I thank God, I have received help with a spirit of gratitude and appreciation rather than guilt. I thank God, for holding my spirit so that I didn’t think any less of myself because of the things I could no longer do. He clearly knew that was a temporary situation. Glory to God!

I thank God for the two GP friends I had who were my internal wise counsel and with their advice, I was then able to fight and advocate for myself. I thank God for my family and friends who checked on me and prayed for me. I thank God for all the consultants and medical team/staff I saw during my various hospital visits. Each of them was caring and I felt they were fighting my corner.  I thank God for the first GP who took me on. She was the first one to start the domino of fighting for me.

I thank God for giving me the strength to counter the doctor who asked me “are you sure it’s not anxiety”. I thank God for my occupational therapist who though was sent to me after I had already resigned continues to support me today in my new career! Praise God! I thank God for the respiratory team who first initiated that walking would help. I thank God for my doctor in Kenya who got me to see that if I didn’t move my body, I would remain that way. I thank God I listened to that and that began the physical healing that has enabled me to now walk 2 hours and discover my great love for walking.

I thank God for helping me discover, I could literally walk with him during those walks and talk about my life grievances and frustrations, especially when I was in the middle of my career change, and nothing was happening. I thank God I also discovered a new hobby, flower photography during my walks, which from spring onwards, makes my walk even more exciting.

I thank God I can walk up steep hills and will not pay for it after with either breathlessness or a long recovery period. I thank God for giving me this love for walking because he saw up ahead my car would be crashed into and there would be a long period of time where I would need to use my new mode of transport “foot-subishi”. I know he is doing a great work in this, and my TPA-mobile is on its way! Hallelujah! For now, I will continue to enjoy my red limousine, aka Transport for London buses. I thank God, he taught me for the last 5 years the meaning of “all things work for your good”.

I thank God for the Nuffield Long Covid rehab program which was the final domino that propelled me to greater recovery. I thank God that the most effective things that helped my recovery were taken care of by God’s Heavenly American Express Card. I did not pay for anything. I thank God for my rehab trainer who was so gentle and caring and I ended up with another new love, the gym! With God nothing is impossible!

I thank God for my therapist who has walked the bulk of this journey with me also. I thank God for using her to help me reflect on things I hadn’t thought of or had no clue. I thank God for using her to challenge me, when I was still going to push myself to work when it was clear I needed to rest. I thank God for helping me to be receptive to the process, vulnerable and courageous and I thank God because it has been so valuable to me and has further increased my spiritual growth. I thank God, he has guided me to see he will always and should be number One and will direct me to places where I will get healing for things I didn’t even know or hadn’t addressed. I thank God he knows everything.

I thank God he used this illness to move me to where I needed to go but needed his divine push to get going. I thank God I switched to an area of work where I can help others make changes to their health or lifestyle, in the places they really struggle with and especially when they don’t see how. I thank God for enabling me to be able to show empathy in how difficult it is to make changes to your lifestyle, especially when you have a chronic illness. I thank God I can relate to their struggle.

I thank God, he has enabled me to design my lifestyle in a way that promotes recovery. I thank God for helping me not settle and be unapologetic about what I want, especially at my big age. I thank God for showing me what rest will do for your body. Only a month after resigning my steady, secure, monthly salaried job, I was able for the first time in 2 years to stand when working in the pharmacy.

I thank God for all the people on LinkedIn who played a part in the journey of my career transition. I thank God for my mentor who guided me such that I then found health coaching, the thing I had been looking for years, but didn’t know its name. I thank God he knew its name and directed me to a place where I have also began to see the true character, he created in me. Just the other day I thought to myself, “I don’t think I’m shy anymore” or so I think…Only God!

I thank God for using this journey to bring me to see yet again what he means when he says he will do exceedingly, abundantly, far more than you can ask think or imagine. I never thought I would be self-employed or termed a business owner/entrepreneur. In fact, knowing me then, I probably would have resisted and ended up in the belly of a big fish.

If these 5 years have been my big fish moment, I Thank God for it! That’s a miracle because, though I am a Christian, I don’t like suffering. Me and Jesus have been talking about that, and I can see yet again he has been doing a great work in my attitude to difficulty. My constant consolation is that “In this world you will have tribulation but fear not for I have overcome the world”.

My journey of recovery is still in progress, I am at 95%. When I can resume 3 things, dancing for a while, not feel some chesty discomfort after some types of movement and when I can lift my luggage up the stairs without my current formula, I will know I am totally healed.  I thank God for teaching me he can heal me in his own way. His healing can be quick, or it can be slow, because in that process he is doing many other great things. In that first year of illness, he taught me about death, because he knew in the second year I would need to deal with the death of my cousin. My testimony is I can now mourn with hope.

I thank God for all the many lessons I have learnt. I thank God for the lessons I have learnt about friendships and for helping me approach the natural and necessary change that comes with friendships more peacefully. At the same time he has brought new special friends that I am so grateful for. I can truly say, all things have been working for my good especially when I didn’t see it or couldn’t even fathom it. God is not malicious, vindictive or punitive. When you don’t understand what he is doing, and you won’t, he is doing exceedingly, abundantly far more than you could ask, think or imagine. There is no way I would have known to ask for my life now and even who I have become. I thank God there is definitely more to come. The syllabus is not complete.

There is so much to give thanks for but, I need to acknowledge 2 more people. I thank God for giving my mom samson-strength as I called it, so she can help me through the stages when I could not even do house chores or iron my lab coats to go to work with. I thank God for all the delicious food she cooked for me. I thank God, she was willing to explore anything. I was put to steam inhale a variety of spices every evening after work.

I thank God she came up with the idea to travel to Kenya to be seen to try to get some answers, when the NHS waiting list was… as it is. I was officially diagnosed a year and a month after getting sick. That’s how long it took to see a consultant. I thank God for giving her the strength to get groceries while I would wait in the car as walking and lifting was an issue. The same God who gave Moses strength to live to 120 with no dim eyes, is the same God who gave my mom strength to help me. Praise God!

I know I’ve thanked God the whole testimony, but I want to thank him again. God has literally walked with me from before I was born! He’s always been there! He knows the things I’ve gone through more than I do. I am still uncovering them as I go! When I would cry on my way home on a Monday to Wednesday, the first few weeks I returned to work, because it was so hard even with adjustments, it was God who was there with me.

When I was wondering “when is this thing (sickness) going to go”, he was right there with me. I thank God for giving me the all clear to switch careers following this journey. He knew I couldn’t go on as I did. Even now as I still go through some challenges with my new career, it is still God who is there for me. I personally know and have seen what he means when he says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”. I have also seen what he means when he says, “is anything too hard for the Lord?”

Just like my role models, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego, I have been in the fire, to me it’s definitely felt like it’s been heated 7 times but just like them, not only have I walked in the fire, but my Best friend, older Brother, Saviour who has literally saved me in and from everything, has come into the fire to be with me. Just in the last 2 weeks, 2 people have died from Long Covid. One I knew from the Kenyan Long Covid support group. The other was one of the founders of a major Long Covid Organisation, Long Covid SOS. Long Covid is a serious illness that should not be underestimated. What a great, mighty honour and privilege to say, my time has not come, though the enemy wanted otherwise.

Jesus has saved me from the unseen and unknown, and amen he knows all. The Great Healer, Author and Finisher of my faith, has been with me not just in these 5 years, but the whole time I’ve existed on this planet! If I talk about him too much or refer to him too much, please leave me alone, I know what I’m doing and most of all I know what he has done for me. I may have done this and that for my recovery, but I know it is Jesus who has healed me to this point. He has shown me truly, truly, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and nothing, not even Long Covid, is too hard for him. Only Believe! and your faith will make you well. Hallelujah!

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