Hello flockers! I’m Jeremy Moses and you (almostalways) will see me greeting you at the north doors before our 11:30 service. I’m a 37 year old who has a neural tube defect called Spina Bifida. It is the most common neural tube defect in the United States. This requires the use of a wheelchair, and I have various other issues as well. I came to Christ in April of 2000 and was baptized in a Southern Baptist church in Kentucky. I relocated to Oklahoma in 2017 to pursue my passion of meteorology, and joined WCC in April of 2018. 

In my lifetime, I’ve had multiple major surgeries and medical troubles. But, until 2018, I had never questioned my faith. I never questioned whether I should believe. Then October of 2018 happened. While I was in Massachusetts, staying on the Cape for the wedding of a longtime friend, I wasn’t feeling well. At first, it seemed like the typical common cold or flu bug, but the reality was vastly worse. Though I did not realize it, a pressure ulcer that I had been awaiting specialized treatment for had become infected, which rapidly turned to sepsis. I had to be rushed for emergency surgery, then was placed on a ventilator and additional surgeries had to be performed to find the source. If I had tried to fly back to Oklahoma City (as I was scheduled to do the day after I went to the hospital), I know now that I would probably not have made it home.

And so began a constant health struggle that has continued for four years (and counting). It would lead to ultimately 10 (so far) surgeries, the most recent of which occurred almost 4 years (literally, 3 years and 364 days) after I was first put on the ventilator in the Massachusetts hospital. I would fight bone infections three separate times (the third of which was during the pandemic, which made avoiding catching COVID-19 an absolute necessity due to both the PICC line and the likelihood that my immune system was already compromised from the sepsis). I had my gallbladder taken out at one point in July 2019. I’ve had some neck and back issues that required an epidural in June of 2022. Right as all this started, my grandmother on my stepdad’s side of the family passed away AND my stepdad himself had to undergo a triple bypass heart surgery…about a month apart! There was also the passing of a family member with whom I had had longstanding issues that I never buried.

As all this went on, I had nothing but time to myself in hospital rooms. A lot of it was spent wondering why? Why was I going through this? What did God have for me here in all this? It wasn’t until a year after the first emergency surgery that I found answers from His Word that made sense. From Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Right off the bat, Jesus is telling us to come to Him and He will give us rest from all that burdens us. That’s the easiest part. 

Then, Jesus says in Matthew 17:20: “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.” And then, in Luke 1:37 (a verse I ultimately added to my personal social media profiles because it fits my life): “For withGod, nothing will be impossible.” What these verses are saying is that if you believe in God, then nothing is impossible.

What was God doing? He was testing me. He wanted to know if I had faith that He’d get me through it. I realized I had to let go and let Him handle it. So, as much as the warrior side of me wants to fight, I let go and let God handle things. I continue to work on doing that now, because the fighter in me doesn’t give up that easily. Even now, as I am  embarking on a new chapter of life which involves seeking care for my 76 year old Vietnam veteran father with Parkinson’s disease, I continually have to look at these three verses and remember, “God’s got ALL of this — and He’s got me.”

So, I tell you this: If you have the smallest bit of faith in Him to bring you through it, it’ll happen. It likely will not be the way you hoped…but He will do it. But, you have to trust Him and His will…that is, “Let Go and Let God.”