CONFESSIONS OF A DIAGNOSIS: This Can’t Be Happening to Me
It was March of 2024, and everything in my life was about to change.
Technically, it started on a leap day—February 29th. I’ll never forget it. Mainly because I would go on to repeat it on a loop when my memory disappeared. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I had just finished my last day as Assistant Internship Director and was one weekend away from starting my new position—Senior Project Manager of Strategy & Development (a title I would go on to also repeat mindlessly for the next twelve hours. The mind is a crazy thing).
At 5 p.m., I wrapped up my workday on a high note, giving my last leadership talk to the intern class. I packed up and headed to the workplace gym for a session with my trainer. The last thing I remember? Grabbing a pair of socks I’d ask her to bring me.
After that—nothing.
From what my trainer and husband later told me, the rest went something like this: I had just finished my workout and sat down to catch my breath. I looked up at my trainer and asked, “Where are we?” She laughed, thinking I was joking. “We’re at the gym. You just finished your workout.”
I glanced at the other girl in the room. “Hey Paige! When did you get here?”
Spoiler: she’d been there the whole time—and I had even greeted her when we arrived.
My trainer chuckled nervously. “Haha, real funny. Are you joking?”
I looked at her again, serious this time. “Where are we?”
Hours later, I was in the ER, caught in a three-phrase loop my husband would later recite back to me:
“Today’s a leap day.”
“Today was my last day in the internship. I’m going to work for Pastor Brie in Strategy and Development.”
“Candy. Cane. Chewie.” (Shoutout to the pets.)
My short-term memory was gone. My brain kept short-circuiting, clinging to the few facts it could find. The next five days were a slippery haze—moments of awareness, quickly swallowed by fog. I looked awake, present. But inside, I was catching only fragments of what was happening around me. And then came day three in the hospital—when something happened I will never forget.
In a groggy daze I heard the doctor say: It looks like she has multiple sclerosis.
I’m sorry—what did he just say? No, I must’ve misheard him. My brain’s barely hanging on to anything right now. Multiple sclerosis? Isn’t that the thing that paralyzes people? Oh my gosh. Am I going to be paralyzed? That can’t be right. I’ve barely lived. I still need to have children. God—you literally just changed my desire to want kids. This has to be a joke. What about ministry? Can I even do ministry if I’m paralyzed? I mean, of course I can, but that’s certainly not ideal. God… hello? Are you hearing this? He’s wrong, right? This doctor’s wrong… right God?
Surely, this can’t be happening to me.
Spoiler: it was happening to me. I was being diagnosed with a life-changing, lifelong illness—and I wasn’t even fully “all there” to process it.
But how? I’ve been following God my whole life. I’ve given my career—my everything—to ministry and helping people find Jesus. I’m a good person. Kind. Generous. Forgiving. I’m a Christian, for goodness’ sake.
So why me?
The truth is, bad things happen to good people—even people of God (more on that in part two). Honestly, maybe especially people of God. I’ve seen pastors, leaders, and faithful believers walk through devastating circumstances. Good people. Great people. Incredible people. And yet, they weren’t exempt. So why did I think I was? Weeks later, I heard the Holy Spirit whispering with gracious clarity:
“Pride. It’s because you’re prideful Devyn.”
Gasp. Me? Prideful? Surely, Lord, You’ve got the wrong number. Plot twist: He had the right number—and He was telling me the truth. I had been living under a subtle but powerful veil of pride. Pride that all my sacrifices, “successes” in ministry, and years of serving Him somehow was keeping me safe from real suffering. As if I were the Lord’s favorite—the one He loved too much to let anything truly bad happen to.
Ouch. That was a painful realization.
I had to face it: I was prideful—thinking I was above the very thing Jesus promised His followers in Scripture… suffering. That conviction sent me searching His Word for reminders of what He actually says about hardship. And while there are many, one verse in particular settled deep into my soul:
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” — John 16:33 ESV
Did you catch it? Jesus said you will have tribulation. Not might, not might unless you serve enough, give enough, pray enough. Will. Other translations say suffering, distress, trouble, trials, sorrows.
Bottom line: as followers of God, we will suffer.
There are going to be things that happen to us that we simply don’t understand—and that’s okay. It’s hard, gut-wrenching, confusing… but it’s part of life, and no one is exempt from it.
In the middle of suffering we can’t make sense of, it’s also okay to wrestle with God about it—and honestly, to not agree with what He allows to happen to us. (For an even better teaching on this, go watch my friend Brie’s message on disappointment.)
In full transparency, I don’t agree with being diagnosed with a chronic illness. If I had it my way, I would’ve never blacked out, lost my memory, and ended up here. I’d still be in my same job position, still working out consistently, working full-time, not on treatment, not wondering how long things will be like this.
But for reasons I may never fully know or understand… it happened.
And even though it happened, God is still okay with my questions. He can handle my hurt, disappointment, anger, sadness, and longing for a different story. He doesn’t dismiss my emotions—even when I admit I don’t agree with Him.
But what He does ask me to do is trust Him anyway.
Trust that His ways are higher than mine. That His understanding is far beyond what I can see. And most importantly, trust that even though this really painful thing is happening to me, He is still with me. He hasn’t left me—and He’s not going to.
As I kept reading over John 16:33, I realized Jesus wasn't just warning His disciples that suffering was coming—He was also giving them the answer for what to do with it: take heart.
Other translations say be courageous, trust me, be assured. In other words, He wasn't just saying "trouble is coming." He was saying, "When it comes—cling to Me."
Why? Because He’s already overcome it all.
In my case, He’s already overcome sickness and disease—and He’s overcome every other form of suffering I (or you) will ever face. He calls us to trust Him and cling to Him because He’s already handled it through His death on the cross. The story is already written and complete—we’re just living in the in-between. And it’s in that "in-between" where we experience suffering in this world.. The good news?
Because of Jesus, we can have perfect peace in the middle of whatever happens to us.
Peace that surpasses understanding.
Peace rooted in knowing He has already defeated suffering.
Peace that reminds us He’s fully in control.
Peace that doesn’t ignore our emotions, but steadies us in the midst of them.
Peace that lifts our eyes off ourselves—and fixes them back on Jesus.
That’s exactly what I had to do—repent of my pride and turn my eyes off myself and back to Him. I had to remove me—and all my desires—out of the frame and center Him instead. Thankfully, He’s a gracious and understanding God. And in the middle of my diagnosis, He simply wanted to remind me that He was there, ready to give me His perfect peace.
So I accepted it—the humbling truth that I needed to lay down my pride, and the equally humbling truth that as long as I’m here on earth, I will experience suffering. But I will never experience it alone. I may not always understand or agree with what happens to me—but I can trust Jesus, and invite Him to walk beside me, offering His peace every step of the way.
And I was definitely going to need a lot of peace in the days ahead.
Because here’s the thing about life: once you learn something from one situation, another one usually follows right behind it. Later on, I realized I had just walked through the first stage of grief: denial.
Even though I had finally accepted, “Yes, this is happening to me—and I trust God is with me and will give me peace,” the next stage—anger—was quickly approaching. And it surfaced in the form of my very next thought:
“Wait… is this happening because God is punishing me?”
Find out the answer in part two of Confessions of a Diagnosis… coming soon.
