CONFESSIONS OF A DIAGNOSIS: Is God Punishing Me?
Disclaimer: If you haven’t read Part One of this series, make sure to check that out before continuing with this post.
After receiving the initial diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, I had worked through the first stage of my grief—denial (see part one for that story). But it was the next stage—anger—that found me asking:
“Wait… is it possible that God is punishing me?”
Growing up, I was the “good girl.”
Good at sports. Good at school. The good child at church, a good friend, a good daughter, a good example—the list goes on. And honestly? It felt good to be good—especially when it came with praise, trophies, or affirmation. After all, who doesn’t love a compliment or an accolade? And that pretty much sums up my entire upbringing. Be good, do good, reap good was planted in me and watered non-stop with everything I did.
But that tiny seed—that in order to succeed, I must always be good—grew like wildfire once I left home. And to be fair, I was really good at things, both in practice and by society’s standards. First in my family to go to college—graduated with honors. Competed in pageants—crowned after two tries. Ministry job right out of school—preaching and leadership roles almost immediately. Married young to a good man—on the fast track to the American dream. More ministry jobs—more and more promotions. Even joined fantasy football and beat the guys at their own game after just two seasons. Every step in every way, seemed to reinforce the same lesson: be good, do good, reap good.
But here’s the problem with that. When something bad did finally happen to me, and I was diagnosed with MS, it broke me. A shocking wave of confusion, guilt, and anger consumed me. For the first time, I wondered if this “bad” thing meant God was somehow punishing me—if somewhere along the way I hadn’t done good enough.
My mind immediately started racing through a list of all the things I should have done differently:
“If only I had taken my health more seriously.”
“Why did I put all that weight back on… again”
“I should’ve started working out sooner.”
“Those late-night Netflix binges really caught up to me.”
“I should’ve eliminated all these stressors a long time ago”
And soon it bled into spiritual guilt:
“I should’ve been more consistent with Sabbath.”
“I should’ve listened to God and stayed in that other role at work.”
“God, I know I haven’t been in Your Word enough.”
“My prayer life has slipped.”
“I shouldn’t have held onto that grudge.”
“I should’ve showed up more for my friends”
After these endless ruminations, I eventually landed on the most defeating thought of all:
No wonder You let this happen to me, God. I failed You.
And honestly—what could feel worse than failing the God of the universe? It was a double blow: the diagnosis itself and the crushing belief that I had somehow caused it. And the worst part? There was absolutely nothing I could do to change it. Talk about disorienting.
This was the first time in my life I was face to face with something I couldn’t “be good” enough to fix. No strategy. No ten-step plan. No amount of discipline, hustle, or hard work could change this. My whole “be good, do good, reap good” operating system had finally hit a wall—and it was a wall I couldn’t climb, outrun, or outperform.
And that’s when I finally saw the cracks in the entire ecosystem I’d been living in.
My “be good, do good, reap good” mindset had gotten me jobs, promotions, money, respect, friendships—it had worked. But it had also built a false image of God. Somewhere deep inside, I had started believing that He loved me because I was good. He blessed me because I was good. He protected me because I was good.
So when personal suffering came, it shattered me. Because if His goodness to me was tied to my goodness to Him… then maybe my diagnosis meant I had lost both. Maybe God really was punishing me for not being good enough.
Cue the resentment. Cue the anger. I was mad at myself, and honestly, I was mad at God. And I wrestled with this for weeks—I mean really wrestled.
In part one, we talked about how bad things happen to good people—even people of God. But now my struggle had shifted. I wasn’t just asking Why do bad things happen? I was asking, Is the problem… me? Had I not been a “good enough person”? Had falling short in a few areas of life somehow opened the door to this lifelong illness? If the diagnosis was bad, maybe I was bad too—and this was my punishment.
Talk about being hard on yourself. Deep down, I knew that wasn’t how God worked. He’s not a glutton for punishment. But He is a teacher—and I knew He wanted to show me something in this.
So I sat at His feet and asked the hard question: Why was being good not enough?
And just like before, Jesus met me right there—in the confusion, the frustration, the fear—and He highlighted two painfully honest truths:
“No one is actually good.”
and
2. “That’s why you need a Savior—Jesus.”
It had become so easy for me—after years of doing a lot of really good things and accomplishing many great successes—to start thinking of myself as a “good person.” Add to that the years I spent serving God through vocational ministry: baptizing people, helping them discover their God-given purpose, leading them to salvation in Christ. It was a fast-track to feeling like the ultimate good person.
And yes—accomplishing things is good. Success is good. Being a kind, moral, generous person is good. Serving God is good. Loving God is good.
But none of it actually makes us good.
Paul reminds us of this in Romans 3. In verse 12 he literally says, “No one does good, not a single one.” Talk about making it plain. Paul continues by explaining that all humans are equally sinful—regardless of background, religious performance, or in my case, the “works of my hands.” And this leads to his penultimate statement in verse 23:
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” — Romans 3:23 NLT
Notice—it says everyone. Other translations say “all” or “each one.” The point? No one is exempt. No matter how much perceived good we stack up, we will always fall short. We will always be sinners in need of something more than our own effort. And you might be thinking, ‘Well great—so God was punishing you for falling short and not being good enough’.
And honestly, the answer would have been yes… if it hadn’t been for Jesus.
If you keep reading, Romans 3 doesn’t leave us in despair. Paul reminds us that righteousness (or goodness) isn’t something we earn through our works—it’s something we receive through Christ. He picks this up immediately in verse 24:
“Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.”— Romans 3:24–25 NLT
You would think that after following God for over twenty years, I would know this basic truth: God sent Jesus to die for my sins. But sometimes “sin” doesn’t show up in the obvious do’s and don’ts of the Bible. Sometimes it looks like a thought pattern—quiet, subtle, twisted just enough by the Enemy to trap us in a lifestyle we didn’t even realize we were living. That was me.
I had allowed one simple mindset—do good, be good, reap good (also known as “work hard and you’ll earn the life you want”)—to slowly cloud my view of God. And while the mindset itself wasn’t inherently wrong or evil, it became distorted over the years. So when this mindset finally met its match in my diagnosis—something that no amount of goodness, effort, or striving could undo—it revealed something I had never seen so clearly:
I needed my Savior more at that moment than I ever had before.
I quickly realized that blaming myself for “not being good enough” was actually exposing something far deeper: I had begun to believe, in some corners of my mind, that I was my own savior. That if I just did enough and produced enough, I wouldn’t really need Jesus. Ouch. That slice of humble pie was pipping hot.
But the truth is, I had forgotten a foundational part of my faith—the true nature of my salvation:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” — Ephesians 2:8–9 NIV
Would you believe me if I told you this was my Instagram bio for most of my twenties? Clearly my thirties had conveniently forgotten the message. Because did you catch that last line? “This is not from yourselves… not by works.”
And where had my “do good, be good” mindset taken me? Straight into a place of quiet boasting—believing that every outcome in my life was because of what I did. And in that mindset, I had forgotten the gift of grace. I had forgotten why God sent Jesus to die for me in the first place—not because I’m good, but because I’m not. Because I never could be.
I am, and always will be, a sinner saved by God’s grace.
Any “good” in me is only there because of Jesus—His love, His righteousness, His sacrifice. You can imagine the deep sigh of relief and the tears streaming down my face as God brought me back to these Scriptures. Because in that moment, He reminded me that my diagnosis wasn’t His punishment. It was simply another moment in life drawing me back to Him—back to dependence and relying on His grace.
Because the truth is, this will not be the last “bad” thing that ever happens to me. And I imagine you’ve had your own fair share of hard moments too. And for both of us, no amount of “goodness” will ever be enough to keep life from “life-ing.”
But when bad things do happen, God isn’t punishing us.
He’s inviting us to acknowledge our humanity and embrace our need for a Savior—Jesus. Our goodness was never the point. His grace has always been the point. And man, was I going to need the grace of Jesus in the days ahead.
Because even though I had wrestled my way through this second stage of grief—anger—I was about to enter the third stage: bargaining. A stage described as “trying to negotiate with a higher power or ourselves to postpone the inevitable.” And while you might assume the “inevitable” for me was learning to live with my new diagnosis, it was actually something much deeper. Something I didn’t even want to say out loud:
“Um… I think I’m afraid to die.”
Find out what happens next in part three of Confessions of a Diagnosis… coming soon.
