Help is the universal cry of the human heart.  It describes the agony of the soul in need to which God lovingly responds in redemption.  He answers as the person and place of help in Jesus Christ, providing help for the helpless and hope for the hopeless.

One of the excellencies of God is His being the Place of Help.  Nothing and no one is so truly and so really the place and person from whom help comes as is He.  Our need for help is rescue in the fullest sense and only He can provide it.  He rescues us from our sin and ourselves, from our fallenness and our faults, from our helplessness and our hopelessness.  He is the place of rescue. –from the Publisher’s Foreward located in Oswald Chamber’s The Place of Help

On a Wednesday morning I asked for help and was rescued.  This is my story…

Four years of living with the grotesque illness of Crohn’s Disease had my physical body exhausted and my spirit fatigued.  Diagnosed at the age of twenty-one in the summer of 2011, my then stubborn and slightly prideful-self made a bold promise: I will not let this disease keep me from my dream of dancing professionally in New York City.  I had just graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Modern Dance and was offered a job with a professional contemporary dance company in the Big Apple.  All I had worked for had quickly manifested into a reality but came to a screeching halt with the impromptu diagnosis.

Besides the random food poisoning from a busted sushi roll or a surprise runny nose, being sick was foreign to me.  Robust in build, I was an Athlete of God, as is famously quoted by Albert Einstein.  I was an athletic dancer who loved leaping, turning, twisting, sliding, pushing, throwing, lofting, balancing, flying and so on—so it was a shock when this gloomy diagnosis was shoved in my face.  My way of coping was to invite denial into my life.

Living in the congested city that never sleeps while suffering the nasty symptoms of Crohn’s was a mental prison that pressurized with time.  I dealt with the physical symptoms through shear determination and strong will—extreme tiredness, weight loss, muscle atrophy, anemia, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, lack of appetite, vomiting, internal bleeding, fever, mouth sores, arthritis, and the list goes on. To be frank, Crohn’s is an embarrassing sickness, one that has you bent over on the John for hours on end in agonizing pain, and if you don’t make it to the bathroom in time, well, you can use your imagination.

I refused to speak about what I was enduring.  With time, denial linked up with embarrassment and pride, and I found myself locked up in quiet bondage.  Coasting as a professional dancer, and desperately trying to make it through rehearsals, I stubbornly attended auditions regardless of my frail condition.  I attended an open call to be a ballet extra for the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center amongst 400 plus women and miraculously I landed a contract.  I booked two more shows soon after which fueled me to push forward with dancing.  I was living my dream.

The following season I was offered six contracts with the prestigious opera.  Working with some of the biggest names in the concert dance world, I was a kid in a candy store—but I was quietly suffering.  My symptoms intensified until I hit a wall in February 2015.  My gastroenterologist performed a colonoscopy after an awful flare-up and was unable to finish the procedure for fear of puncturing my intestinal lining.  My insides were severely ulcerated and inflamed.  He advised me to stop dancing in order to heal.

I finally faced the truth.  I was sick and needed to look at this disease square in the eye to stop pretending things would magically get better.  The day after the colonoscopy I called my boss and told him I had to quit the season early.  Within a couple of weeks I was back home.

Focused solely on getting healthy, I did research and found a book entitled Patient Heal Thyself that outlined a program to heal those suffering with Crohn’s through the use of organic therapeutic foods and supplements. Jordan S. Rubin, its author, suffered from a severe case of Crohn’s that nearly took his life and he now lives Crohn’s free.  I tested it out and in two days I saw immense improvement.  In a weeks time, almost all my abdominal pain left—I finally found hope, however I quickly realized I could not afford it.

Venting to my best friend Kelly over the financial impossibility, she brilliantly suggested raising the money online.  I shut her idea down fast.  Me, ask for help?  Me, ask for money? And if that wasn’t nauseating enough, the idea of laying myself bare and explaining to people my situation made me cringe.  Of course Kelly reassured me that that was precisely the point.  I must turn a bad situation into a good one—heck, perhaps even make a blog and share the story with others.

I prayed long and hard to God after that phone call, because the reality was raising the money was the only way I could continue the program and finally heal.  Four years of being sick, being in and out of hospitals and being pumped with all sorts of drugs wears on you.  I was desperate to be healthy.  Desperate to break free.  I spent two weeks of meditation with God, and He assured me countless times that He would make it happen.  He would provide the money through this fundraiser to continue the treatment; and so with confidence in Him I pulled the trigger.

The campaign was called Help Elizabeth Heal and it was launched on May 27, 2015 through the crowd-funding site youcaring.com.  The goal was $9,981: cost of the program for a year.  Within 36 hours, friends, family, co-workers, teachers and total strangers had given the $9,981.  A miracle! In total, $11,532 was donated.  I deleted the fundraiser because money just kept pouring in and even after the website closed, many contacted me still wanting to donate.

God is amazing.  I asked for help and He rescued me.  I felt hopeless and stuck, and He used those around me to come to my aide.  Not only did He rescue me, He lavished me with so much more.  People from far and wide reached out to me, and it filled my heart and soul with warmth that healed me in stunning ways.  The outpouring of love, generosity and sheer selflessness from hundreds of people forever changed me.  I laid myself bare, asked for help and relied solely on God to see it through.  Not only did I receive monetary provision, I got a surplus of much more.  An over-flow.  A spilling-over of love, prayers, support, and hope.  I am forever undone and forever different.

No longer am I ashamed of the diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease but I will say, I am confident I will be Crohn’s free.  Through this blog I will document my journey towards healing.  I want to bring hope and a hug to those dealing with the illness; perhaps I can lend a hand or be a pillar of support—this is my wish and the purpose of this website.  Not only will I share my journey towards wellness, I will share my stories, thoughts, epiphanies, concerns, dreams, and perhaps more.  This cyber space is welcomed to anyone really, whether you have Crohn’s or not.  I am simply turning a bad diagnosis into good, and in doing so, giving all the glory to my God who rescued me in 36 little hours.