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Published Sunday, April 27, 2008
MANDEVILLE, Jamaica
By Glacia Robinson
Acquainted with the intensity of life's trails, I was gravely ill for a period of five and a half years. Riddled by the bullets of isolation, I became a stranger to the face of the sun. The hospitals in Jamaica and the United States of America were a second home for me. Abandoned by my once successful life of ministry and music, stripped of the gift of my independence, totally helpless my health rapidly declined and I felt as though I was dead but alive to watch. 
Exhausting the medical resources in Jamaica, I moved from one hospital to another and tried various medicines, I did countless tests and yet all results were negative. Consequently the doctors were unable to diagnose my condition. The effects of the mean sickness made me so weak, unable to walk on my own. I was confined to the assistance of a wheel chair.
I became as one imprisoned, stitched to the confines of one too many hospital beds. My body was a heated battle ground; knuckled beneath the lash of agony's whip; like a cruel scavenger, the sharp teeth of pain mauled my existence. It got to the point where I was incontinent and dependent on disposable diapers (pampers). 
I was plagued by symptoms such as uncontrollable vomiting; ravenous seizures; internal bleeding; hemorrhaging; fainting spells and countless falls; diarrhea; sky rocketing fevers; swellings; excruciating pain and other unmentionables. The shadow of death mirrored my every move. I remember when all my veins collapsed and the doctors persistently probed my limp body for hours, in search of just one vein, but inevitably they had to resort to odd ports, to fuel my sustenance.
Insistently grave, my condition took me to some of the lowest moments I've experienced in my entire life. It got to the point where I could not even digest water. My body weight plummeted to less than 90 pounds. (A size zero was too big for me I was skin and bones). There were days when I could no longer count from one to ten, my hair fell out, and my skin broke out in hives. I felt like I was literally out of my mind, at times even the recollection of my own name was distant.
My doctors told me my organs were functioning at the rate of a seven-year-old child. My eyes reclined into scrawny sockets, my tongue draped from my head, my speech hobbled with a drawl. My bones, joints and muscles sagged beneath the weight and the presence of a pain that I could not escape. I seemed as one stricken with old age, and I could not be left alone. All nutrients were given through intravenous methods. But the constancy of my mother's care was tantamount to my recovery, as she was forced to relinquish her job and other daily duties in order to supervise my care. 
Days turned into weeks, weeks into months and months turned into years... 5 and ˝ years. Still, I laid bare in the hands of rescue, as this illness limited my wisdom to the prejudice of its own council. Trapped by its cruel dictates, which tried to ravish the potency of my dreams and silence the rhythm of my existence and the hope that I breathed. Sufficed by the loan of oxygen, with sleepless nights in the intensive care units and often guarded by the patrol of heart monitors, and a loyal network of wires, ticking electronic devices, fierce cables, intravenous lines, a barrage of uncomfortable tests and a million injections, militant tubes were drilled into my nostrils to collect the steady stream of bleeding inside of me. But despite the wide spread rumors of my death and the fact that people even called my house to ask about the time of my funeral; and even though I lost every thing that I had; and although so called religious leaders said they were…"Tired of praying and if God's going to take me He should just take me"… I knew it was not over for me, because God's purpose for my life was not yet complete. 
Even when my body would shut down and even though the doctors told me that there was nothing more that they could do for me. I continued to hold on to the word of God, which says…
"I SHALL NOT DIE BUT LIVE TO DECLARE THE WORKS OF THE LORD." Psalm 118:17
There is Life is the Word!
There is Healing in the Word!
There is Hope in the Word!
There is Deliverance in the Word!
THE WORD OF GOD!
I knew God's plan and purpose for my life was not even partially complete. And so I BELIEVED that God would raise me up and restore my body. Within the absence of fear, perseverance and determination fueled my limp frame and saturated my spirit. I knew I was in a battle and so I had to fight and remain resolute in my belief. I fought for the fulfillment of God's destiny and contended for the fruition of his promises in my life. Even in my lowest moments I believed in the power of God and trusted that He was going to come through for me, irrespective of how dismal it seemed in the physical.
Glacia, a native of the island of Jamaica, is a Gospel Music Minister who now resides in the United States. She began singing at four years old.
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