Existing medical literature does not examine the importance of real-time orientation to God’s presence and alignment of the human heart with gospel truth. We look at the skin and understand blemishes occur as a result of purging or detoxification. We never look at the gospel as a true intervention and consider functional neurological disorder symptoms as the purging of misaligned neurology. I have them, and this is my experience, not anyone else’s. This would only be a possible cause of functional neurological disorder in a case study where gospel alignment was the intervention in a person’s life for an extended period of time. Context.
Extending this outward, functional neurological disorder symptoms in someone aligned with the gospel as an intervention for the human condition may be exacerbated and sustained in communities where the source of cognitive dissonance and stress comes from the surrounding world living out of alignment with Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If we want to receive the Gospel and align our heart condition with the good news of Jesus, there will inevitably be a purging of old things. Shame, fear, guilt, and emotional reorientation are inevitable. It is a work of the Holy Spirit to let God’s love transform us; yet our discipleship methods must support this work. As functional neurological symptoms exist, we must consider looking at realities through God’s mercy and discerning the meaning and path forward, trusting the truth of His love.
I speak as a Christian, for Christians, and with experience in this profession. Medical literature currently defines functional neurological disorder in ways that do not fit this context. What I am stating is somewhat exploratory in nature, as I have been implementing this in my own life, which has been filled with trauma, cognitive overload, and many other challenges requiring a solution. In plain words, my writing here is coming from my personal lived implementation of gospel alignment as an intervention for the human condition, and as much as possible, I have maintained this intervention only through God’s presence and His salvation of me, to the end that it has become a testimony of what God can do in a yielded and willing soul.
Systems silo and silence the fullness of what Jesus did on the cross for us when He bled and died to take away our sin. Systems do not prescribe this in detail as an intervention for the human condition. It is instead segregated into compartmentalized areas that are socially accepted, and thank God for the freedoms we still retain in the United States of America, because I have a church system where I can go and discuss my faith and learn about Jesus. But the medical systems, the education systems, the legal systems—Christians are in a world with systems that have no language or understanding of gospel alignment to the degree of depth the gospel truly reaches.
Jesus did not just die for our momentary light conflicts. He died for our major relational and life-altering crises. Yet we rely on our own strength and do not remember His existence—the ultimate neglect of the Lord—while we solve everyday issues without thinking of the gospel because we don’t feel it is needed then. We sing, “Jesus saves!” Yet we do not allow His truth to flow into the deepest parts of our hearts. We do not even consider Him because we are busy solving these small issues through palliation or distraction in countless culturally acceptable ways. Ways that we call team-building and icebreaker activities, where humans connect emotionally with one another, and this begins to make us feel connected.
This is connection, connection very often not aligned with the gospel within the human heart, because we allow people’s liking and connection with us to fill the spaces that we never let Jesus reach. Friendships and emotional connection with others, wonderful gifts they are, can block the reception of God’s love in our hearts. It is much easier to connect with a coworker emotionally than it is to recognize why the connection happens so easily in the first place.
Stay with me as I work to expand on what I am saying here. I am the case study in my own gospel alignment initiative.
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