There was a time when my own body became a battlefield. My skin burned, ached, and itched and rebelled without explanation. At first, it seemed like something that would pass a temporary trial, but it did not pass. And soon my skin and I went to war. My doctors grew tired. Their compassion began to fade. I became an insolvable riddle.   I was untreatable, then mysterious, and then they stopped acknowledging it at all, and I shrank from the world. I stopped talking. I stopped existing for a while. I learned the geography of shadows. I learned to hide my skin. Became both a shield and torment. A constant reminder of what I could not fix. I was raw with pain, ashamed and utterly alone.   But Jesus has a way of reminding us that we are never forgotten at first. The presence is only a flicker. Something I felt when I prayed or I sang gospel songs or read scripture in the middle of the night, my prayers were not elegant. I didn't have the strength. I only had groans in half form sentences, but still I kept at it.