Give It Up

March 29, 2013

Lately I've been reflecting on the past year or so.  Next month marks three years since Kelsey first passed out and the beginning of a medical mystery.  The last 14 months has been the worst of it.  And the best.  Treatment and prayers are working and she is getting remarkably better in the last couple of months! 

So instead of trying to just get through the next day and week, I find myself looking both ahead and behind. I'm looking ahead anticipating the transitions that are to come in the next few years and looking behind to find the lessons learned.

For much of the first two years, I took the lead in trying to figure out what was going on with Kelsey.  The doctors were baffled and I tried to control the "out of control" with knowledge and research.  I had a decent background in medical stuff and reading medical test results and such so I dove into the research.  More than anything this was out of a sense of trying to be effective in helping Kelsey.  Most of my spare time was reading about possible diagnoses.  If you know anything at all about neurology, you have to know that symptoms all overlap and any set of symptoms can be attributed to innumerable neurological maladies.  So, I know (knew) a lot about CIDP, neuropathies, epilepsies, migraines, cardiac issues, autonomic issues, etc., etc., etc.  It was exhausting.  With the help of a fabulous (I can't say enough good about her!) ENT PA, I figured out the basilar migraines.  All my research paid off but I'm not sure it was worth it  because ultimately the neuro referral from the ENT would have diagnosed it correctly anyway. We just beat him to the punch.

Then we hit a really rough patch.  The winter of 2011/2012 was horrible.  Kelsey was passing out all the time, the pain really hit hard, and while we made a bit of progress in getting the POTS diagnosis, nothing was helping, including all my research.  My sense of helplessness soared.

I remember one night, I think it was last March or April, 2012, laying in bed and tearfully telling Tim that I didn't think I was making good decisions regarding Kelsey's medical care anymore.  I was lost, ineffective, and horribly lacking confidence.  A day or two later, he told me that he was going to take more of an active/leader role in all this.  I felt so much better!  As it turned out, it was absolutely the best thing!  Tim brought not a medical knowledge, but a problem-solving expertise to the situation that brought confidence, calmness, and assurance that I was sadly lacking.  Giving it over to Tim was empowering not just me but the situation!

I continued my research but not nearly so much.  When we got the Lyme diagnosis, in August/September, I started reading about that.  But, by the end of September, I was completely spent.  I simply couldn't read one more thing.  I couldn't spend one more minute learning about it.  I saw Tim learning about it, reading a book on it, and I knew that was enough for us to be educated on the disease. 

However, I also knew that all of my researching was mostly in an effort to control.  I made the decision to turn it over to God.  Released of the burden of trying to control that which is out of my control, I felt better.  In fact, Kelsey started to feel better physically, too.  Treatment started to work.  I'm convinced prayers were working too.  I'm not saying that prayers weren't working before but I do wonder how much my control issue hindered God's working.  I'm not sure how it all works together.  In writing this down and saying it to myself, it sounds mighty egotistical to imply that anything I do would or could inhibit God's working.  At the same time, I wonder how God can fully work a situation if I don't fully give it over to Him to work?

What I do know for sure is that my giving it over first to Tim gave me a tangible experience of what it would be like to turn it over to God.  I understood that feeling of relief that someone better than me is in charge.  I understood that grateful feeling of knowing that a different and more powerful expertise was going to be involved.  With giving it to God, I knew I was putting it in the hands of the rightful owner. 

Surrendering isn't giving up, it's giving it up.

 

Sing along and make it your prayer too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x2IpLSfqp8

 

Thankful 'Til It Hurts

March 20, 2013 (Published March. 21, 2013)

About a week and a half ago, I had dinner with my god-parents.  These are people who I spent a lot of time at their house across the street while growing up.  I stayed over there until I heard my mom ring the bell that hung in the garage.  To this day, they still tease me about me being at their house saying, “I don’t hear that bell ringing.”  Anyway, I invited myself to dinner, literally.  I texted her and said, “What time is dinner?”  Of course, I didn’t think to add that I was in town (we live 2 ½ hours apart).  Once we got past that hurdle, we made plans for dinner.  While at their house, I saw that she had a beautiful leather-bound edition of Jesus Calling, a devotional book that is very popular right now.  I decided then to get one for myself.

Already, in my three days of reading it, I’ve been blessed so much!  The first day was on a day a friend was having surgery.  The topic was putting your trust in God.  I texted her to see if she had read it that day too and she had.  That day’s devotion was comforting not only because of what it spoke to be but because it also provided a supportive connection to a good friend.

Today was about sacrificially giving thanks.  At first, I thought, how is it sacrificial to give thanks?  The verse it referenced is Ps. 50:14,

“Sacrifice a thank offering to God, and pay your vows to the Most High.”

If you read a bit further down through the Psalm to verse 23, you will see after a pretty good scolding, it ends again with the idea of sacrificial thanks,

“Whoever sacrifices a thank offering honors Me, and whoever orders his conduct, I will show him the salvation of God.”

In Biblical times the sacrifice was animal, grain, or whatever.  We don’t do those now so how do we sacrifice in giving thanks?  It’s about giving thanks even when you don’t want to, even when you don’t readily see those things to be thankful for.  Sacrificial giving means that it has to hurt some.  You have to give up something of value for it to be sacrificial.  It seems oxymoronic (is that a word??) to say “Be thankful until it hurts” but the point is that even when we are hurting we need to be thankful.  And, sometimes it is painfully hard to step outside of our circumstances and be grateful.

I know there have been times when I’ve avoided my Bible study because I was mad.  And I wanted to stay mad.  I felt I had every right to be.  The sacrifice in this instance was to put my own feelings aside, to deny self, to step outside of myself and be more Christ like.

In my anger, I missed being thankful that I live in a country that freely allows me to Christian.  I missed being thankful for the ability to study in and of itself.  And, probably most importantly, I missed the blessing that studying always brings me.

For me, maintaining my humor and sense of gratitude are vital to keeping my head above water.

My current favorite song is “Next to Me” by Emeli Sande.  I absolutely love it because it describes Tim to a tee and it reminds me how grateful I am for God bringing him to me, even before I knew God.

You, Me, and God

March 14, 2013

Last night, I was blessed to sit in a room of about 14 brothers and sisters and pray for my sister, Lisa, her husband, and their family.  We prayed for healing, strength, peace, assurance, safety, and so much more.  It was an intimate time of fellowship with each other and with God.  It was so beautiful and uplifting to hear everyone’s hearts and their hearts’ desires.  In reflecting on it, my thoughts are drawn to a couple of statements made in our Bible study just a half hour before the prayer.

First, we were discussing prioritizing time spent with God.  Some said that taking those moments in the day when you have what seems to be “down time” such as driving, waiting on someone, or standing in line were their times with God.  These are wonderful times but I had to disagree with the idea that they equaled quiet time with God.  There is something better about my day when I spend just a few minutes in bed before getting up in the morning either praying or just being quiet and listening.  Tim, I’m sure, thinks I’m just dozing and dreading getting out of bed.  Sometimes that is true too!  It was then that Lisa spoke and said, “Those moments when I’m praying throughout the day, those are the times I’m talking to God.  But my quiet time is when I dive into this (pointing to her Bible) or this (grasping the bible study book).  This is when God speaks to me.”  It is her wisdom that I love and admire the most. 

My other reflective thought came from a question from Lettia who questioned the idea of unanswered prayers.  I remember answering, “The standard line is there are no unanswered prayers, they are answered yes, no, or wait.”  And then I asked her if she had ever felt a prayer to be unanswered.  She said no.  She must have read the look on my face which probably belied my thought, “I have.”  She continued, “Because I know He hears me.”  That hit home for me.  El Roi (“The God who sees me.”) has been a theme for me since last May.  It made me correct my answer and think, “I haven’t recently.”  El Roi was with us last night, both in class and in prayer.

My final thought on last night actually centers on a C.S. Lewis quote, “A woman's heart should be so close to God that a man should have to chase Him to find her.”  This is what happens in our Bible study!  Studying together and drawing closer to God by knowing Him better and experiencing Him together has brought us all so much closer to each other.  We are the fellowship triangle in action!

The Birthday Present

Mar. 6, 2013

At some point during my childhood, I’m not sure when, I got this “sense” (I’m not sure what else to call it) that I would not live past 35 years old.  I can’t explain it other than to say that it is just something I felt and, honestly, felt very sure of.  It was just one of those facts of life for me.  For a while there, during my black years of depression, it certainly felt more imminent.  I spent so many days and years in my youth wishing for it all (pain and life) to just go away.

Turning 35 was difficult.  It was not an easy birthday.  That feeling loomed over me for a lot of that year.  Obviously, I made it past that time.  Next week, I’ll be 47 years old.  I don’t know why I ever felt or thought that I would not live past 35.  It wasn’t an anxiety based thing.  I accepted it as fact in my life.  I’ve often wondered the genesis of it, yet I still don’t have an answer.  As I write this and process it, I’m thinking about my life before and after age 35.  At 31, I, with God’s help, forgave my “biggie” in life and was able to heal a gaping wound.  At 34, I returned to college to try a couple of classes to see how I would do in going back to college for psychology and counseling degrees, which was a major departure from my engineering design drafting career.  At 35, I was off and running full steam in that direction.  I became a Christian when I was almost 30 but my biggest, most incredible God moment/miracle happened when I was 34 and it solidified my faith in ways that nothing else did or could have.

So, when I look at it this way, I wonder if God was, through that sense I had, preparing me for big changes in my life.  In many ways, I see now in hindsight that my life took big turns at that time: turns spiritually, turns in my healing from child sexual abuse, and turns in my career.  In many ways, it was the end of one life and the start of another.  Perhaps, for me, 35 was a rebirthday.

In the end, what it has done is make me grateful for the days I have.  That is not to say that I am perfect at it.  Certainly, there are some days that I wish would just go away.  But, overall, I am grateful for the present given to me.  Perhaps that is another point in this. 

This past weekend we celebrated my next oldest sister’s 50^th birthday.  She was not happy about it.  But, as my oldest sister said, “Tough titties!  Tim didn’t want a party either and he got one!”  I’ve joked that “I am not going to turn 50.  I simply refuse it.”  However, the fact is that it is a day to celebrate.  Not because it’s your birthday, but because it is one more day given.  Now there’s a birthday present!

Here's a pic of the women in the family.