Keep on Keepin’ On

Feb. 26, 2014

I’ve noticed a shift in my mantra lately.  For the last 3-4 years, it has been “Into your hands, O Lord.”  It has been my little prayer when I worry or have been stressed.  When Kelsey would pass out, “Into your hands, O Lord” was always in my mind.  When Aron got his motorcycle and he would pull out of the driveway, revving his engine (the one on his bike and the one inside him) all the way, “Into your hands, O Lord” invariably came out of me.

I had to use it much less in the last 6 months.  My stress level has been so much lower and I am so thankful!  But in the last couple of months, we have seen a bit of a relapse occurring with Kelsey.  Symptoms are returning.  We have been to the doctor twice in the last eight weeks and I talked to the doctor on the phone today in order to speed up treatment.  I am concerned about the decline we are seeing.

But I am in a different place this time.  I know that we will never get back to a place that was as bad as it was before with Kelsey.  We will always catch her symptoms early.  Now that we know the name of the monster, we can see it and fight it so much better.  So, my mantra doesn’t feel appropriate anymore.  As I was thinking about all of this about a week ago, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what my new mantra should be until I heard a song at just that moment…..because that is how God works.

And so, as I was driving home tonight after my Bible study sisters small group, I was thinking about what I should write about and guess what song comes on…. Yup, because that is how God works.  This mantra is for me but it is also for my sisters who are struggling too: one who is recovering from surgery, one who is battling cancer, one who is hurting so deeply, one who’s father-in-law is in his last days, one whose son is in constant pain, and one whose father has persistent medical problems and a difficult mother who adds to the problems.

I can only assume the song’s inspiration comes from Phil. 3:13-14,

“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
 I press on toward the goal
 to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

The song lyric is “Doesn’t matter where I’m going if I’m going with You; I press on, I press on, I press on.”

Yes, “I press on.”                            

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsRKCH59qw

His Presence is His Present

Written Feb. 4, 2014

Published 2/18/14

Today is a gift.  That is something I have especially learned in the last 3 ½, well nearing on 4, years.  Through Kelsey’s illness, it was sometimes so very difficult not to think about tomorrow.  What would the future look like?  Will she better?  Or worse?  This was especially true before we got the Lyme disease diagnosis.  Uncertainty loomed large.

Somehow, I, the one who likes to plan ahead and set my plans in stone, learned to live more in the moment and leave those uncertainties to God.  This work started early in our marriage because Tim worked in network support.  So many times our plans changed due to last minute support calls.  I think it is one of those times where God started working on me preparing me for the future.  So, with Kelsey’s illness, there rarely seemed to ever be firm plans that weren’t in any way dependent on how she felt.  In retrospect, I see that when I got mired in the uncertainties of the future when I got depressed.  But now I see an interesting irony.  When I focused on the uncertainties of the future, I felt hopeless and lonely.  However, now when I look back at the times when I felt stronger, it was often because I was letting God handle the uncertainties.  It was then that I felt hope.  I was hopeful because if there are uncertainties and I have given them to God then I know that He has plenty of room to work.  Uncertainties provide possibilities.

So I have learned to know what I have today.  Of course, I am human and incredibly fallible and I have had my moments of worry over the last month.  Kelsey is struggling a bit more with fatigue and some other minor symptoms.  Lyme disease doesn’t go away.  It is something that will always be in Kelsey’s and our lives.  And so, as we are actively planning college for her, we are having to keep in mind what she is capable of today and make no assumptions of it being in any different in the future.  It is part of accepting life as it is.

God promises us today.  The future he promises is not tomorrow or the day after; rather it is eternal life with Him in heaven.  Just as He provided manna and quail on a daily basis, He provides daily for me.  I feast with joy in his daily provision.  Because His loving presence is my strength and comfort and protection, I have hope in the uncertainties of life.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.  My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

~ ~ Ps. 28:7

Now and Then … or … Before and After

Feb. 11, 2014

I always listen to music in the mornings in the bathroom as I am getting ready for the day.  I am not a morning person so the music helps get me going.  It energizes me.  This morning, a familiar song came on that I just love because it always reminds me of how far I have come.

As a kid and a teenager, I was quite different from who I am now.  I look back and it’s almost like I was a completely different person.  Sexual abuse kills a part of your soul.  It kills that part that says “I have value” or “I am enough” and replaces it with “I’m damaged goods” and “I am broken.”  And so what that looked like in my life was a lot of introversion, and a whole lot of seething anger (and sometimes outright boiling anger).  I didn’t do well in new or unfamiliar settings.  I say I lost my faith but I really doubt that I ever had a personal relationship with God.  So how could I lose what I never had?  I remember when I was thirteen I was washing the dinner dishes with my mom and I told her that I would probably live with someone before I married him and that she shouldn’t expect grandkids from me.  It wasn’t a stellar moment.  I did things that messed up girls do.

I have very few friendships from that time.  I have not maintained any relationships from high school or my young twenties.  I wonder now if they would even recognize me.  I can only imagine the looks on their faces if I told them that I have kids and am a Christian.  Or, even better, that I am a counselor working in a church-based counseling center and I teach at a Baptist university.  Ha!

I’m not who I was.  I ended up with a fabulous counselor, George, who took me down the journey towards healing.  He taught me how to love myself.  He led me to forgiveness of myself and my grandfather.  I had a family who stood behind me every step of the way and who even propped me up when I couldn’t stand on my own.  I had a preacher/friend who led me to forgiveness of my grandmother and who committed to a weekly Bible study with Tim and me for a year and was instrumental in my decision to follow Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  I have a husband who models unconditional and sacrificial love to me every second of every day.

I call out these people not to give them the credit.  Rather, I want to point out just some of the people God used in my life to bring about healing.  I know it is God because only God can do a work like that.  I don’t know if my healing process will ever be complete.  How could it be?  I am human.  But I am amazed when I look back at how my life has changed.

I am not who I was and it is only by God’s amazing grace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1ZgtCRO-KY

I Love You More!

Feb. 8, 2014

At a Christian concert last night during set/instrument changes when the auditorium was all black with no lights, I heard from somewhere behind me,

“I love you!”

Someone on stage bellowed back, “I love you more!”

In that instant, I thought, “That’s us, when we are telling God we love him.”

I know that flashed through my mind because of a conversation I had this past week with someone near and dear to me.  She told me as she was driving to visit her dad in the hospital she was thinking that she loves him so much!  And then fear came over her as she thought, “I don’t think I love God more than my dad.”  I think it was a fear of doubt in her faith that her priorities were out of whack.  After all, we are taught all our Christian lives that we are to love nothing more than God.

But then the Holy Spirit spoke to her and gave her the message that it’s okay; God knows that she loves Him and that she will never be able to love Him as much as He loves her.

In reflecting on her story over the last couple of days, I realize that it strikes a chord with me because I have often marveled at how willingly Abraham brought his son to sacrifice on the altar.  I know deep down that I simply don’t have that level of faith in me.  I couldn’t bring my child to that point.  In its strictest sense, it is a point that shows that my faith is weaker than Abraham’s and if I dwelled on that for too long, I always ended up with thinking that God must be saddened by this flaw in me.  Until now, though, I never saw God’s grace in this.

After hearing her story, I said, “It must have been such a peaceful feeling that came over you.”  After all, isn’t the result of grace peace?

Here is a song from the concert.  I love the chorus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qst5GAxBwf8