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

 

Beautiful Migraine Day

January 15, 2014

Yesterday, I had a bad migraine.  I woke up with it but often with a hot shower and just getting up and moving it gets better.  Not so this time.  I'm teaching a mini-mester class this week so I went to class and started lecturing.  After one chapter, I stopped to take my prescription medication because it was getting much worse and the nausea was starting.  After teaching the next chapter, I knew I had to get home while I could still drive.  The medicine, which never makes me loopy, did this time.  Plus, I was just feeling so bad.  So I quit class at 10:30 and drove home with the help of Lettia talking to me on the phone.

I got home and went straight to bed.  I slept in between bouts of vomiting.  By 3:00, my body could no longer lie in bed so I got up and stationed myself in my recliner for the rest of the day.  By nightfall, I was feeling better. Kelsey brought me a large coke Icee and sometimes that does just as much or more for my migraines as prescription narcotic medication.  Just a helpful tip for my fellow migraine sufferers!

Anyway, I tell you all of this not in an effort to get any sympathy but rather to tell you of how my day ended.  I was piddling around on my iPad and ended up on Pinterest.  I never look at the video category but last night I did. The name Jamie Grace popped out at me for a couple of reasons.  One, I really like her style of music and used one of her songs in my last blog post.  Two, we (my sisters and I) had just talked about her on our trip last weekend.

So I watched the video. It is about today being a beautiful day.  I thought, "It really is!  Even with a retching migraine, it is a beautiful day!"  Don't get me wrong, I had thought last night that I was glad the day was over.  Even in that, though, I was blessed to know that my migraines rarely go for more than one day.  I am thankful for that.  I am thankful for Icees and medications that help reduce the pain.  I am thankful for a son who understands when I come home early and he says, "You’re home early," and I reply with, "I'm going to bed."  I am thankful for a class who asked to pray for me before I left.  I am thankful for a friend who took half an hour out of her work day to talk about anything at all to help me stay focused and awake on the road home.

More than anything, I am thankful for a God who loves me no matter what.  I am thankful for a God who owns me twice over: He created me and He bought me.  He loves me so much that He sent a little reminder through a video so that I could be thankful for His blessings ... even in the midst of a migraine day.

I hope you find as much joy as I did in the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPy0ctqMwE0

Invisible Threads

Dec. 1, 2013

Connection.  That word keeps coming up for me over the past few weeks.  It’s a simple word but, boy, does it pack a punch!  It is, quite simply, the cure for so many ills.  With another Thanksgiving literally under my belt, I thought about the word from a family perspective.  The holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) are family times.  Yes, they are about gratitude and celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but they are also about being with family.  For many, it is the only time of the year when they see these people.  It is a time of reconnecting.  For the most part, when a holiday is not good for someone, it is because they did not connect in some way, shape, or form with their people.  God designed us to be connected.  After God created everything in this world, He sat back and surveyed it and found that it was all good, except for one thing.  It was not good that Adam was alone.  So, He made woman.  That stupid line in the movie, “Jerry McGuire,” got it all wrong.  Adam was complete in and of himself.  Rather, Eve complemented Adam.  Men and women are divinely designed so differently yet, they enhance each other.  People need other people not because they are incomplete without them.  People need other people because you can’t be your best without them.  Connection enriches people.

Connection is actually part of our biochemical design.  Oxytocin, a neurotransmitter (chemical messenger), is a bonding agent.  It’s nickname is the “cuddle hormone.”  It is released when mothers nurse their babies and they feel that wonderful warmth and bond with their child.  It is released right after orgasm and promotes bonding between lovers.  It also explains one reason why porn is so destructive because then you are bonding with images.  Oxytocin is also released in times of stress.  Your body is literally urging you to connect with someone in order to manage stress.  Connection makes life easier.

Connection is also the cure to shame (my favorite topic of study lately).  When you feel those awful feelings of shame come on, those feelings that say, “No one can know about this” or “I’m a loser (or a horribly person, or whatever) because of this, it is imperative that you run, not walk, to your safest person and tell them about it.  Shame cannot survive out in the open.  Shame only lives and thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of your heart.  Shining light on it by sharing it with someone, especially God, robs shame of its power.  Connection trumps shame.

Connection is also a vital component of faith.  In the past, when I went through difficulties, I would always feel very far from God.  It felt like God was nowhere near me.  When I was going through the abuse and in the years afterward when I was dealing with the aftermath of it, that distance was so great that I deemed God non-existent.  So, I painted Bible verses in my bathroom based on the theme “Emmanuel: God With Us” to remind me of that fact day in and day out.  Then Kelsey got sick.  Chronic Lyme disease creates a hell that is hard to see God in.  I was losing the connection with God.  I started writing this blog so that I could see Him more readily.  I had to force myself to notice His works in my life because I had experienced the desolation of the desert without Him.  That is not a trip you want to take twice.  I reached out and held on.  Sometimes that rope between me and God felt like those giant mooring ropes you see on cruise ships; other times it felt like a thread.  But a thread is still a strand of that mooring rope.  God is still on the other end.  Connection is my lifeline to God.

Perhaps Friedrich Nietzsche said it simplest, “Invisible threads are the strongest ties.”

I love this song because it sounds like the joy I feel when I am connected to God.

Jamie Grace feat. Toby Mac – “Hold Me”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISgr8SgCYbY

Discovery and Recovery

Nov. 21, 2013

April, 2010 was the start of a journey for our family.  Kelsey got Lyme disease but we didn’t know it.  She had a bout of what we thought was just a virus and she fainted.  We didn’t think anything of it really.  The next month she passed out but it was more like a seizure, not like her fainting the month before.  Something was definitely not right with this one.

So we got on the long road of doctor appointments, unanswered questions, multiple diagnoses, complete frustration, helplessness, and disillusionment with the medical system.  At one point, Kelsey was diagnosed with neuropathy, POTS, basilar migraines, migraines with aura, chronic daily headaches, chronic pain syndrome, possible MS, and “all in her head.”  In Jan. 2012, the severe pain began and she massively deconditioned basically overnight.  On good days, she rated her pain in her arms and legs at 6/10 and there were a whole lot of days at 7-8/10 and even 10+ days at the hospital.  This went on non-stop, literally, until the next December (2012).

What helped Kelsey came from an unexpected place.  Out of 15 or so doctors, a couple of them being world-renowned doctors in their specialties, not a single doctor would take the lead in her case.  Only one doctor would prescribe a narcotic pain medication (and that wasn’t the Chronic Pain doctor) and he only gave her a tiny bit.  One doctor continually called her “bizarre and complex.”  Only one doctor stepped a foot or so out of her specialty and tried to help Kelsey and that simple act made her a hero to us.  But, even that was a short lived advocacy.  Overall, the doctors only want to diagnose within their specialty which meant that they never really looked at over all causes of Kelsey’s symptoms.  They wanted us to believe that she contracted all of those diagnoses separately at the same time.  How can people who are so smart be so ridiculous?  Tim kept saying through the whole thing that there has to be one cause.  It is the difference, I believe, in the mindset of a trouble-shooter vs. a “diagnoser.”

Then my brother-in-law, Mark (aka New Mark; aka Assimilated Mark), said, “Look into Lyme disease.”  I knew we had already tested twice for Lyme with the results being negative.  Plus, honestly, by that time I was sick of being told to chase what seemed to be wild geese.  So, I did nothing.  A couple of weeks passed and Angela asked again if I looked into and I had to say no and she encouraged me to do so.  A week later, still with me doing nothing, a friend at work, Darla, asked me about Kelsey and she made a connection to her friend who had Lyme disease.  I told her Kelsey had been tested and was negative and she said that didn’t matter and said to go to a Chinese medicine lady in Greenville.  So, Tim took Kelsey.  The lady found Lyme and made recommendation for Dr. Wilson.  Tim, to this day, is still skeptical about this lady but the end result is still the same.  During this time, I also met with someone who has Lyme and she also suggested Dr. Wilson for Kelsey.  Do you see the paths lining up?

We went to Dr. Wilson and he confirmed Lyme through specialized testing and we started treatment.  It took three months before we saw any significant improvement.  Just at that time is when Tim and Kelsey went to the Mayo Clinic, who disagrees with chronic Lyme disease in general.  Their conclusion after a week of testing and consults was, “We are at the end of discovery and need to move on to recovery.”  In other words, “We don’t know what the hell the she has so let’s just learn to deal with it.”  Um, no.  We decided to stay on the path with Dr. Wilson.

Ten months after the start of treatment, it finally ended.  And now, three months after that, Kelsey is so good it is practically unbelievable.  She has moved from “bizarre and complex” to “miraculous” according to Dr. Linder.  I couldn’t agree more.  Yesterday, she ran 3.2 miles, she has decided to start eating healthier, and is even writing a blog (www.ablessedrunner.blogspot.com).  She homeschools and works 25-30 hours a week being a nanny for two boys (2 years old, and 2 months old).

Certainly I have seen God working in the last 3 ½ years.  What I see in this story is God leading the way to diagnosis.  I sure wish He would have done it a lot sooner.  But, like the old saying goes, “I have my plan, but God has His.”  I got a glimpse of that perfect timing last week when I read Kelsey’s first blog.  She wrote, “I know all too well what it is like to not have the ability to run but to be honest I wouldn’t take back what happened for anything.”  I asked her why and she explained that she loves her life now and if it hadn’t been for the illness, her life would be incredibly different.  God’s timing, not mine.  God’s plan, not mine.  Which brings me back to my mantra/prayer for the last 3 ½ years: “Into your hands, O Lord.”

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