faith – Page 31 – Jesus is for the Wounded

The Difference a Day Makes

Published on January 16, 2013 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

Each day since leaving town last week, suddenly by the way, has brought renewed health and hope.

Briefly: my husband Steve and I had an opportunity to travel and get me out of our house with mold damage so off we went! Within 48 hours I was 60% better! We are amazed and encouraged for the first time in over a year. This is HUGE. No more collapses & inability to walk and limited seizure attacks. No more stomach aches and limited headaches. No more nightmares and the foot burning, ringing in my ears, muscle aches, insomnia, and profound fatigue are significantly reduced. We are praising the Lord and hopeful for the rest of the journey to healing.

Our next 2 months will be focused on the restoration of our house from replacing carpeting to cleaning window treatments and surfaces in our home. I will need to live away from the house {and my beloved 😦 }beginning with our first night back in Huntertown, Indiana in two days. There are many unknowns, including if our insurance company will help us at all; some visible mold is in an area that was not properly cleaned after water damage in January of 2009. The expenses are frightful. Then we will retest our home and see if I may return. By that time we will know the status of my husband’s job . . . Treatment for Lyme Disease can now begin.

So much to be thankful for and so much to lay before the Lord. In this moment, I am humbled. We desperately cried and prayed for direction and the Lord has provided both and more. God is good. All the time. God is good. Be encouraged. He is still on the throne!

My Prayer Today

Published on December 14, 2012December 14, 2012 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

The rascally rabbit won and I lost. Big time. Two days have gone by and I’m just starting to move about the house. Guess rabbit is not good for my nerves or anything else. The weird diet needs to be adjusted! At least the dog likes it! Dogs can eat anything ya know . . .

My prayer today is for this nightmare to end. I asked my hubby Steve if he thought there was something I was to learn from this illness that I wasn’t getting? He said that maybe it’s like Job (of the Old Testament). Job lost everything except His wife and a few skeptical friends when the Lord allowed Him to be tested. God wanted to show Job’s faith to a conniving Satan and gave Satan free reign to destroy Job, but not kill him. Job endured: he did question God at one point then quickly humbled himself before God Almighty when God spoke to him.

Job had it much worse than I could ever imagine. Covered in boils, heartbroken from the loss of all of his children and possessions, and all at a time when he had been living a God-honoring life. My year-long illness, loss of my parents and brother, abusive childhood, heartache when my former spouse took so much, condo fire, and throwing up 12 times Tuesday night still did not compare to Job’s losses. And I doubt my faithfulness compares either. I am too quick to complain. I am too quick to want more. I am too impatient at times. And I just ain’t grateful enough.

The Lord has grown my faith, softened my heart over the years. He has blessed me, restored me beyond measure. I have so much for which to be thankful. So why do I want more? Why do I want it all and right now? I believe it’s because we are all hard-wired to want something that we cannot have in this life. We are created to seek that which can only be satisfied in the person of Jesus Christ, in loving Him and letting Him fill our thoughts and times of longing. While I do seek Him continuously, I must let more go at the foot of His cross AND LEAVE IT THERE! He is worthy of my praise. He is honored when I go to Him with my hurts and needs. He loves me and knows my heart, I know. I must trust Him even when I cannot see Him clearly. My faith must grow even more.

Writer Sarah Young understands this process well in her book, Jesus Calling.

Because the world is in an abnormal, fallen condition, people tend to think that chance governs the universe. Events may seem to occur randomly, with little or no meaning. People who view the world this way have overlooked one basic fact: the limitations of human understanding. What you know of the world you inhabit is only the tip of the iceberg. Submerged beneath the surface of the visible world are mysteries too vast for you to comprehend. If you could only see how close I am to you and how constantly I work on your behalf, you would never again doubt that I am wonderfully caring for you. This is why you must live by faith, not by sight; trusting in my mysterious, majestic Presence.

So I am in the middle of a Great Mystery, written by my Father and King. My prayer today will now change to learn to rest in His care until His truth, purposes, and blessings are revealed. Like an adventure of sorts. I wouldn’t stop reading a great book of fiction in the middle chapters when the antagonist is winning and the protagonist is lying shredded on the ground.

Yeah, it’s not that bad. Time to take a shower now.

What Do a Furnace and a Sleep Lab have in Common?

Published on December 5, 2012December 5, 2012 by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

Looks like the Doc is a duck or about to diagnose, well who knows what?

Far fetched you say? Not according to my experience in a Sleep Lab last night! If I understand this correctly, my yet unnamed Sleep Doc’s report will look something like this:

7:30 p.m. Arrive at sleep lab with way too much stuff packed to keep me busy, plus my pillow and minus my shampoo. Oops. Check-in paperwork.

8:00 p.m. Dinner from a zip lock bag of ingredients from my special “anti-seizure” diet. The HGTV marathon begins. We don’t have cable or dish at home. I’m jazzed! Love it or List It. Yeah baby!

8:30 p.m. Get approval for a later bedtime since I usually can’t fall asleep until 2 or 3 in the morning. So they’ll confine me to bed at 11:30 p.m. and I can lay there in the dark with them looking at me through camera behind the black plexiglass window on the ceiling. I could arrange some funny faces or something. I’ll have the time to think of something until I fall asleep . . .

9:00 p.m. Demo and trial of a CPAP mask and machine. Talk about feeling suffocated, yipes! Actually felt relaxed 20 minutes later and wanted to keep it. Not so fast, Missy, as you only get to use it during the study if the test results the first half of the night warrant it. Notice that this means they will be waking me up to suffocate me if I warrant it! Modern medicine.

10:00 p.m. Hardware glued and taped to my head, ribs, face, and legs. Fingertip vice called a pulse ox secured to my right index finger. Lots of colored wires (around 20) are attached to a blue box that would put the back of your computer tower to shame, and hung around my neck. Great. I’m feeling sleepy already, not!

11:20 p.m. Get the “10 minute warning” that they are coming in to put me to bed. How nice. No pillow mints though. No bed either. There’s a Murphy bed in the wall that hasn’t come down yet. Modern medicine indeed.

11:30 p.m. Tech “K” tells me I have to turn off the t.v. and I haven’t found out if the couple will keep their remodeled duplex without the promised new kitchen and bathroom or spring for the $949,000 move-up mansion. Did I mention they came in 5 minutes before the end of the HGTV program twice already? Geez! Anyways, she helps me get settled as best I can into bed with not one but two probes in my nose in addition what appears to be the back of the fuse box connected to my body. Time for bed! Lights go out. Seizure-like tic attacks begin. No need to make faces; the show has begun.

12:00 – 2:00 a.m. Up to the bathroom twice, tossing and turning, praying, praying, praying. Tics on and off with sweats. Sweating persists throughout the night. Why is this mattress so hot? Room temperature feels warm then I’m not sure. Tech “K” comes in twice with each trip to the bathroom to disconnect me from the secret control panel in the cabinet next to the cabinet holding my bed. Remember the old Dick Van Dyke T.V. episodes where the Murphy bed folds back up with the person in it? Yeah, I’m remembering it about now.

2:30 a.m. Start crying and can’t stop. The sound of the furnace is just too loud. My nose itches just too much. I can’t get comfortable and I can’t sleep. I’m sick and tired of being poked, tested, probed, scanned, analyzed, drugged, drained, and worse. I feel very small. And Jesus meets me here.

2:30 a.m. Tech “K” comes in to try to figure out why I’m crying and how to get me to stop. Do I want to stop the test? Sit up? Stop the test? Wondered why she asked me the last question twice. Maybe I’m a handful. She said the most interesting patient she had pretended to be riding a bicycle in the air while sleeping. Guess my show wasn’t that good through the black plexiglass window after all. Then again, I mention the loud furnace. In seconds, we are walking to another room and find that it is much quieter. Praise the Lord! And she says it’s no problem to move to another room. We pack up, bring down another bed hidden in the wall of cabinets and before long I’m in bed again. This room is warmer; feels good initially . . .

I think I fell asleep sometime around 3:00 a.m. after some tic jolts and a few tosses this way and that way. I probably woke up six times (before they said it was 9:00 a.m.), overheated from underneath. Must be a down feather pillow top mattress or something. And before I knew it, the voice on the speaker from above was saying, “good morning Julie, it’s time to get up now.” A few tic zips rang in the new day and then Tech “J” appeared. Tech “K” has gone home. It’s now over for me too: time to unplug, de-stick, and crawl home. We made it Lord.

This day was a rough one, with a straining feeling from broken sleep and feeling torn between napping and sticking it out to go to bed early. Tried the latter and wasn’t able to sleep, again! A host of flu-like symptoms distracted me all day long. It’s one of those times when you wished you could throw up and get it over with — twice. Ate lightly including the prescribed portion of cooked rabbit. Yes, I have a weird diet to match my weird story. (See blog entitled, “Rascally Rabbit,” for more!)

What do a furnace and a sleep lab have in common? One keeps the lab working and the other works despite the furnace. Modern medicine. Have you taken yours today?