Thanksgiving is just around the corner in the United States: Thursday, November 28th. I’m getting into the mindset a little early this year, to help keep my mind and heart in the right place. What better place to learn about gratitude than from The Word itself. Reflect along with me, won’t you?
1 Thessalonians 5:18
New King James Version (NKJV)
18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Colossians 3:16
New International Version (NIV)
16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Psalm 106:1
New International Version (NIV)
1 Praise the Lord.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
1 Corinthians 15:57
New International Version (NIV)
57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
New International Version (NIV)
18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Revelation 11:17
New King James Version (NKJV)
17“We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come,
Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.
1 Chronicles 29:13
New King James Version (NKJV)
13 “Now therefore, our God, We thank You And praise Your glorious name.
2 Corinthians 4:15
New King James Version (NKJV)
15 For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.
Philippians 4:6
New King James Version (NKJV)
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
Colossians 3:17
New King James Version (NKJV)
17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
1 Chronicles 29:13
New International Version (NIV)
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.
Sometimes you move forward. Sometimes you move backward. And most of the time you just go sideways or don’t move at all! Know what I mean?
When I worked in rehabilitation we had another phrase: recovery is always a jagged line. A person makes progress then might regress a step or two before making the “big gains” in strength, walking, functioning, and the like. Many times my patients would not believe me when I said this to them. I understood their frustration. In our fast-paced, achievement and results-oriented American society, it is really tough not to be getting ahead in some way every day. Well as the old Starkist tuna commercial used to say, “Sorry Charlie.” Sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way.
Not only does every person not always get where they want to go, not every person gets selected to try for his or her dreams. These can be a real bummer for sure. How we handle these delays or changes in the course of our lives may likely determine our character. Certainly how we respond reflects our maturity as adults, or for Christians, whether or not we are trusting in the Lord who promises a plan an purpose for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11). While there are probably other reasons we could explore ad nauseum, I’m going to leave it right here. Ultimately we must get over the failure to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves when it just isn’t going to happen. You just never know. Something better might be on the horizon . . .
Several times I have planned to complete a special project and was never able to start it. (This has happened a lot over the past two years!) In general, the main reason wasn’t even procrastination. The reason often has had to do with the reality that something better is waiting for me in the future. Take my decorating idea folder, for example. About twenty years ago when our drapery panels in our living room became damaged from the sun, I really wanted to create a custom window treatment that I’d seen in a magazine. Somehow I would need to design a tracking system where the wall met the ceiling before such systems were even available. We didn’t have any wood shop tools at the time and I was unfamiliar with the fine art of making draperies. However I did know how to sew and had a creative streak so that was enough for me to move forward and figure it out. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.
The townhome got sold with the sun bleached draperies pinned from behind to hide the sections that were threadbare. The problem? My former husband doubted my ability to complete the project. Where would we get the materials? How would we install it? Where would I find the time to make everything? All of the ongoing questions discouraged me from trying to find the answers. A creative person makes something happen along the happy journey of figuring it out. He or she doesn’t have everything worked out at the start unless there is a pattern or kit with instructions. This decorating project simply was too much for the two of us to come to an agreement. It wasn’t meant to be back then.
Flash forward about ten years later and it was meant to be. Through unfortunate circumstances I found myself single and rebuilding my life in another city; so much had changed. To pursue a creative project would become “occupational therapy” for me and help me to make my new place a home. I knew exactly what window treatment would adorn the sunny sliding glass door that overlooked the lush courtyard beyond my balcony. This time the time was right.
A co-worker told me about a textile company that sold unbleached muslin by the pound. Yeah, that’s right! Yards and yards of fabric would be super cheap and just right the right color and style for my project. I even found material to line the panels all through that poorly marked, rusted back door entrance to the factory. There were huge bolts of fabric everywhere! “Yeah God,” I said to myself. This is good!
The next challenge would be measuring and cutting an inordinate amount of material on the laminate floor of my 3rd floor condominium. To say my knees were hurting from crawling around cutting all that fabric, would be an understatement. Then I wondered how was I going to sew all this yardage at my modest kitchen table? The answer soon came when I was house-sitting in a lovely home a short time later. The man of the house was a contractor and had a HUGE desk in his office for viewing his drafting plans. That desk was perfect for sewing yards and yards of fabric too: spilling all over the place in their spacious loft. Cool beans. I sewed and sewed to my heart’s content. Cool beans again.
Now to make the tracking system to suspend the panels next to the ceiling. Somehow I stumbled upon a lumber store just off the railroad tracks in an industrial area of a neighboring town. The guys at Owl Lumber in Lombard, Illinois were great. Not only did they help me configure the crown-molding style curtain rod, they metered the corners and pre-drilled the holes for the mounting pegs for me as well. I installed about a dozen pegs into the crown molding, sanded, painted it white, and coated it with polyurethane. Now all I had to do was mount it on the wall . . . without a ladder . . .
Gratefully I had an extremely sturdy coffee table that became a suitable platform for the installation. (You simply could not kill that wooden beast so it followed me through 8 moves over the years. Finally it got sold on Craig’s List 5 years ago!) I got all the tools and supplies together, my friend Jeannie came over for dinner and a little window treatment project, and we gals went to work on a Friday night. The only problem was that the building was over 30 years old and there was concrete not wood studs underneath the drywall! My wood screws would never hold the weight of the solid wooden rod that measured about 8 feet long. Oh well. Back to the hardware store I would go for mega concrete bolts and a new drill bit. Of course I had a darn good drill that would handle the job. 🙂
The next hurdle was the fact that Jeannie was not available the next weekend to jump back into the project again. What was I do to? How could I possibly wait when I was this close to pulling it all together? This thing was massively heavy and I was hoping to mount it at a height that would require me to hold it at a height near the end of the reach of my arms overhead. How could I do this alone without dropping it on my head? By sheer will power and determination, that is! I figured out the measurements of the holes for both the wall and crown-molding rod and pre-drilled the holes. I figured that if I could slip in a few bolts by hand and tighten them, they would hold enough for me to get the rest of the bolts in as well. I also used my head . . . literally! And with only one close call, Lord willing, I gotter done! Success!
The finishing touches to hang the panels were beautiful silky-type cording that I found at a local drapery supply store. Wow: so cool to live in a large city at the time where I found a place where practically half of the store was drapery trims and tassels! I made a loop and tied it with a Josephine macramé knot, reminiscent of 20 years earlier when it was first vogue to macramé. I was single then too and had macrame’d lotsa stuff! Hand sewing the loops to the panels was a labor of love, quite meaningful for me. Then I was ready for my big reveal to, er, myself. Would it all come together? You be the judge. I loved it! To open it each morning I gently draped a loops hidden on the backside of the middle of the bottom of each panel to hooks on the wall along the outer sides of the panels. At night I released the loops and the panels closed like the massive curtains at the end of a theater stage play. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, it was worth the wait. I was stoked and thanked the Lord for restoring the years the “locusts had eaten” once again. (Joel 2:25)
That’s me in 2007
This is an important story for me to remember years later. I’m in a situation now where I can’t do projects like this as I recover from a serious illness. I am grateful for the Lord’s gift of writing and the warm reception to my eBook released a couple of weeks ago (see side panel for details). Just this morning I was wondering what would be next? Then I realized that I really can’t do anything more right now. The book got finished because I had some better days; those days are gone for now. I’m hoping to catch up on some long overdue regular medical appointments like an eye exam tomorrow morning. EEEEK! Will ya look at the time? Anyways, these next few weeks I won’t be moving forward. I’ll be taking care of the stuff on the back roads, so to speak. Perhaps there will be other types of meaningful discoveries along the way, perhaps not. For now, the stuff of life has my time and attention.
Maybe you can relate? Whatcha got going on this week, Gentle Reader? Do take care, k? JJ
According to Wikipedia (and who can argue with the Big W?) The quotation “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” comes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, act III, scene II, where it is spoken by Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. In Shakespeare’s time, “protest” meant “vow” or “declare solemnly”. It also means that she is promising too much. Well I don’t know about the Queen but this lady is going to take it literally: I think my posting about illness is getting to be too much!
So I must digress for a moment into another topic altogether. You see, the failing of dealing with chronic illness (defined as that which lasts more than 6 months) is when the diagnosis becomes you. When I start to use words like, “my Lyme disease” or “my mold illness” then I am beginning to affix a permanent label to myself: a new identity as a sick person. Sure, I am a person with a serious illness. Yet if I am not careful, I will develop such a strong identification with the role of “sick person” that it will be difficult to embody or identify with other roles and activities in my life. It could be difficult to identify with healing when it comes; that would be bad! The tendency when wearing the “hat” of a disease too well is to talk about symptoms or treatment all of the time. I could constantly be complaining about the daily headaches and pain, difficulty concentrating, or pre-tic phenomena, etc. And if I do that, I simply won’t be much fun to be around. I will find myself alone more of the time and I’m already alone a lot!
So I must make a conscious effort, beginning with those closest to me, to focus on him or her and other things no matter how benign the topic. Gotta start somewhere! I can always find something to say about our cute pupster, the mail that came that day, or something for which I am grateful. I can always lavish in the goodness of the Lord, Jesus Christ and how he has given me a warm, pretty home in which to reside. I can always be grateful for the healthy food that is available to me in our smallish town from both local farmers and chain grocery stores. (For example, have you seen the great prices on organic, free range chicken thighs in the Family Pack at Wal-Mart?) And when in doubt, I can even brag about making it to Level 102 in the Facebook game Pengle. Hey, what else am I supposed to do when spacey at 2:00 a.m.? The game is not that easy and it’s kinda fun too!
One of my favorite topics is my husband Steve. He is an amazing man. Steve begins his day with an extended time of prayer before taking care of our dog and getting ready for work. I am often sleeping or returning to sleep as he is leaving for work; we chat by phone sometime later in the afternoon. By that time he has designed a cool aspect of a weather satellite or test instrument in his role as a mechanical engineer for a world-wide firm. At lunch he cycles. Yeah that’s right. Most of us take bike rides. Not my Stevers. He is a competitive athlete to the core even during his lunch “rides” where the guys crank out 20 or more miles, averaging 19 or so miles per hour most days of the week. Then on Tuesday nights during the warmer weather and most weekends until the St. Joseph River freezes over, you’ll find my River Bear in his kayak-on-steroids. Steve races in the United States Canoe Association circuit (K-1 Unlimited class) here in northern Indiana and at Nationals every year. His two little ditties are 21-foot carbon fiber surf skiis that weigh in at around 23 pounds each! The Epic V12 looks like a Tomahawk missile on top of his stealth fighter Dodge Magnum low rider transport vehicle. Then there’s the multitude of service activities to our church including worship, Bible study, and fellowship. It’s amazing that there’s any energy left when the dude returns home. Yes, there is energy left for me, with hugs and tenderness too. Even at midnight when I’m not doing so well on a work night.
USCA Nationals 2013: Steve racing the Mohican
I love Steve with all my heart. It’s a privilege to be his wife, a blessing from the Lord. I have never felt so loved, so cherished, so respected, and held in so high of esteem by anyone at any other time in my life. His sense of humor, common sense, and Godly wisdom enrich me immeasurably. He is often my “Jesus with skin on.” Thank you, Jesus for blessing me with an amazing man of God.
Ladies, amazing men do exist! Can you see one important reason why I strive with what little strength I have these days to be the best woman I can be? Sometimes all I can do is make my man his lunch . . . at 3:00 a.m. in the morning before I finally make it to bed. So I make it the best lunch I can possibly muster with my Heavenly Husband holding me together until it’s completed. Then the dog gets a scratch behind the ears and it’s time to collapse into whatever the darkness may bring. At least I know as I close my eyes each night that this lady has “professed” her best culinary care and it is not “too much.” I’m hoping it’s just right!
Oh my Heavenly Father, thank you for my beloved who cares for me and my heart in this life until we both can be in Your presence forevermore. And if it is your will Lord, I ask to be able to be with Steve a little more as husband and wife, sharing the joys of life and being together. Thank you for helping us to find some sweetness despite this season of illness in my life. Thank you for Your provision and helping me, helping us to endure this difficult journey. You have sustained us, carried us over and over again through much uncertainty, false hopes, unexpected setbacks, and complications. While all this is true, You have also allowed others to see You here and there when we somehow got it right. Oh Lord, I pray that we continue to be a worthy steward of all that You allow in our lives for Your glory alone. Thank you for a better afternoon and evening today. I love you too. In Christ’s name, Amen.
One of the hardest parts about chronic illness for me (longer-duration illness, not permanent, hopefully!) is the change in my relationships. I’ve written previously about the loss of casual friendships, the ones based upon common interests or gathering places. Today I’m talking about the one between a husband and wife.
Steve and I have been married almost 6 years. I call him my “intended beloved” since I believe the Lord has blessed me with an amazing man of God as my life partner. We came together in our late 40’s, having learned much about life, people, and the Lord’s enduring grace in the years before we met. We’d both lost our youngest sibling and the last of our grandparents within the past 10 years, shared both similar and completely opposite interests, had to relocate due to divorce, seen plenty of changes in the world around us, and came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ as adults. Still when we got together we needed to work on a few things as a couple. I believe these things have become our strengths and bonded us together for life. Yes!
Steve and I share the “love language” of caring touch. (For more on the 5 love languages, see the work of Gary Chapman.) Therein the challenge of late lies. The most noxious symptom of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome for me is seizure-like episodes, 3-4 times per day. Most any sensory stimuli can make a seizure attack worse or even trigger one if it is intense enough. An episode can become worse after it starts if Steve or anyone touches me. So imagine a loving spouse attempting to comfort his or her beloved at a time of severe illness, reaching out and discovering that the gesture actually makes the person worse! And if this happens over an over again, despite the caution, precautions taken to be gentle or vary the type of comfort, the spouse can become discouraged. In our marriage, we have decided to work with the symptomatology and find a firm touch or closeness by proximity that sort of worked for me. Thankfully, Steve did not stop trying altogether. I understand that could have happened.
After all, the worst seizure attacks and convulsions happen late at night. Steve often needs to go to bed to get up for work or another commitment the next morning so he simply cannot stay up with me night after night. Our physical intimacy suffers. Oh and if the attack isn’t so bad and we attempt marital relations, it’s a crap shoot whether or not the noxious symptoms start again. Can you imagine turning something intended to be precious into something so ugly? We often don’t even “go there” if I’m feeling sick or I’m in “pre-tic mode.” The heartache of frustrating my spouse isn’t worth the Russian roulette we must play to see if things are going to work out o.k. Stopping a tender moment also wrecks my thought process; it wrecks “the mood” for me. Steve just says, unbelievably, that he doesn’t mind or that we had a time of closeness anyways. Where do they make guys like him anyways? Certainly I had not seen any in my past . . .
And this is where I must trust the Lord to sustain me, to sustain Steve-and-me through this season of our relationship. I am incredibly blessed to be married to a man who loves me truly, “in sickness and in health.” I did not experience this when I was married before as a young woman. The Lord allowed certain health issues at that time to challenge us, test us, deepen our faith and we both failed to lean on His leading to overcome the trials. In the end, my former spouse turned to another woman for solace and physical intimacy. She was an unlikely comfort: wealthy, mother of 6 children, and spouse of a man about to be imprisoned for embezzlement. Craig left anyways. And what that left me was a fear of relational intimacy or at least of trusting another man to endure the inevitable trials of life.
In the time that followed as a single woman, I turned to my Heavenly Husband for comfort, protection, provision. He was my constant companion and much healing occurred. It wasn’t until a time of serious illness struck 2 years ago and 4 years into my marriage to Steve that I realized a little more recovery was needed. Steve’s steadfastness strengthened by his true relationship with the Lord has never waivered. Never! I am humbled and grateful. I often see in Steve: “Jesus with skin on.” Steve has been wounded by his past and an ex-wife who disrespected him terribly. Regardless, he has rarely brought any vulnerability from that experience to our marriage. He, too, has allowed the Lord to “restore the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25), rising up to become the spiritual leader God intended. So glad he’s tall too. I love looking up to my Stevers.
When the time is right, when we have submitted ourselves to the refining fire that can be the trials of life, when we are faithful to the calling the Lord lays before us, we too may be rewarded with blessings beyond belief. Those blessings may not be what many think of as gifts or rewards. For me and my beloved, those good things are the ability to overcome the wretched things of life in a way that actually deepens our love relationship together as well as our walk with the Lord. My hope in writing this is that you are also seeking the One who knows your pain and loves you just as you are: the person of Jesus Christ. (Psalm 41:1-3) He may indeed bring you an angel to minister to your needs, a “Jesus with skin on.” He may bring you to the foot of His throne of grace a few times in desperation, alone. I know that He will not frustrate you beyond what you can handle, however, and will fill your heart with unspeakable joy someday. (Romans 5:3-5)
I am grateful to see the latter despite wretched illness. I pray that you too, Gentle Reader, will be able to see all this and more when the time in your life is right. (Ecclesiastes 3) The sorrow will not be wasted, of that I am sure if we but keep our eyes fixed on the face of Christ. We may even get a sweet snuggle with someone special too!
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Addendum: A new medication is bringing new hope. I’m down to about 1 attack per day and they are less intense. We are holding onto hope as this journey of illness appears to be changing. Praise the Lord!!!!
One of the slogans of the 12-step program is the title of my blog today. Progress not perfection is my sentiment as I sit on the precipice of either potential progress or doom. Or maybe it will be that it was doom and is now on its way to progress? This is a mini treatment update.
First, the potential doom: I am reacting to most foods, supplements, meds., and treatments in a noxious manner lately. Then, out of the blue I took a 1/4 scoop of sugar laden cholestyramine (CSM) to attempt to counteract the convulsions that came with 1/2 cup of homemade, oven roasted sweet potato fries. I had added coconut oil and a clean protein to my quick lunch to balance any extra carbohydrates from the sweet potatoes. Not sure if it was the carbs or some latent mold in the potatoes but I was down for the count, so to speak, within minutes. I had a more delayed reaction to them and a couple of other things consumed together yesterday so I wasn’t that concerned. Mistake.
So I cancelled my 2:00 p.m. IV magnesium treatment; I could not drive myself there. I figured that I might as well get the CSM treatment over as it causes seizure attacks anyways, even with a 1/4 scoop loading dose of 1 gram. And to my surprise, the attacks stopped! I was still pretty wiped out though. Perhaps there was a war going on inside my central nervous system and the victor was not yet declared. So all I could do was veg out on the computer for a few more hours. It sure beat the alternative of lying in bed shaking some more. Maybe I should have tried to add to my 4 1/2 hours of sleep last night? Oh well. Decisions don’t come easy or get made well in this type of mental state!
Second, the progress: my tolerance for CSM might be improving. If it can stop the progression of a reaction then maybe I can take it without a reaction by itself. I think I’ll give myself a day to recover then try to increase it to 2 doses tomorrow. Lord willing, I may be onto something good! And if that good lasts for more than 3 doses, well then we might actually have something really good.
CSM is a resin typically administered to lower cholesterol. Persons with Lyme and mold illness use it in Dr. Shoemaker’s protocol to bind with mycotoxins that have a neurotoxin effect during treatment. CSM removes the bad guys from the body (according to clinical research); there are some gastric side effects. I was unable to tolerate it earlier this year during the stress of mold remediation of our home and had to discontinue even a low dose.
It’s dispensed as a very grainy powder with either massive amounts of sucrose or aspartame to cover the taste. After calling 6 pharmacies and 3 drug companies last week (including being forwarded to an “off shore medical center” in India for one of them!) I hit a dead end trying to locate CSM without sweeteners. Then a call to my favorite local compounding pharmacist revealed that the powder is indeed available but at incredible expense. He would investigate further and get back to me. In the meantime, the Massachusetts compounding pharmacy from which I get my VIP (vasoactive intestinal peptide) package arrived with a brochure that included CSM without sweeteners! Their price is the same as what I pay for VIP. It’s expensive. Turns out that my local pharmacy cannot even purchase it for the price that the MA pharmacy would charge me. Well then. A plan is coming together.
Unfortunately my LLMD appointment was cancelled Friday. I spoke with desperation to the not-so-friendly, overworked receptionist who notified me of the cancellation, pleading for an order for sweetener-free CSM powder from the MA pharmacy. Have you ever given detailed information to someone on the phone then wondered if they were just pacing themselves on the other end of the line and not really taking any notes? I had that feeling. I had no idea if anything would happen until I could confirm everything with the phone nurse next week. The weekend ended up with many wretched moments as I experimented with the sucrose-laden CSM. Sugar feeds Lyme, Candida, and fungal/mold infections. Not good.
So therein lies my caution with advancing CSM, my new wonder drug, until I have the sugar-free and aspartame-free version. If I’m having mysterious trouble with sweet potato fries oven roasted in 3 types of organic cooking oil to offset the glycemic impact, then I ain’t gonna mess much with the sugary version. Too bad that I get headaches with aspartame. Or maybe it’s a good thing. Aspartame can break down into formaldehyde and is associated with all kinds of health issues. You know what they preserve dead corpses with right? I’ll never forget the smell of formaldehyde from gross anatomy dissection lab in college . . .
Oops. I’m on a bunny trail. Well thank you for reading this rant and helping me to sort out a few things. Since the recent expert evaluation of seizures at a major university hospital didn’t yield any new information, I’ve been wondering what the heck to do next. A person with hours of multiple wretched events per day keeps looking for answers you know, with the brain cells that are left firing in the correct sequence. The Lord has definitely powered the sustaining grace of this renewed pursuit of CSM and any mental ability to write about it.
Oh, and some other progress: just finished the final edits of my upcoming eBook Hope Beyond Lyme: The First Year. I’ll do a final read-through and copyright check then publish it online. Stay tuned for some more good news!
Yeah Lord for anything good that happens from here! Your strength is shining through once again. This vessel is broken, cold, and quite spacey. Help me finish the race you have set before me and publish this work you have created in me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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UPDATE: The CSM is on it’s way across country from Massachusetts to Indiana!
Thanksgiving is just around the corner in the United States: Thursday, November 28th. I’m getting into the mindset a little early this year, to help keep my mind and heart in the right place. What better place to learn about gratitude than from The Word itself. Reflect along with me, won’t you?
Jesus is for the Wounded 
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