3 The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.
The first year enduring and battling a serious illness can test everything we thought we knew about coping with the trials of life. In this book, I share some of the more meaningful and encouraging moments of my journey as I sought to draw strength from outside of myself to endure them. My hope is that you or your loved one will find strength and hope that transcends the often difficult day-to-day experience for yourself or a loved one coping with a debilitating illness. I also hope that you will consider the hope found in a personal relationship with God. His presence in One’s life can make a difference in where a person lands when this particular journey of life is over. Will we have peace or will we have despair?
With a sincere heart it is my privilege to share these short vignettes with you. Let not these trials of ours be wasted, eh? Gentle Reader, are you ready for enduring hope that goes beyond what we can see? If your answer is, “Yes,” then I invite you to read, Hope Beyond Lyme: The First Year. May it also encourage you to learn that you are not alone, not today, not ever.
Discover from a fellow sojourner, her most meaningful and encouraging moments to encourage you or your loved one battling a serious illness. Find in one handy eBook (available in 9 different formats) the best blogs updated from this site plus several Bonus Pages too! Click on the link below for more information. Take care, :J
Hope Beyond Lyme: The First Year
Sometimes you have to make a choice. You are at a dead end or maybe lost. Perhaps what worked in the past will no longer suffice. Or perhaps you are facing the most difficult reason: an external force requires you to act immediately. Regardless, the process goes more gently when covered in prayer to the One who sees you and your situation, cares for you, knows your heart and heartache, and has a plan an purpose for your life. That plan and purpose includes the crossroads in which you find yourself. Stepping forward into the arms of the loving and perfect Father through a relationship with His son, Jesus Christ, will carry you through the decision every time. He already knows, sees . . .
Gratefully I don’t have to stress very long these days before I’m at the throne of grace with my alms of concern. I understand that it blesses the Lord to come before Him with all things big and small; such a mystery of His amazing grace. This week had them both for me.
Big decision: sell the Beam Ray/Rife machine in which Steve and I invested so much hope and resources just 1-1/2 years ago. It’s not working for me and I cannot tolerate most of the frequencies anymore. Time to let it go and move on.
Small decision: relinquish my cheaper cell phone with a slider keyboard for a smartphone. We will benefit from having it on the road when travelling and it will expand my online business possibilities. Time to let go and move forward.
Big decision: place active Lyme and mold treatments on hold to eradicate a serious systemic yeast infection. This requires risking more noxious events to kill the fungus that is hurting me and may even be contributing to the seizure attacks, etc. I seek wisdom in the timing of all of this with the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Alas, it is time to let go of the time table and move ahead carefully.
Small decision: discontinue the IV magnesium treatments at number 28 because the symptomatic “cost-benefit analysis” don’t compute anymore. Sometimes you simply have to choose.
Medium decision: sold my (beginning) surf ski kayak called a Stellar SR. This one brought tears. This illness has challenged my fitness and balance skills making the mastery of paddling this specialty kayak quite difficult. Steve just sold a kayak as well so we likely will invest in a solo outrigger canoe and share it. These are awesomely cool, fast paddling boats that just might work with either kayak or canoe paddles. Yeah but I let go of the SR before ever mastering it. I got sick after paddling it October 11, 2011: my third time on the water with it. Seeing it go on a rainy afternoon was a gray reminder of the past 2 years of illness and brought up feelings of failure. Sish, maybe this was a bigger decision than I thought. The tears are making it hard to see the computer screen right now . . .
I think tomorrow will be a retreat day. Steve and I will be celebrating our wedding anniversary and perhaps something simple will be nice this time. One of the best decisions of my life was to move out of State to marry Steve 6 years ago. Ahhh my intended beloved. How the Lord has blessed me with a man after His own heart as you! However we choose to spend our time together, I am sure that it will be wonderful.
O.k. so I just went from tears to blushing. Allow me to send you off with a prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank you for seeing and hearing the hearts of Your children each day. Help us to reach for the shadow of Your wings to carry us when we cannot stand, to shelter us when we must wait on your Divine hand in our lives, to lift us when it is time to step out in faith once again. If it is Your will I ask for healing for me from this complicated mix of illness and for the Gentle Reader finding you this day whilst reading this blog. Cover us with Your healing grace and merciful love. Guide us in our decisions for your glory Lord. And help us to keep our eyes fixed on You, waiting with great expectation for Your Providence to unfold. I love you Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Just a quick note that the free coupon for the eBook, Hope Beyond Lyme: The First Year, ends on Saturday. If you’re interested an updated collection of my most meaningful and encouraging blogs plus several Bonus Pages, head on over via the link below. It’s available in 10 different formats, including a new smartphone app from Dropbox.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/371334
Here’s a little video with a personal invitation from me too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opCttpUCZW0
Take care Gentle Reader and thank you for your support this past year online. I am grateful to the Lord and humbled knowing you are there . . .
Just Julie
My husband, Steve, cracks me up sometimes . . .
Today while resting, he pulled a fast one on me. Like, hey, I’m recovering from something serious and you are asking me whaaaaat? Excuse me but the 5 minutes of serious laughter that followed erased my memory for exactly what we were even talking about! What I do remember went something like this:
I was talking about something medical, perhaps a new treatment approach I was considering and his surprising remarks this afternoon to maybe pursue it. He was interested in a Functional Medicine clinic up in Michigan and was quickly getting to the heart of the matter with a rather terse question:
“Was that Dr. Shoe or Dr. Butt you are talking about?”
You have no idea how funny this is! Allow me to explain: Dr. Shoemaker is a famous mold illness expert (author of Surviving Mold & other publications). Dr. Shultz is a famous colon health/cleansing guru from American Botanical Pharmacy in California. I have had the experience of doing 5-day juice fasts with a variety of tinctures and Intestinal Formulas (i.e. ones that make you GO) but that was before I met Steve. My former spouse would tease me mercilessly when Dr. Schultz product catalogs came in the mail, often with a hearty picture of gut anatomy on the cover. He called Dr. Shultz the “Poop Doctor” or something like that.
I have not done a juice fast/colon cleansing protocol in the past 7 years nor since meeting Steve. He must have seen one of Dr. Shultz’s catalogs before I whisked it away to the recycling bin! Oh dear! The shoe and butt doctors have made their way into my genteel world of late for reasons whose details I’ll skip for the sake of grossness . . .
Gee, I wonder what will be the next zinger? Stay tuned. I’m not over this wacky derailment of health quite yet so there’s gotta be something else on the horizon. And Steve will remember it when I least expect it to lighten things up, I’m sure of it! He has a wild manner of remembering things dontcha know!
Have a good week, Gentle Readers. Gotta run, :J
Jesus is for the Wounded 
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