Tag: suffering

The Writing is Divine

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Magazines have always held my interest more than novels, textbooks, or even the subtitles of an award-winning foreign film.  I just don’t have the attention span for more than a couple of thousand words in a row!  I guess that perfectly places me in the realm of the lone blogger, hacking out short articles of inspiration (or perspiration?) well into the dead of night.

And not everyone’s rants hold my fancy for the five to twenty minute allotment I’m willing to spend.  Take the Editor’s column in a popular automobile magazine that graces my husband’s setting at the kitchen table every month.  This car guy’s language is so thick with adjectives, metaphors, and strained attempts to make an inanimate, mechanical object organic that I grit my teeth to get from the beginning to the end.  Just say it plainly Sir Editor!  He probably has a journalism degree.  I suppose that gives him license to use more words, write longer sentences.  Not me.

I am moved by the languid composition of words that flows like butter running off a freshly boiled ear of corn.  Gotcha, didn’t I?  Just couldn’t resist!  Perhaps the best example of the terse and poetic, the impactful and inspired comes from God’s Holy Bible.  The Word of God is an amazing work that tells of the physical and supernatural, good and evil, things infinite and small, and everything in between.  Where else can reading a single verse change a person’s destiny forever?

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  (John 1)

In the wonderful mystery that is God, we find power in His Word and receive His indwelling Spirit when we come to know Him as Lord and Savior.  I do not claim to understand how this works by reading and meditating on a few chapters in the Bible.  Mentioning it here simply illustrates the finding that the power of a written word comes from the author’s mastery of the subject matter and his ability to communicate it to the reader.  For the Bible, the God of the universe brings us Himself and everything we need for life in His handbook for living as communicated to faithful men of God who wrote it down for us to read.  His Holy Spirit stirs within us as we dwell in the presence of the King’s scrolls.  Moreover, we come to understand who He is, His plan for our lives, and are drawn into fellowship with Him.  This fellowship can last forever if we but believe what He has written for us, summed up nicely in John 3:16:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Now these are words that draw my heart and mind in a meaningful embrace:  the promise of living forever with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Such a simple message really and yet one that changes everything.  Let’s see it in action in a little longer passage from the Old Testament, often called the bedtime Psalm:

Psalm 121:  A song of ascents.

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber; (italics added)

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord watches over you—

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

Now I can sure wrap my mind around these timeless and comforting images written long ago.  I started a Bible-reading plan through “The Bible App” on my Android phone at the end of last year.  I love it!  (There’s even a narration option for listening to the verses spoken aloud.)  Reading 3 to 4 chapters per day beginning in the book of Genesis goes quickly in this plan for reading the entire Bible in a year.  While I do not understand all of the ancient culture, I am amazed at the Lord’s attention to every detail in the lives of His people.  His love and care translates to you and I as well in the present day, when we spend a little time reading His Divine Word.  I am so glad to have found the best writer of all time and hope that my own words will honor Him too.

Well, there it is.  Simply stated and inspired by the One who wrote this special message on my heart for me to share with you today.  No words are more important than His.  Will you join me in spending a little time reading the Bible each day?  I promise you that it will be worth any amount of time you devote to dwell in His presence.

Taming the Savage Beast

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“Don’t cry.  Don’t raise your eye.  It’s only teenage wasteland,” sung by Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend of The Who in Baba O’Riley, 1971.  (Decca Label)

The first rock concert I ever attended was “The Who” at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan.  The venue doesn’t exist anymore and neither does the band!  I will never forget the experience of seeing so many drunk, stoned, and wasted young people in one place before:  the place probably held 80,000 of them that night!

I got to go to the concert for free as a member of the Warren Jayteens.  The Warren Jaycees had a hot dog booth at the newly constructed Silverdome and we earned money for both of our community service organizations by working in their booth during Detroit Lions football games.  The Who concert was to be the first rock concert scheduled at the Silverdome.  When our Advisors in the Jaycees asked us if we wanted to work at the concert of course we said YES!!!  Gratefully we ran out of our supply of hot dogs that we sold as Hawkers in the stands just as the concert was about to begin.  We walked along the first level searching for the best view of the stage from the back of the seating area.  It didn’t matter that we did not have seats.  We were there!

I was there for the music.  It appeared that virtually everyone else was there to get “wasted!”  Sure is funny how my use of the term “wasted” has changed over the few decades since then.  Flash forward and it appears that my hope these days is that my life and what happens to me will NOT be wasted!  Time and experience are precious gifts to me:  a blessing from the Lord to spend reveling in His glory, His plan for my time on this earth.  We can’t take back either one after they are spent nor can we do them over again.  So I want to be fully present in the gift of, well, the present and rest in its purpose or meaning.

Therein the challenge lies.  How does one make sense of the savage beast that has become a part of my daily life?  Shall I accept this thorn in my flesh or fight for the cure with every resource available to me?  Do I drag my beloved husband through the details and horrors of every experience or escape alone:  just my Heavenly Husband and me?  These are the questions with which I grapple these days.  And more often than not, my quest for meaningfulness falls short in a pile of wasted time, lying on a bed, seizing from head to toe.  Then there’s the recovery phase.  Such a raw deal at many levels.  Wasted indeed, or so it seems.

There is no taming the savage beast at this point in time.  Oh sure there are things I have learned to avoid that make the seizure attack episodes worse like consumption of simple carbohydrates, new treatments, exposure to mold and noxious sensory stimuli, and travelling away from home into unknown environments.  But to make them go away:  not a chance so far.  I haven’t had an episode-free day in many months.  Two years have gone by in this personal hell.  This past week landed a night with a total of 6 hours of seizure and convulsive episodes with a 4-hour break in the middle somewhere in which I think I either passed out or slept.  Yeah, that night was supposed to be part of a special visit with family at their newer home out of State.  By the grace of God we had a few fun moments despite all of the suffering and post-seizure noxious symptom load thereafter.  Guess you could call those minutes His redeeming grace.  The scene captured below with my adoptive grandson, Jackson Rees, is a treasure to me.  Treasures sometimes come at a price.  Price paid.  Moment not wasted.

Jackson and Julie looking out the window

And so it goes.  Treatment continues for a systemic Candida infection.  Treatment is on hold for Lyme disease and the mold-related illness called Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.  In this moment in time I just hope that the food I ate an hour ago didn’t have too much starch to turn on a yeast rock and roll concert in my brain.  As I close here, I guess I’ll just look out of the window of my mind and note the wonder that lies beyond.  This too shall pass and with it will come an amazing story of the Lord’s sustaining grace through the firestorm of illness.  (Philippians 1:12)

I am so very grateful for my Lord and Savior:  Jesus Christ.  I just couldn’t make it without you!  And if it is Your will precious Lord, please end this nightmare.  I am ready to live again.

Philippians 1:21 (NIV)

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

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For more on non-epileptic seizures of biological origin, see the You Tube video in a previous blog:  Hell on Earth

He knows

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Whenever I am down and out

Instead of rising up and giving a shout,

I’ve learned to keep my big mouth shut

And hold my poker face to save my gut.

I used to sputter and blurt out a reply

And earned a reputation like that of an un-nice guy;

They called me “bold” but it got me no where

Just too many nights right here alone in my under____.

Well not really but it rhymed you see

‘Cause appearances were all the rage back then to me;

All the while He waited in silence

Beckoning me with hope and a promise.

Decades flew by and it weren’t too pretty

My youth faded:  I lost more than an itty bitty:

My husband, my mom, my brother, my dad

I had more than enough reasons to be quite sad.

So where did I land when the fires took it all

The shell of a woman who once spoke a little too proud and tall?

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Hmf.  This broken child crawled before the throne

Put down my sword and picked up His own.

The dragons we slew:  the Christ Jesus and I

My strength now His, my voice that of One on high.

My steps softened, tears sweetened at last and for better reasons

Even the fruit of my labors grew differently in the coming seasons.

I have not any idea where all this will go

Will I ever “get there” or find the answers I need to know?

It almost doesn’t matter ’cause even one bummer leads to the next joy

So ‘just hold on Little Julie, this next chapter’s gonna be quite a ride!

DSCF2424

The Moments that Define

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When you get up and cook for guests before your treatment and post-treatment nap, you know who you are.

When a moment of intimacy is not as much about you but about pleasing the one you love, you have decided how you will be.

The clock means nothing late at night when it’s time to pour out your heart as it comes alive at last.

The Bible app becomes a good reason to keep one’s head buried in that 3 x 4 inch techno time-sapper again.

A can of chicken is your main entrée when the guests dine on carbs and foods that would make your head explode.

All you can do is all you can do then you clean up the kitchen and make your husband’s lunch anyways.

You know that nothing is possible in your own strength and that the Lord is carrying you, sustaining you once again.

Tis then you know the moments that define bring glory to the One who holds your dreams in His heart until you are united again.

woman in despair

Lost in Space

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Lost in SpaceToday was a better day.  I almost don’t know what to do with myself!  I slept a total of 13 hours:  slowly moving through the motions of self care then made my way to the kitchen.  Five hours later I emerged having made dinner, homemade granola, no-bake cookies, bone broth, and roasted parsnips.  What the heck happened?

Who knows?  Maybe I don’t need to know.  I still had some rough moments this morning with feelings of sickness on and off.  But this is the first evening in many weeks when I have not had a major seizure attack episode for 1-3 hours before midnight.  Thank you Lord!

Tomorrow will be filled with appointments outside our home and we’ll see how that goes.  I kinda think that reducing my stress level was the right thing to do today, letting my energy level dictate what I would do rather than my calendar.  So as I go to bed I am massively humbled and a little lost.  Gee.  A better day happened to me!

Tee hee!  Goodnight all.  JJ