Posts Tagged ‘faith’
No incomplete sentence, Pt. 1
Posted on: May 2, 2016
Anyone who sees me much knows I love wearing bling, especially earrings. I have dozens, of all colors and shapes, made of both common and exotic materials, for every season, and for every style of dress from casual to glitzy. I hate it when I lose an earring. Since my piercings are in matched sets, a single earring does me no good. The worth of any single earring is tied to having the other.
Sadly, too many folks think of people that way– that our worth lies only in our relationship to having some other person in our life, that without that “other” we are, in fact, incomplete.
Society certainly tends to see it that way. Whether having a bevy of beaus or a harem, serial monogamy, a long-term relationship, or marriage, the pressure to be with somebody is enormous. Sadly, the church, in its desire to hold up the value of marriage, is often little better. Remarks addressed in sermons to the adults in the congregation often assume, or at least infer, that “we’re all married – or will be.” Most churches don’t know what to DO with their singles once those singles get much beyond college age. Many churches’ singles’ groups function like a dating service. If an adult is possessed of at least reasonable intelligence, moderate abilities, pleasant personality, and is considered to have relatively pleasing looks, yet stays single, s/he will often face the question, “How come a wonderful chick/guy like you isn’t married?” – as if the only reason God would even MAKE such a person is for s/he to be married! Singles who don’t meet those criteria? Well, if they don’t marry, they are simply objects of pity, stuck forever in a “less than” life.
But it’s a lie. A bald-faced, straight-up, direct-from-the-Father-of-Lies-himself lie.
Way back in the very beginning, not long after God created Adam, observing Adam’s lack of true companionship, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone”, and the result was the creation of Eve. For many people, that passage is interpreted as a statement about the pre-eminence of the marriage relationship as critical for the full human experience. But pay attention to what God did NOT say. He did not say, “Oops! I left part of Adam out. I better make the rest of him.” God didn’t create Adam with a piece missing. Adam was alone, but he was not incomplete. Eve was to be Adam’s helper, his Ebenezer, his companion, but she was NOT his “finishing touch.” Adam was a whole person just as God made him. Eve was “bone of [Adam’s] bone and flesh of [Adam’s] flesh”, but although the process of her creation differed from Adam’s in that she wasn’t made “from scratch”, so to speak, she, nevertheless, was created a whole person in her own right. Both male and female were required for reflecting the full image of God. Companionship is required to experience the fellowship that exists in the Godhead – but just because the first man and woman married doesn’t mean that companionship can ONLY mean marriage.
Although the patriarchs of the Old Testament were (obviously!) married, we do not know the marital status of all of the O.T. judges and prophets; of those for whom there is no mention of a wife or children, it is reasonable to assume that at least some were unmarried. We know Jeremiah remained single because he was, in fact, expressly forbidden by God to marry. (Jeremiah 16:1 vv) John the Baptist did not marry. Jesus Himself, of course, did not marry. Only the marital status of a few of the apostles or men and women active in the ministry of the early church is referenced; it is more than likely that some of them were unattached. The greatest evangelist and writer of the major portion of the canonical New Testament, the apostle Paul, was single – and adamantly so! How ludicrous to think of any of these as somehow living only half-lives because of they were not “conjugally matrimonified”, as it is put in Pirates of Penzance.
It is interesting that Paul, though single, is one of the most eloquent writers about the marriage relationship. His instructions on marriage given in Ephesians were a radical departure from the cultural attitude of the time. His assertion that marriage is to be a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church elevated marriage to a high new spiritual plane. Yet even so, Paul made very clear that there is not a higher value in being married than in being single. Indeed, throughout I Corinthians 7, Paul’s preference is decidedly slanted toward singleness. (Note that this prejudice is predicated on a belief in the imminent return of Christ, however.) His strongest point in favor of being single is that it enables one to be focused solely on serving the Lord. If you’re married, decisions are a two-party process; if you’re single, you have only the Lord to consult. If you’re married, there are schedules to coordinate; if you’re single, there’s only ONE calendar. Singles have a freedom of time, emotional energy, and resources that married couples do not – time, emotional energy, and resources which they may devote to the Lord and His work.
I am thankful to have in my own family several wonderful examples of singles living full lives, both women and men, never married, divorced, or parted from their marital partner by death, who I have never seen repine over their status as singles and who have embraced the freedom of singleness to engage in ministry, formal and informal, that would have been difficult or impossible were they married. Any reading of missionary stories will likewise yield a plethora of examples. For some of these, singleness has been a deliberate choice, made early in life. For others, although they would not have objected to marriage, the opportunity just never came up. For others, it was a struggle, as they would very much like to have married. As did Paul, all of these singles grasped the understanding that both singleness and marriage are simply roles we may be called to play, and their contentment in singleness involved a willingness to accept whichever role God would call them to play: if to marry, then to marry, but if to be single, then to BE single – not consider themselves as simply in a holding pattern until “real life” – marriage – began.
Whatever roles God calls us to, His purpose for us is always the same: to conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29.) He has promised that He has, does, and will continue to give us everything we need for this to be so. Ephesians 1:3-14 is just one passage expounding on those promises. We have been blessed with every blessing in the heavenly places, chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined for adoption, blessed with His glorious grace in the Beloved, redeemed through His blood, forgiven our trespasses, lavished with wisdom and insight that make known to us the mystery of His will. We have obtained an inheritance and been sealed with the Holy Spirit. Note not that a word of that carries a caveat, “ … – if you’re married, that is.” Roles are not our identity. Roles do not – indeed, cannot – complete us. Our completion is in Christ.
Not married? Then be “single-minded” and determine to fully exercise the completion experienced in Christ to bless the world in a way that only those with the freedom of the single can.
No one in Christ, married or single, is ever sentenced to an incomplete life.
Stop holding on
Posted on: April 22, 2016
One of my favorite descriptions of what Jesus is like is found in Isaiah 42:3: “… a bruised reed He will not break, and a faintly burning wick He will not snuff out …”
Applicable to many Christians at times in their walks, even more do these express vividly the comforting reality of the life of we Christians with mental illness.
So often in acknowledging, and even daring to express, a sense of hopelessness, we feel that we are betraying our faith. Not infrequently, this sense is compounded by the well-intentioned words of exhortation that to our desperate ears sound only as a further accusation of guilt.
It is not by our choice that our wick is burning but faintly – sometimes so faintly that even we ourselves cannot see its glow. Though all the world misunderstand, Jesus doesn’t.
In the midst of the darkness, even when our mind cannot even remember what light looks like, engulfed as we are in a whirling void of darkness, what matters is not that our wick glows but faintly – what matters is that it glows at all, and that Jesus sees it, and cherishes it.
Countless times in my dark hours, I have been exhorted to “Hang in there” or to “Hold on”. Little do those offering those sentiments realize what a burden it actually places on those of us who are so soul-weary that we are beyond even that simple action. A song released by Casting Crowns offers a beautiful line of encouragement, “ … stop holding on and just be held.” Even when we cannot hold on to Him, He holds on to us.
There comes a point when it’s ok to let go and to simply let ourselves fall into the Father’s hands. Our emotions may continue to rage, but somewhere inside, faith knows that our salvation, our security, and our peace come not from our own ability to keep our flame high, but from His tender care of our faintly burning wick.
The last couple of years have seen my wick waver a lot. In the last 6 months or so, it has sometimes sunk low. In the last month, it has not even been visible, as I have been overwhelmed by a swirl of intense events with long-lasting consequences, struggling with a sense of utter despair, seeing the tunnel grow ever longer and darker, and with the feeling that any light at the end is only a train coming the other way.
And yet my wick still glows somehow. Circumstances have not improved much, and I still look with dread on the days to come, and yet, in the midst of these howling winds, He has cupped His hand around my soul, and coaxed that smoldering ember into a tiny, dancing flame.
If you, too, are fighting the darkness, it’s alright to cease. What does it matter if the darkness thinks it has won? You haven’t fallen into darkness, you’re resting in the hands of your Father – whether you feel Him or not. Stop tiring yourself out trying to hold on.
Just let yourself be held. Maybe He’ll calm the storm around you. Maybe He won’t. Maybe He’ll give your emotions a glimpse of hope. Maybe He won’t. Our spirits are not captive to our circumstances, our emotions, or our minds. Though all externals that we see and understand be in chaos, yet our innermost selves, though they be hidden from our eyes, are at peace.
We are held by the One Who never gets weary of holding us.
Stop holding on.
Just be held.
The Monster Resurges
Posted on: March 18, 2016
There’s a commercial for some depression medicine that shows the victim being followed around and overshadowed by a large black cloud. I don’t care for most drug commercials (most commercials, period, I guess), but this one I actually like because in the “after” portrayal, where the drug is working great and the person is out living life again, the cloud is still there. It’s smaller in size, and follows along meekly and unobtrusively, but it’s there.
That’s the plain truth about mental illness. You may be able to treat it and make it manageable, but it will never go away. It will always be lurking, waiting in the wings for a cue to make another grand entrance and steal the show.
I’ve put off writing this for some time now. I probably should have written some of it last Fall. I kept hoping things would right themselves, but they haven’t, so I think it will be better write and get it over with.
Simply put, the bipolar Monster has resurged.
It could be that my head med is simply losing effectiveness; the body metabolizes all psychotropics differently over time, causing them to become less effective. However, my new med manager believes that it isn’t really the med’s fault, but that chronic stress of the last two years has sent my cortisol levels sky-high so that it is now stuck in a cycle it can’t get out of – and that the high levels of cortisol are overwhelming my head med’s ability to work as it should.
There are a multitude of factors involved in the stress. Residual effects from the year of dealing with my mom during her death from cancer. Relational difficulties in my marriage. Caregiving issues involving my cousin, and dealing with her son. My already touchy musculoskeletal issues because of my screwy spine were badly affected by a fall in September of 2013, but exercise and physical therapy for it pretty much went out the window during the year of caring for Mama; last year the injuries were compounded by other mishaps; and now the whole thing has been topped off by degenerating cervical and lumbar discs, which may (probably) mean I will never again be able to achieve the kind of physical fitness I was able to enjoy for one brief year prior to my 2013 injury. Since exercise plays a key part in helping with a number of my other health issues, losing the ability to do so as much affects them all. In addition, I have been having severe sleep issues for months now, leaving me physically exhausted.
In general, all this has meant increasing problems keeping things together. Some weeks, I am an emotional basket case, depressed and overwhelmed and scared. When it’s like that, it takes enormous amounts of energy to carry on reasonably normally with other people, leaving me emotionally exhausted. Then the switch flips, and I’m more even emotionally, and it’s not quite such an effort. But between the physical and emotional stresses, I find myself struggling with finding the motivation to do that which I know I need to or should. Often, it just takes too much energy to care.
As the Monster grows, my brain once again is like a dozen racetracks with a dozen greyhounds on each, and all chasing a dozen rabbits running loose. It is difficult to follow any one train of thought for long. I have been trying and trying to write blog posts – I have a dozen started – but I get partway through and realize that I can’t figure out where I am going with it. I have spent hour after hour re-writing and re-writing, but so far, I have gained little ground. The frustration is enormous.
Not only is my brain racing, it has no “off” switch. Ever have a night where you just can’t get to sleep because your brain is absorbed with some problem? My brain can’t shut up. Ever. My meds to help me sleep are having little effect. No matter how tired my body is, my brain is always in high gear, running this way and that. What sleep I do get is broken multiple times a night – beginning again the battle to get my brain to shut up so I can return to some semblance of sleep. When I DO sleep, I mostly dream. I have always had vivid dreams, in color, and often I remember the gist of, or much of, the contents upon waking up. Now, even when asleep, I am often dreaming that I am awake. Not uncommonly, some of my dreams are disturbing, even somewhat traumatic. When I get up in the morning, I seldom have any sense of having really slept at all – certainly not any refreshing sleep, at any rate. Chronic sleep deprivation does a real number on ya.
So, rather than playing around any further with my BP meds, the plan is to focus on other issues through other practitioners. I will see a naturopath to do some detective work and figure out what might be helpful, for the cortisol issue in highest priority, but with any other area he finds out-of-whack as well. (My case being rather extraordinarily complicated medically, it will be no simple knot to untangle!) I will be getting traction at my chiropractor’s office, as well as massage. I will be starting with a new counselor on the 23rd – the wife of the counselor Rob started seeing in January; the eventual goal is joint counseling. Hopefully it won’t take too many months to start getting things turned around – and then we can tell if I need to do anything with my head meds or not.
And in case you’re thinking none of this sounds very spiritual, be assured that no, I have not left God out of the equation, and yes, I HAVE had people pray over me and I know there are many praying on-going. But mental illness is not a spiritual problem, and unless God makes a miraculous intervention – which is possible, but not historically terribly frequent – spiritual activities such as prayer and throwing Bible verses at it don’t solve it or even make it feel better. My faith is a fact, but when the Monster has the upper hand, my faith has no meaning to my feelings. The spirit is willing, but the brain is broken. That’s the best I can explain it.
All of this is not to ask for sympathy, comments, “I’m so sorry”, “I’m praying for you” or even any particular expressed reaction at all. I don’t mean to sound ungracious, but I take all those as read from those who know me, and I DO appreciate it – but it takes energy to respond, and right now I don’t always have any to spare. (If you are a local, you don’t need to treat me like I’m fragile.) I just want to explain what’s going on and give you another glimpse into the Wonderful World of Bipolar. So if I’m less than gracious, or I’m grouchy or a bit short-tempered, or get too worked up over little things, or don’t seem to be enthusiastic about something you want me to be enthused about, or seem tired or down and gloomy, please just let it be and don’t take it personally! And if I don’t write for months, or if what I write kind of wanders around, bear with me.
It is well with my soul, but as for the rest of me, for now, the Monster has the upper hand again.
On another note
Posted on: January 31, 2016
- In: Christian relationships | Christianity | church life | faith | freedom | worship
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Long, long ago at a college far, far away I got a degree in early childhood education. The idea of learning modalities was still fairly new – the concept of there being different ways that we learn. Most of us by now are quite familiar with the basic ones: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. For centuries, teaching meant assigning rote memorization. Kids who could memorize well were smart; kids who couldn’t were dunces. That was simply how teaching – and learning – was done. The concept that people learn in different ways, and that each of those ways is perfectly valid, brought about a sea-change in the teaching profession; yes, the concept meant that ALL kids now had a greater chance of getting to learn, but it also meant that teachers had to learn how to TEACH differently, too. It takes a lot more effort to teach every lesson in multiple ways – especially in ways that the teacher herself may not relate to.
Something similar to this concept, applied to relationships, was introduced some years ago in a book by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages. The idea is that each person both perceives and expresses love in one of five “languages”. One is giving gifts, one is doing acts of service, one is speaking words of praise, one is spending time, and … I forget the other. (Must not be my language!) It is not the intention of expressing love that is most critical, but whether or not the object of that love actually perceives it as such. If your language is spending time, but someone instead gives you lots of gifts, you will not feel loved. Since we all tend to express love in the way we would most like to receive it, it takes effort to learn to recognize and appreciate love being expressed in ways other than our own language. The highest expression of love is to learn to speak another’s language, foreign to us as it may be.
All of which leads me to: worship music, of course.
A few months ago, our Sunday morning service was enlivened by the participation of the Spanish-speaking church that uses our building on Sunday afternoons. We combined our worship teams, singing songs in both English and Spanish. Those of us who understand both languages had a great time singing along with heart and soul. Those in the congregation who speak only one or the other language could enjoy any of the music, but they could join their voices and their “amen” only when the words were ones they could understand. God was just as glorified by any of it – but it was not the same worship experience for all. Single-language speakers were able to be fully engaged ONLY when the singing was in their own language. They spent the service alternating between being participants and being just an audience.
There’s a difference. Perhaps sometimes when people say they don’t get anything “out of” a particular style of service, what they really mean is that they don’t feel like they are able to put anything IN to it because it’s not in their “language”, as it were. They may go about expressing that disconnect in a manner that is not helpful, but simply dismissing them isn’t the answer. We accept individuality in virtually every other area of life. Why not in worship, as well? Why are we so afraid of, or dismissive of, or angry about, the fact that not everyone finds every worship song or worship style to be something that they can be fully engaged in???
Worship is about God, it’s true – but worship is not some disembodied, amorphic activity that somehow takes place without involving the participation of the worshipper. A bow may be used to play a snare drum, but the sound will hardly compare with the rich tones that same bow will obtain when used to play a violin. Drumsticks may tap on a saxophone, but you’ll get better music by blowing into the mouthpiece. We worship most fully when we worship as God, in His infinite creativity, designed us, with all the individuality that may entail.
What if we approached corporate worship like a classroom teacher whose focus is on helping the greatest number of students understand the lesson – turning our focus to trying to enable the greatest portion possible of our congregations to have some opportunity to be fully engaged in worship? No congregation can be all things to all its members, but surely many of our congregations can do better.
It’s hard, because it means giving consideration to ALL of the “each others” in our congregations. It requires humility by all involved, because love does not demand its own way. Those in the majority need to be willing to go out of their comfort zone in order to give others some opportunity to speak their own worship language. For those in the minority, while it is perfectly appropriate to ask for an opportunity for their worship needs to be met, no matter what the answer is, they should be prepared to do whatever they can to support the majority in their worship. We thus can express our love for God – can glorify Him – can worship Him – in honoring each other’s worship language.
Paul told the believers in Rome, in chapter 14, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.”
It’s all about our heart for each other. We can’t worship God in Spirit and in Truth while we’re cold-shouldering each other over whose music or style is the most God-centric or most Spirit-ual or most Truth-full.
We may worship the Lord with old traditional hymns accompanied by a single piano, or with a modern worship song consisting of two verses, a chorus, and a bridge, all repeated a dozen times, accompanied by a full rock band at volumes that could be heard over a jet engine. We may sing only Psalms, and acapella at that. We may use hymnbooks or three-story-high big screen projections. We may lift our hands and dance and clap, or we may sit sedately. There is no one “right” way to worship, but tearing each other down, and disrespecting each other’s worship language is most certainly wrong.
To God be the glory – no matter what worship we use!
I Hate to Tell You This
Posted on: September 27, 2015
No, really. I DO hate to tell you this. Don’t worry – it’s not for your own good; it’s for mine. Well, maybe it will do you good, too – I never know what effects my scribblings may have.
Have you ever done the science experiment tasting a bit of paper that’s been treated with phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), a chemical that only some people can taste? For those who can’t taste it, the paper just tastes like paper did when we ate those magazines as toddlers. For those of us who can taste the chemical, though, the paper’s taste is bitter and entirely unpleasant, screwing up our face and making us want to spit the paper out and go rinse with something to take the taste away.
At the writers’ conference in April, one of the speakers, Tony Kriz, gave us a list of 10 questions he asks himself before publishing any piece of writing. (Tony is a challenger of the too-content, too-settled, and too-tradition-bound; find him at www.TonyKriz.com , or check out his books Aloof: Figuring Out Life With a God Who Hides, Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters in a Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places, Welcome to the Table: Post-Christian Culture Saves a Seat for Ancient Liturgy.) Two of the questions prompted a soul reaction just as that PTC-treated paper caused a sensory reaction: I wanted to spit them out and go gargle with something more pleasant!
Over the next few weeks, I did, in fact, try to find something to distract me from them, or find mental justifications why they didn’t apply to me – or maybe only just a little bit. The attempt was an unmitigated failure. Those questions had burrowed into my soul to stay, so it was obvious that they weren’t being posed by Tony, although his was the mouth through which they were delivered. Questions that spark this kind of reaction can only come from the LORD. I resigned myself that they were either going to just sit there and gnaw at me, or I was going to have to look them in the face. O.U.C.H.
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to confess in generalities? We’re all comfortable confessing “I’m not perfect”, or admitting that “I make mistakes”, because no one on earth can deny the truth of those statements in their own instance. There may even be particular sins or short-comings we don’t mind confessing. For example, I don’t mind copping to being too impatient or owning up that I really shouldn’t have eaten that third piece of pie, because I’m in such good company on those offenses. Getting down to the personal, however, is another story altogether!
The two questions that are eating away at me are “Am I making myself the hero of my own story?” and “Have I thrown anyone under the bus?”
The answer to both is … um … not a negative? – and not just in my writing, either. I’d rather leave the admission of guilt at that – amorphously vague – but since some of the offenses have been splattered all over the pages of the Solution, it’s only fitting that some of the mea culpas also be shared in this venue.
Humble pie is on the menu – but at least the extra servings won’t make the scale creep up….
Being just like our Father
Posted on: June 21, 2015
- In: Christianity | church life | family | intentional living
- 1 Comment
One of the interesting things coming out of dealing with my mom’s death is the revelation of just how different experiences with/perceptions of our parents were/are among my siblings and me. With a ten year age span between the five of us, several different living locations during our growing up, and, of course, our very different personalities and needs, it isn’t any wonder that such differences exist – indeed, it would be unbelievable if they did not – but knowing that these differences must exist and coming face to face with them in reality …. Somehow they still can be surprising. Even though our dad died 24 years ago, I’m still learning new things.
One of the things that came up in these last months has to do with fixing things. We always said my dad could fix anything. My dad disagreed; some things, he insisted, were not worth fixing! Honestly, though, he was one of those amazing guys who can seemingly do anything in the handyman line. I saw him take apart and put together countless kinds of appliances and toys; more often than not, that alone would restore them to working order without him even having to figure out what had been wrong in the first place. He did all our home maintenance and repair. At one house he enclosed the carport to create extra rooms; at another he finished the basement AND added on a huge garage and a workshop for himself. Once he retired, he parlayed his skills into a handyman business, under which flag he expanded into even more projects. I’m not sure if there was anything he was totally unwilling to tackle, though if electronics got too complicated, he’d bow out.
Because of my Daddy, I am pretty fearless when it comes to taking things apart. As he always said, “If it’s already broke, I can’t make it not work any worse.” If I already can’t use something, I’ve got nothing to lose by trying to fix it myself – especially if it’s something that it won’t be worth paying someone else to try to fix, if that’s even possible! I know if something was put together, it can most likely come apart; you just have to try to figure out which was the last screw, or the last tab. I can hear my dad’s voice as I work, “OK, lay everything out in the order you remove them, then just work backward from there to put it back together.” I can look at gears and latches and movements and more often than not figure out how the thing is supposed to work. I can read a user manual and identify parts. (Yes, my dad actually read directions!) My mom and at least one or two others of my sibling have said the same thing about hearing my dad’s voice as they go along on a project. A few months ago, one of my other brothers made the point that he does NOT. In fact, he doesn’t understand why we DO.
As I thought about it, I was struck by the realization that I didn’t get any of what I just talked about because Daddy TAUGHT it to me. Although he probably thought he did, the fact was, Daddy didn’t TEACH. He might show us – “OK, do this-this-this-this-then-this and there you’re all done” (like my one and only lesson in changing a tire) – but he didn’t take us through step by step and have us do it. Because he had come by his skill naturally and had had plenty of opportunity to gain experience on his dad’s ranch growing up, I don’t think he ever quite understood how unusual he was; I think he expected that of course we kids – especially the boys – would know how to be handy with tools simply because HE was. (When I married a man whose own dad had been, um, the antithesis of my own in that regard, my dad made allowances and did make a point of working WITH my dh to teach him skills, a blessing from which our family continues to benefit.)
I didn’t learn from Daddy how to fix things, but somehow I managed to absorb an attitude from him that I COULD. Yet my brother was left with neither. There are other attitudes I absorbed that have had a far less positive influence, but that escaped my siblings’ notice altogether. Of both my father and my mother, we find ourselves asking one another, “Where did you get THAT??” or saying, “Boy, I sure didn’t see it that way.”
Is it any wonder, then, given how amazingly individualistic we kids are in how we react to our earthly parents growing up, that we are so individualistic in how we perceive God? We believers read the same Word, yet how differently we may interpret it! We worship the same Lord, yet relate differently to His holy character. We come to God from such different experiences and different paradigms, such different expectations, fears, hopes, and longings that we should not wonder that we sometimes ask each other, “Where do you see THAT in Him? I’ve never felt like that.”
Unity in the Spirit doesn’t make us like each other; it makes us like the same God. However, because our God is so diverse and beyond our comprehension – the Great Both/And, the Great Contradiction, Who Makes Exist What Does Not – being all like Him we end up as different from each other as can be. No other believer will ever be able to relate to God as I do. There is a facet of God’s image that only you can connect with.
I see my mom and dad more clearly now that I am learning to see them through my siblings’ eyes. In some ways, I continue to hold to my own perception, but I have learned to fully acknowledge the validity of theirs, no matter how different from mine. It would be so sad if any of us tried to deny family identity over those differences. In the same way, we should value those in God’s Family whose perceptions differ from our own and be willing to consider theirs. We don’t necessarily have to adopt those perceptions, but we should acknowledge their validity. Worst of all would be for us to attempt to disown others from the Family simply because they experience the Father differently, have learned some different lessons, see His world through different eyes.
Whom God has called His child is my brother, my sister. We all bear the same family name. May we all be our Father’s children in word and deed.
Oh, I’m you. How are fine?
Posted on: June 8, 2014
Since sometime last Fall, my life has been crazy. If I didn’t have my phone calendar to keep track of what appointments are when, I’d be totally lost. I mean, I do try to make sure I transfer all appointments to the big wall calendar at home, but the wall calendar doesn’t have an alarm that goes off a half hour before the event to remind me, “Ahem. You ARE remembering that you have an appointment at A:BC o’clock, right?” For most of February, and all of March, April, and May I had at least one appointment or scheduled necessary activity, if not two, and sometimes three, either for me, or my mom, or my cousin, almost every single day of every single week. June was looking a lot better, but that got turned on its head as well. Let me elucidate….
My daughter: I didn’t mention in the previous blog that Bethy ended up on a week of modified bedrest that first week of February because of premature labor. I was so booked up that I was only able to come over to help for one morning, I think. (She had plenty of other help, for which we were both thankful! She has many othermothers, and a flock of friends.) Early in the morning of February 13, my newest granddaughter, Rosalie Julia, made her grand entrance. For the next month, I helped when I could, but with all the medical crises of my two caregivees, it wasn’t as much as I’d have wished. Rosie’s sisters adore her. Stay tuned for once she starts crawling; that tune may change! Rosie is a smiley, smiley baby, and a total people-person, very interactive and talkative. I can hardly believe she’s almost four months already.
My mom: Since the February 8 post, it was determined that the brain tumor hadn’t grown at all and was, in fact, slightly smaller, if anything. The severe nausea abated, though she continues to have problems with milder, occasional nausea even now. She had bad problems with gas for a couple more months, the only relief for which proved to be ginger ale. She was prescribed lidocaine patches for her back pain. These help a lot, but are impossible for her to put on by herself, so she had to have the services of a health care aid friend. We ended up changing doctors, and bless the day we did. The new doc discovered that she has two collapsed vertebrae since all this started. She did finally resume the cancer drug at its lowest dose at the end of March, and has been able to tolerate the mild side effects. By early May, she had regained a lot of energy, and was back to doing 10 or 15 minute walks around her community, doing housework and gardening in short stretches, dressing in her normal skirts and blouses instead of easy-to-put-on sweats. Then two weeks ago, she suddenly lost all energy and was huffing and puffing as badly as she had when she first was diagnosed, so weak she could barely walk, and was somewhat incoherent in her thinking. Blood work revealed an elevated white blood cell count and a CT, pneumonia. (Bright side, it showed the lung tumor has shrunk some.) So that night they started her on a quinine-related antibiotic, levoquin. Emotionally, these last months have been extremely difficult (no duh, huh?). It’s hard being jacked this way and that, it’s good, it’s bad, maybe you’ll live for years, maybe you’ll be dead within months. Even with a strong faith, KNOWING the suffering that all but certainly lies ahead is not a pleasant prospect – and is hard not to think about. So she had asked for medication to help deal with the anxiety/depression. As it happened, they started her on Zoloft the day after starting the levoquin. That night about 10, she called me to tell me that she’d been hearing and seeing things that weren’t there since sometime mid-day! Into the ER. They immediately replaced the levoquin with a cephalosporin drug IV, and took her off Zoloft. Her white blood cell count was even higher than the previous day’s had been. A head CT the next day didn’t show any obvious reason for the hallucinations, so they were put down to a reaction to one/both/combination of the drugs. She stopped seeing things by the end of that day, and hearing things by the next morning, and since her white blood cell count had come down significantly, too, she was allowed to go home. She is very slowly recovering from the pneumonia; it may take a month. However, the head CT showed that the low dose of the cancer drug is not being effective on the brain tumor; it has grown substantially. The CT also revealed a number of a type of small strokes called lacunar infarctions. (No, I’m not making that name up; my mom has brain farcts.) She is now on a 325 mg./day aspirin regimen to prevent more of them. There is nothing predictable about her situation, and that’s all there is to it.
My cousin: Longer time readers will recall that I am also caregiver for my husband’s cousin here in town, Marie. She is a brittle diabetic who has never taken care of herself as she should, and is now suffering all the consequences of it. Every system in her body is affected. She’s almost blind as a bat. She has virtually no feeling in her right foot, and only partial in her left. She has many vascular problems as the arterial system is both deteriorating due to the diabetes, and getting clogged from plaque due to poor diet and a near total lack of exercise because of severe arthritis in her hips, back, and neck. She has had some silent heart attacks. The vascular shutdown has led to her developing vascular dementia, the primary reason I had to take over her financial, legal and medical affairs. How she has pushed herself to do what she does to keep on going and to do things for herself, in spite of her extreme pain and near-constant exhaustion amazes me; I don’t think I could do it. She truly is a role model for me. Her son got out of a 20 year stretch in prison last year. She has spent the last 20 years living for this time, dreaming of what it was going to be like, but things have gone very badly. Her son has inherited not one of her traits of independence, of making do rather than asking for hand-outs, of being grateful for what you have, of integrity. She has seen all her dreams of the future blown to smithereens as she has realized that the son she has sacrificed for all these years is NOT the son she actually has.. Her health – physical, mental, and emotional – has deteriorated in the last 6 months in a nosedive, bringing extra visits to cardiologists, vascular surgeons, psychiatrists, physical therapists, CTs, MRIs, urgent care, as well as more frequent check-ups with her regular provider. She has had an incredibly hard life ALL her life – you’d never be willing to see a movie of it because it would be too intensely depressing! – and to now realize that the end of it is going to be just more of the same **** she’s dealt with for the entire memory of her existence…… it’s no wonder she is now dealing with severe anxiety and depression, in spite of her heart and soul love for Jesus. She is deeply appreciative of the love and care I and my family have shown her, but having never been loved before in all her life, she does not know how to receive it. Although WE consider her as part of our family, she always thinks of herself as an outsider.
Me: Trying to cross some rocks across a river last September, I took a fall. Didn’t go all the way down – caught myself on my hands going forward, but really did a twist. For most folks, it might have resulted in a few hours or a day or two of feeling a bit sore, but because of skeletal abnormalities I have, it really did a number on me. As usual, when I’ve had to stop because of an injury, when I did try to start again, it set off headaches, so I backed off and waited, then tried again, more headaches, waited , tried… and the wait between got longer and longer, and I couldn’t get past the headaches. Then the roller coaster ride of my mom’s and Marie’s situations started, and even attempting to exercise went out the window. My eating habits devolved to whatever was easiest to grab, because eating healthy takes time, energy and thought, none of which I had to spare. I had a lot of trouble sleeping, in spite of my meds. I felt like I was just a leaf in a river, going down rapids at that, with no control. But in March I finally started seeing a physical therapist, and though it’s very slow going because I’m not as faithful at doing my exercises as I should be, it IS improving. Last week I even did my treadmill three days. I’ve been doing a lot better at prepping veggies so they’re ready in my frig, so I’m eating better. I’ve even cooked actual meals a few times a week for the last month. My doctor figured out that the dose of thyroid I take had gotten too high for my body’s needs, and since we lowered it by a third, I am sleeping ever so much better.
The stress has certainly pushed my bipolar buttons and I have sometimes found myself close to the edge emotionally at home. But I always remember this: Once the appointments are done, I get to go home to my nice, normal life. Mama and Marie don’t. I’m not having to live with cancer like Mama. No matter what I may need to do for her, it will never be as hard as what she is going through, and what she has yet to go through, barring the unexpected gift of a sudden death from something else. Unlike Marie, I don’t have diabetes and arthritis and dementia and and and, so that all I have to look forward to is getting worse and worse and worse. None of my kids are breaking my heart. I don’t worry about any of them becoming homeless. I’m not lonely and isolated, unable to drive, with no hobbies and nothing to do but watch TV and hold my chinchillas. The same loving Father is with us all, and gives grace to us all, but I have to readily admit that I have the easier portion right now!
When people ask me what I’m up to these days, I often roll my eyes (and sometimes laugh) and tell them, “I don’t HAVE a life right now – I have other people’s lives.” To a great extent, it’s true – my life is taking care of THEIR lives. But in reality, my life isn’t my life anyway. The verse that keeps going through my head in the last months is from Psalm 31 “My times are in Your hands.”
Years ago, when my migraines and fibro were at their worst, and I felt terribly guilty about the weight my kids, especially Bethy, had to carry to make the household run, God made the point to me that what was happening in MY life was His will for THEIRS as well. (In the years since, He has shown me one impact my illnesses had on my kids: they all have a deeper level than usual of compassion and understanding for the hurting and the sick and the weak.) God’s purposes for events in our lives are never limited to just “us”; He has much broader things in mind. Much as my mom and Marie sometimes (ok, with Marie it’s ALL the time) feel guilty for the fact that they need my help, or for how much of my time their needs take, it’s not their choice – it’s God’s purpose for this time in their life, and His purpose for ME for this time in their life, too.
These times are sometimes stressful, sometimes exhausting, yes, but when I keep the perspective that my times are in HIS dayplanner, I know that I’ll get through – and be glad that I kept the appointment!
the susie solution 