I’m
supposed to be dead (or at least drooling).
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| In recovery 6/2003 |
Nearly
ten years ago, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor that should have left me a
drooling, limping parody of myself, assuming I lived. Instead, God healed me
and when they opened me up they found only a desiccated and calcified mass
where there had been a viable, entrenched tumor only the day before. That isn’t
the story I want to tell today but it is important that you know I experienced
a very real physical healing.
I have been healed. I understand the power of a good and gracious God and of accepting whatever
it is that God allows to come your way. I understand how to give thanks in bad circumstances. Then, as so many of us do, I forgot.
Sometimes,
that’s what happens after the miracle.
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| I had a lot to live for. |
The
fourteen hour surgery in which they used a chisel to pick away at
the now-dead tumor had some pretty severe consequences. I left the hospital
with a new diagnosis: epilepsy. I had terrible seizures. They left me
breathless, panting and paralyzed on the entire right side of my body for hours
and hours at a time. I would only start to regain some tiny fraction of
movement in my fingers and toes before the next seizure would hit. I was
devastated. This new fear was more than I could handle – not knowing when or
where the next one would strike was horrible. It was days before they found the
right cocktail of drugs to control these attacks and, when they did, the
medicines were awful in their own right and caused me to gain weight, lose my
hair, and – eventually- fall into a deep depression.
Enough background. More story.
Trauma
opens doors to things that Jesus came to free us from and Christians fall prey
to things like depression and fear, too. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. While
everyone who knew my story up to that point was still singing praises to God
for the miracle, my life was absolutely ruled by fear. I never knew when the
next seizure would strike and I lived for two years as a shut in- afraid to
drive, afraid to boil water unless another adult was home for fear my toddler
would try and ‘help’ if I had a seizure and burn himself or his brother. My
nightmares were endless. Instead of being thankful for the miracle, I began to
resent God for the seizures. I was okay with dying, but that wasn’t good enough
for God! And, instead of becoming a drooling, limping parody of myself, I
became an embittered and hateful perversion of myself.
Then
God.
Then
God (and now you know the story gets
good because now it is His) had mercy on me: this bitter, tangled and scribbled-on
creation of His. He found me standing over a pile of dirty underwear, with a
fist full of dryer lint and whispered, “This is not who I intended you to
be.” He told me to get over my fear and
remember what I was called to: the hope, the courage, the joy, the sheer glory that
was Him. When I worried my husband would leave me (because isn’t that the curse
of women and the great lie of the enemy?) God told me that He would take care
of my children and I because we belonged to Him and He didn’t need a husband to
do it. Then, I can’t describe it in any other way, except that He breathed
courage into me.
I
began to obey. I started training my children as if every day were my last, I
started praying again, I started studying the Word, remembering. I started living thankfully again. Do you
know what happened after I began to obey and give thanks? God healed me of the
epilepsy, too. But that isn’t the biggest miracle. Let me show you
something- When I was preparing this entry, I found an old journal and this
excerpt from August of 2003, struck me as somewhat prophetic:
“Everybody looks into the mirror but nobody notices the mirror itself. They are naturally drawn to the image reflected in the surface. So through this [difficult season], my 'look-at-me' personality must be sure to say instead 'look-at-God'. All it takes is a little tilt. God is, perhaps, trying to shift my axis."
I
firmly believe that the biggest miracle I have seen in my life is this
heart-change, this shift of my axis, this turn to thankfulness and obedience,
this God-life that now thrives where my broken life used to flail its tiny,
closed fists against the world. This God-Life is a restored and healthy
marriage, it is children who love and are loved, it is a broken dream re-made,
it is a renewed call to ministry, it is a second chance to reflect what is
important instead of what is broken. It is the ability to find what God is
doing in the middle of this messy world and get on board.
So, if
we are mirrors- and we are!- what do we reflect? Do we reflect the troubles,
strife, and ugly ingratitude of this world? Or do we reflect God and all that
comes with Him? Justice and mercy, unbridled joy and soul-rending sorrow,
humble obedience and fearless pursuit of the Father’s Will? Is it possible to
change our axis? I believe so because I’ve lived it. It took years, but I was
finally able digest the enormity of what happened to me and the lessons learned
from that season are so far-reaching that they still show up in my own desert
places, fresh manna for today. And I am so very thankful for it.
Why is
this so important to me? First and foremost, this idea of giving thanks was
important to Jesus.
Eucharisteo
– It is found throughout the New Testament 39 times. To offer a little
perspective, the word euangelion which is most often translated with phrases
like, “Good News” and “gospel” only appears 76 times in the New Testament and that's the theme of the New Testament!. Jesus gave thanks often and publicly, as well
as often and privately, to God. It’s enough to make someone wonder why.
I
think it stems from the Garden where ingratitude and distrust became the
foundation from which Satan launched his assault on this world. When we
remember to thank God – for the small, specific things as well as the bigger,
broader strokes – it loosens Satan’s hold on us. For that matter, if we give
thanks we are no longer reflecting what is wrong in our lives but what is Good
and what is God. We reflect God’s goodness into this dark world! We loosen
Satan’s hold on the world and thankfulness becomes a vessel of the Kingdom of
God – putting God’s rule and reign front and center in our lives for any who care
to see.
When
we can find something to be thankful for, it opens our eyes to another and
another and another. It is in these seemingly barren landscapes that our souls are nourished. It is when this broken and messed up world tries to starve our spirits that God sends manna from
Heaven and we can choose to eat it and be nourished or to close our hands and
hearts to what He brings and waste away. It is in these difficult times we learn
that God is good, all the time, no matter what is happening around us and even to us.
You are invited to the table. Come and eat. The meals here in the Kingdom are never the served the same way twice.
We have started this experiment with raising our own meat chickens out of a resolve to know what, exactly, we are eating. We have them in a separate coop and run and are doing everything we can not to get attached. Even so, it is hard to ignore that they are amazing creatures. They have tripled in size in ten short days and are handsome if gawky.
