Dot #2 (my health journey continued)

(If you want to review my whole health journey, look back in May 2011 at the posts entitled When April ends)...

If not, here's a brief recap:

•  At age 21, I had pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in my lungs) and was later diagnosed with an incurable, rare kidney disease. It was treated, disappeared, returned, treated, disappeared and then returned again all over a span of 2 years. Then I met "Doc Hollywood", a young doctor who decided in 2001 that we should try something else and see if we could make the remissions last a bit longer...and it has not returned since. 12 years in remission on a prescription drug with virtually no side effects is truly a MIRACLE!
• 10 years ago (at age 25), I got an ear infection that seemed to muffle my hearing. After ignoring it for years and suffering over 50% in hearing loss, I finally had a stapedectomy on both ears in 2009.  My hearing was restored to 90%!!! Truly another MIRACLE

Dot #2
 
Have you ever seen a 2 year old attempt to do one of those Connect the Dot pages in a coloring book? My youngest son was about 2 when he became obsessed with doing them. You can imagine what it all too often looked like. The "connections" were curved when they were supposed to be straight or completely straight when they were supposed to be curved. Sometimes the lines overlapped because he had missed a dot that he later went back to get.
 
And all this led to one thing, an unclear picture.
 
Well, that's kind of how my health dot to dot journey has been and continues to be. Sometimes straight lines end up curved and curved lines end up straight and the lines rarely line up to create a nice clear picture.
 
 It gets tricky here because symptoms and issues that I dismissed as unrelated began to overlap with seemingly no common thread so the picture was unclear, and sometimes still is.
 
It was the summer of 2007. I had been working hard in our back yard to cut down and dig up a large fig tree and a scrappy little pecan tree cluster. Both were in spots that made it inconvenient to mow, which was irritating enough, but our dog also seemed to enjoy getting sick by eating the rotten fruits and pecans that fell to the ground. They had to go so I went out there with my normal gusto and began to cut and dig and pull and chop. I was surprised to find a strange vine like plant intertwined but didn't think much of it since it wasn't poison oak or ivy or sumac. I just immersed myself in the bushes determined to take them down...and so I did.
 
I remember coming in and thinking my arms were rather itchy but just attributed it all to the dirt and sawdust, nothing a good shower couldn't cure. But as I showered, welps like boils or blisters began to pop up on my arms. I thought it was weird because I honestly had never had any sort of allergic reaction on my skin to anything but figured it would just go away. I grabbed some Benadryl and waited for them to disappear...but they didn't.  If anything, the blisters just kept swelling.
 
I had honestly never seen anything like it so I did what every intelligent person does, I googled it...NOTHING.
 
Surely if I couldn't google it, it didn't even exist, except it did. I could see them and feel them. The blisters were getting pretty uncomfortable as they continued to swell. I decided to do what I would do if it was a little blister on my hand so I took a needle and drained one. Clear liquid flowed out just like it would from any other blister and it felt better, so I drained all of them.  Thinking that was the end of it, I went to bed that night only to be awakened by the distinct pressure of blisters on my arms. They had filled back up. I drained them again. They filled back up again.
 
I had no choice but to go to the doctor.
 
The look on the doctor's face when I showed him my arms was pretty discouraging. He asked me what I had gotten into and told me he had never seen anything quite like that...not really what you want to hear. He assumed it was some sort of allergic reaction and put me on a low dose of steroids, which cleared it right up. At home, we joked about it being my "grossness" but by in large it was an incident I forgot completely about. It was meaningless, right?
 
Or was it the catalyst for something else?
 
I looked down one day a year or so later and saw it...

the spot on my right hand...

the spot that lacked any color whatsoever.

 
At first, I assumed I had just gotten into something. After all, I was always getting into something when working on my projects and I was always working on a project. Maybe I had dropped some chemicals on my hand when I was remodeling or painting or gardening or something.
 
I was sure it was nothing until a few days later I looked down and saw another...

the spot on my right foot...

the spot that lacked any color whatsoever.

 

Once again, I did what any intelligent person from my generation does, I went straight to google and this is what I googled...

"Michael Jackson Skin Disease"

(I'm not really sure why I googled this. It seems like a bizarre thing to search but I remember with certainty typing it into the computer. Perhaps it was around the same time as his death and so he was all over the news. Really, idk so don't judge:)

 

the results popped up...VITILIGO.

 

I then began to research vitiligo and realized with almost certainty that I did indeed have Vitiligo and there was no real way to treat it or cover it up. The colorless spots would continue to appear...they continue to appear even now. When people ask me about the spots, I tell them that I have the same skin disease as Michael Jackson, which makes me almost famous...almost.

 

To say God has used Vitiligo to form me and change me would be a HUGE understatement. It has been absolutely transformational...

and not really in the way you may think...

or the way I feared at first. 

 

Sidenote: I have a whole blog in my head about how transformational this has been in my mind and heart but want to stay focused on my health journey right now...it is definitely in the works though because this has been SERIOUSLY weighty stuff for me!

 

It was these colorless spots though that began to really spur me on.

 It was here where I first began to start connecting all the health issue dots

 (not vitiligo spots:)...

 

Dot #2 -Vitiligo is frequently classified as an autoimmune disease, the result of an overactive immune system where your immune system fails to recognize healthy cells and leave them alone but instead wages war and attacks. This is usually spurred on by some small, seemingly insignificant infection. (Remember the blisters?)

 

And that sounded all to familiar to me.

 

I would love to say that at this point in 2009, all of my health issues became crystal clear to me and I aligned them all under one umbrella and named it and became a part of some brilliant research study...

 

but I didn't.

 

It would take 2 more diagnoses for me to really begin to connect it all.

 

But I will tell you what continued to become clearer and clearer to me

 

God was using every little detail of my health journey to make me someone else,

someone He longed for me to be.

 

As my story was unfolding in ways I would not have written,

God was developing my character in ways I could not.

 

 

 

Connecting the dots (my health journey continued)

Since my kidneys were fine, I thought everything was fine.  Other than that, I was just a healthy 20 something year old.  I didn't look sick. I didn't feel sick. I didn't live as if I were sick. I took my 2 pills every morning and my 2 pills every night and no one ever knew unless I told them.

I got the occassional cold...but who didn't? Every illness was dismissed as just a regular illness because I thought it was...but then one day I realized it wasn't. I realized it never had been.

The dots were there but I didn't start connecting them until about 2 years ago and 4 diagnoses later...

DOT #1 -
About 10 years ago, I got an ear infection. That might seem unremarkeable to most people but it was the first one of my life and I was 25. I went to the doctor after a couple of days because of the ache. She immediately put me on antibiotics, which cleared up the pain, but my hearing seemed instantly "muffled" and just never recovered. I turned the sound in my car up because the words were inexplicably unclear...but I blamed it on the speakers because it was an old car, right?

Progressively it got worse but I didn't want to admit it. I was too prideful. I would just deal with it.

And then the ringing began...

At first, it wasn't so bad. I only noticed it when it was quiet so I kept it from being quiet. I always had something on...ALWAYS. But soon my ears rang non-stop, so much so that I couldn't fall asleep at night. The ringing just would not go away, no matter what I did.

I was at my wits end so I mentioned it in passing at a check-up. She dismissed it as me getting older (at the ripe old age of 28) reassuring me that these things just happen. So I resolved to suck it up and deal with it...and that's just what I did.

When we brought home our first son, Matthew, we started using closed caption with the tv so we didn't wake him up. We left it on most of the time, but one day I noticed that I needed closed caption regardless of the volume. And then I noticed other things.

If Danny wasn't facing me when he talked, I couldn't understand him. Sometimes I couldn't understand him when he was facing me. I would get onto him about enunciating clearly...but it wasn't just him.

It was everyone, everywhere. No one spoke clearly. I found myself saying, "Huh? What?" all the time...but got embarrased by that so just started nodding. (Scary to think what I might have agreed to or not followed through on.)

The final straw was when I took my son for his check-up. I was sitting right across from the doctor and the room was quiet but I could not understand what he was saying. I was embarassed and broke down right there crying. I told him that I could hear him but not clearly enough to understand him. He prayed with me (see - awesome doctor) and he immediately referred me for testing.

It took months to get an appointment, but I remember everything about that day so clearly.  The audiologist was a gentle older man. He led me into the "vault" and explained the testing process to me. After several attempts at finding me earbuds, he finally fitted me with a pair of pediatric earbuds because my ears are so small.  We casually laughed about this and then he left the room and went to his booth and began the test. I strained to hear something, anything. I raised my hand a few times when I thought I maybe heard something and then a few times just because I felt like I should be hearing something.

I knew something was desperately wrong when he came back to prepare me for the next portion of the exam because his entire demeanor and approach to me changed.  He took the earbuds off and instead of standing up straight at a comfortable distance from me, he crouched down right in front of me and spoke VERY loudly and enunciated VERY distinctly.

I remember thinking to myself, "I must be absolutely deaf" and I remember tearing up but I made it through the rest of the test and then he came back in.

I looked at him and did the one thing I wasn't supposed to do, ask.

"It's bad, isn't it? How much am I hearing, like percentage wise?"

He looked down and mumbled some stuff about how the ENT would go over my results with me but then he looked up and he saw the big, hot tears streaming down my face. As much as I tried to stay composed, there was just no hiding it. I was in full blown ugly cry.

This gentle audioligist knelt down in front of me and he told me that I was hearing around 55% in both ears but that I had a great ENT and that great advancements had been made in hearing implements. I wiped my face, thanked him and walked out to my car. When I got in the car I texted my husband and I just cried, something I had never done before because of my health. I could handle the medicines and the prognisis and the nearly dying somehow methodically and unemotionally...

 

but my hearing?

 

That stirred up in me a well of emotion I didn't know was there.

But in that well of emotion, God was there.

He sent that gentle audioligist and He sent me to just the right ENT as well. 

My husband joined me for the ENT appointment.  By this time, my lack of hearing had become a joke around the house, a welcome change from the tears. The ENT walked in and went over the results with us but as he talked, I noticed something...He was wearing hearing aids.

I asked him to share his story and it was similar to mine. He too had suffered early, unexplained hearing loss in his mid 20's that had gone undetected over time until it was just undeniable.  He assured me that hearing aids would be an option for me but he had a better option, one that he wished was available to him, a stapedectomy. They would remove my stapes bone and replace it with a prosthetic device.  It was, of course, not without risk and came with a lot of restricted activity for the mother of a 1 year old, but it was what he would do if he were me.

I was unsure. I said we would pray. My husband was certain and leveraged my 1 year old in the "battle".  He knew I didn't want to miss a single word Matthew said to me...ever...and knew that if I didn't do this, I would miss those words, too many of those words.

They tested me again a month later and my hearing had dropped to 45% across all ranges and frequencies. So we signed on. I would have the surgery one ear at a time.

My miracle ENT doctor performed 2 stapedectomies within six months of each other. My hearing shot up to 90% in one ear and about 93% in the other. It was remarkable and unheard of...no pun intended!

God restored my hearing but He restored so much more through the hands of that ENT and audiologist than just my hearing.

I had a new tenderness
                     a new understanding
                                   a new compassion

                                             and  a new story.

 

But there were more dots to come...

When May comes... (a VERY delayed part 6 of my health story)

If you have followed my story at all, you know that May is an important month for me every year because May marks another year that I have made it through healthy.

As the end of May approached this year, I looked at my pill bottles and I knew...
          I knew that I was running out of pills
          and I knew that I was out of refills
          and I knew that I would have to make the dreaded appointment
                       to have blood drawn
                       to have tests run
                       to see the doctor

Now don't get me wrong. I love my doctor. He is a close, personal, family friend and a godly man. I don't even mind having blood drawn or filling little cups, really, I don't.

What I do dread is the reality of what those tests may tell me and what news my sweet doctor friend may have to give me. I can feel fine but if just one number on one test is wrong, then everything is wrong. And I don't want it to be wrong.

I felt healthy, I really did but I made the appointment, I had the blood drawn, I filled the cups, and I walked into the doctor's office. I kept telling myself that April had passed and May had come and so I was okay...and this time I was right. My kidney tests were completely and totally clear. I made it another year with healthy kidneys, marking 12 years of remission.

But as the reality of this flooded over me, I was reminded that I never really finished out the rest of my health story. I started part 6 of "When May comes..." but I never finished it. I stopped at the point just after I went into remission and life was good and I was healthy...but that wasn't really the way the last 12 years have gone. Much has happened since then to me...and to my brother...and the health road has't been quite as simple as it sounded.

To recap, I was 21 when doctors discovered blood clots in my lungs which led them eventually to diagnose a rare and incurable kidney disease. The doctors were able to miraculously put the kidney disease into remission quickly with HIGH doses of corticosteroids (prednisone) but the disease came back about 6 months every time after completing my round of steroids (always in March/April). I went through this cycle twice before I met "Doc Hollywood" who decided to just give something new a try because the steroids were going to eventually wreck the rest of my body.

That was 12 years ago...

About 2 years later (10 years ago), my brother (an incredibly healthy fireman) was rushed to the ER with unexplained breathing difficulties. The nurse just happened to ask his wife, who is also a nurse, if there was any family history of blood clots or pulmonary embolisms. She told them about me but assured them that mine were a result of my kidney disease because that's what the doctors had always told me. Luckily, they looked anyways and found them in him, everywhere. They found his lungs and legs inexplicably FILLED with clots. It is something he has struggled with ever since and continues to battle even today, even on medicine that is supposed to thin his blood and keep it from clotting. In direct contrast, I have never had another clot, at least that I know of, and I have been told countless times by countless doctors since that my kidney disease should not have produced clots.

So, why did I throw clots that one time early on?

Because God works in ways we can not begin to fathom.

Get this and don't excuse any of it as circumstance or chance.

If I hadn't thrown clots, there is a good chance that the doctors would not have found my kidney disease in time to treat it effectively. (Interestingly enough, countless doctors since have told me that my specific kidney disease doesn't cause clots...but it did that time for a reason!)

If I hadn't thrown clots, there's a good chance that the doctors wouldn't have scanned my brother in time to save his life.

I fully believe that God allowed me to have clots that ONE TIME so that the doctors would find them in my brother and save his life. I don't think that they would have ever looked for them in him otherwise, at least not in time.

They did save his life but his fight for health continues on more fronts than even I know about. He is incredibly brave and incredibly strong but perseveres against much so please pray for him.

My body battled on as well.

I just wasn't aware of it because my kidneys were fine.

I just wasn't aware of it because it all seemed like unrelated bad health luck.

Unfortunately that will have to be continued another time because like I said above, this journey has been anything but simple.

when grace rains...

There are few feelings that compare to the warmth of the sun on your face

     except for maybe the refreshment of a strong breeze on a stifling day
          or the briskness of that first breath outside on a cold winter morning.

Each of these seem to be so deeply delightful at the time but all of these are trumped by one thing...

a good spring rain.

I LOVE everything about a good spring rain. There is something about watching the clouds gather and darken, hearing the distant sound of muffled thunder, smelling the sweet dew that seems to linger in the air, and then feeling that first drop that signals the multitude that is to come. Lightning seems to split the sky in an inexplicable display and thunder echos throughout the land. The parched earth soaks it up as if it hasn't felt such sweet moisture in years. The grass and flowers and trees seem to become a richer, deeper, stronger green with every single drop. Nothing, and I mean nothing, escapes the powerful drench of a good spring rain...

but that's part of the problem with it too.

A good spring rain doesn't discriminate between your raised vegetable garden and the weeds seeking to infiltrate it. A good spring rain doesn't miss the car you just washed or the sidewalk chalk art you never took a picture of. A good spring rain gets it all.

And so it is with God's grace.

Nothing compares to the intimate feeling of being washed anew when God's grace rains down. You have seen the clouds of promise and heard His thunderous declaration. The fragrance and feelings of change linger thickly around you. Then the rain comes with a mighty display and a loud roar. Your parched soul soaks it in and you are refreshed and renewed and revived. Just as plants can not live with out water, your soul can not live with out God's grace. You yearn for His redeeming flood and it comes and it rains heavy and it is sweet. Nothing, and I mean nothing, escapes the powerful drench of God's grace when it rains down...

but that is part of the struggle with it too.

We certainly want grace to freely rain down on us and others we deem deserving, but what happens when God's grace rains down as heavily on someone we consider a weed, the undeserving, the vile offender, our very enemy? What happens when our good works are washed down and we find our slate equally as blank as that weed?

Surely if asked point blank, we would all deny that we have ever felt this way. No one wants to admit this is a struggle. After all, we love a powerful from death to life testimony. Who can resist the murderer turned evangelist or the prostitute turned soccer mom or the scammer turned into a benevolent giver?

Not me...at least not from a distance.

The Bible is full of tales of God's grace flowing down and we all fully embrace each storm of grace but is our embrace wholehearted or just because we are so distanced from the situation that God's rain of grace on their life costs us nothing?

Who would deny grace to the woman caught in the act of adultry?

Certainly not us...but what if you were the wife of the man she cheated with or her child or her husband? Does that change your desire for her to receive the same grace you recieve? If we are honest, most of us would call her a homewrecker and, at a minimum, shun her but certainly deny her grace.

And who among us doesn't delight in the grace flood of the Saul turned Paul transformation?

Certainly not us...but what if Saul had been persecuting you? What if you at one time had pleaded with him for the life of your father or mother or brother or sister or husband or child? What if you had watched him stand aside, cloaks in hand, while others stoned someone you loved, a person who had done no wrong? Would you doubt his transformation? Would you begrudge his use in the gospel mission? Does that change your perspective on the grace afforded to Paul? Truth be told, most of us would have labeled Saul a terrorist and rejoiced at his blindness instead of being an instrument of grace and healing in his life.

My husband and I have had the privilege of attending for many years the annual banquet of an incredible local ministry that seeks to share the redeeming grace of God with prisoners within our county. It is a ministry close to our hearts, run by people of integrity and compassion. Year after year without fail, we hear a death to life testimony by a different former prisoner who was radically transformed by the heavy rain of God's grace. It is always overwhelmingly powerful. The amens and praises to God and even tears flow freely from those listening, captivated by a new tale of God's powerful storm of grace. We can not help but be moved by these redemption stories.

But I wonder if we would feel the same if we were the victim of that former prisoner, who is now free and successful and no longer under the condemnation of our legal system or our God. Unfortunately, I don't think we would. We all too often want people to get what they deserve and somehow grace just doesn't fill that selfish need within our hearts and minds. I have witnessed far too many believers desire vindication and punishment and justice for the person that so grievously wronged them or their family feel robbed when God's grace rained down instead. I can personally only think of one instance in which victims of a heinous crime truly, deeply, maybe even painfully desired God's grace to rain down on those that harmed them.

It was beautiful. It was inspiring. It was convicting...and it was the exception

But why is grace the exception amongst a people who have all been bought by and offered unmerited grace?
Why is grace so offensive to those of us sustained by its very presence?
Why is grace so irritating to those of us who rely on it each and every day?
Why is our grace-giving so lacking when it is so sufficient for us?

Rarely, and I mean rarely are we grievously wronged.
Rarely, and I mean rarely, are we the victims of heinous crimes. 
But far too frequently we love grace for ourselves and grace from a distance for others but just not when it is personal, costing us our own perceived justice or righteousness.

It's not a new problem. I don't know about you, but I often find myself identifying with the "wrong" character in the Bible. I have been Jonah, sitting under the wilted fig tree whining that someone that I knew didn't deserve grace had their life turned around, redeemed, made righteous, and super blessed. I have stood with rock in hand ready to cast a stone on the adulteress. As a self-righteous sadducee and pharisee, I have muttered to myself that Jesus clearly doesn't know what type of man or woman He is raining his grace upon.

And as the thoughts and feelings fester, they push me ever farther from the rain of grace that I so desperately need myself and I am parched. In spite of my stubborn selfishness though, God's grace rains. His thunderous voice booms down to the depths of my soul and reminds me of that which I have clearly forgotten...

my brokenness, my undeservedness, my lack.

and grace rains all over me again and I am washed anew. My works are but filthy rags and I find myself right where I should have been all along, dancing in the midst of the grace storm, arms outstretched in desperate joy soaking in every sweet, life giving drop...

and next to you...

and next to all the other broken and undeserving people just like us who are willing to open their heart to His reign.

You see when grace rains, nothing and I mean nothing can escape it.

foot washing

I washed my kids feet last night and not in the practical "come here your feet are filthy" kind of way that I do so many times a day that it is a completely thoughtless act.

It was impractical. It was purposeful. It was intentional. It was humbling.

and I didn't want to do it.

The truth of the matter is that yesterday was one of those particularly difficult days to be a mom for no particular reason at all. There wasn't any major event or trauma. It was just a seemingly endless marathon of whining and arguing and thanklessness and selfishness and impatience.  Just a day in the life, right?  To be honest, it wasn't just yesterday. It seems like it's been difficult for days, weeks, maybe even months.

I actually spent most of the day figuring out how to get out of doing it.

They won't understand.

They won't appreciate.

and then the final blow...

they don't deserve it.

And the tidal wave of conviction clothed in God's love and relentless pursuit crashed hard on me.

So that night during our family devotional, I opened my Bible to the book of John and I read to my whiny, argumentative, thankless, selfish and impatient kids the story of Jesus' whiny, argumentative, thankless, selfish and impatient disciples. I read how Jesus got down and washed the feet of His disciples.

They didn't understand.

They didn't appreciate it.

They certainly didn't deserve it...and neither did I

So then I filled up my basin with warm water and a drop of sweet lavender oil.  I placed a towel on my shoulder.  I knelt down and I called each of my children to me.  One by one, I gently and lovingly washed and dried each of their feet.

They probably didn't understand.

They probably didn't appreciate it.

They probably didn't deserve it.

But I needed to do it. 

I needed to love my whiny, argumentative, thankless, selfish and impatient kids the same way He has loved me, His whiny, argumentative, thankless, selfish, and impatient kid. I washed my kids feet last night even though I didn't want to

because the process of becoming not me is about becoming like Him.

sidelined

I played sports literally all of my childhood and while I was never the super star of any team, I always managed to start or at least log some decent playing time on whatever team I was on, mainly because I was fiercely competitive. Others were certainly more skilled or faster or stronger than me but what I lacked in skill or talent, I made up for with raw effort, often being completely relentless in my pursuit of winning. Admitting defeat was, well, just not an option for me until...

there were injuries.

When I was younger, I had a few minor injuries but nothing that ever kept me on the sidelines for too long. I remember the day that all changed.

I was a sophmore on the girls' varsity soccer team, the first one for my school. Practice was coming to a close as we scrimmaged in preparation for our upcoming game. I jumped up to head a ball and as I landed, one of my teammates jumped unintentionally into my knee, hyperextending it in the wrong direction. (If you are visualizing this, yes, my leg literally went the wrong direction). I fell instantly to the ground grasping my knee and popping it back but I knew right then that it wasn't right...that it would never be completely right again. I spent 4 weeks on crutches in a knee immobilizer before having my ACL reconstructed and my shredded meniscus repaired and then I spent another 6 weeks after surgery on crutches in a knee immobilizer.

 I missed the entire season, but more than that,,,

I didn't even attend the season. I didn't go to the games and cheer on my team. I didn't watch during practice to support my team. I just didn't go. I'm sure I blamed it on the inconvenience of traveling to games on crutches or the pointlessness of sitting in the cold to watch practices of which I had no hope of participating in. While those are certainly understandable and justifiable, they were just excuses. In reality, I wasn't there because I was sidelined for the first time in my life and I didn't know how to process that reality...so I just distanced myself. As soon as I started physical therapy, I set out determined to get off the sideline and back on the field stronger, healthier and more skilled than I was before and somehow I did.

But here I am again...on the cusp of 35 and struggling to process the reality of feeling sidelined once again.

For nearly 10 years, I delighted in going and serving and leading and mentoring and planning and visioning and teaching and discipling and laboring in ministry right beside my husband. Everywhere we went and everything we did felt like home to me. In New Orleans, I was at home. Colorado, home. Arizona, home. Georgia, home. Ecuador, home. Low income neighborhoods, home. Streets of Austin, home. Youth events, home. College Campuses, home. Small group Bible study, home. It was a fit and always felt like I was right where I was supposed to be until...

Five years ago, life slowed down for me when God brought us Matthew. Because his adoption came together in literally less than a week, I was forced to make a decision early on about sidelining myself.  Matthew was 1 week old when Danny left to lead his first mission trip without me. We actually discussed just taking him (our 1 week old baby) with us but quite simply, I just couldn't go and do and be and so I sat that one out. I was so exhausted and elated from being a new parent that it didn't register to me at the time that I was missing anything. Before too long I was right back at it. I gladly gave up things like lock-ins and 5th quarters but not the "real" stuff. I just packed Matthew up, strapped him on and did the work with him attached and as he got older, right by my side. Before ever turning 2, he had been on 3 US mission trips, 1 international mission trip to SE Asia, youth camps, conferences/retreats, numerous outreach events and countless worship services and small group Bible studies. We were still very much involved in Danny's ministry so even though the haunting thought of being sidelined crept into my heart and mind from time to time, I didn't feel sidelined in general until...

Danny went to Haiti without me.

Danny worshipped and labored beside Haitian brothers and sisters without me.

Danny led a group and loved on sweet little orphans (whose faces and names I knew well) without me. 

 Danny came back different...changed...transformed...renewed...empassioned

and me...

well, I held down the fort,
which felt a lot more like being sidelined than anything else

But I handled it well even though this process of "without me" repeated itself many, many times in the last few years.  It was okay because I had this sweet, precious life literally entrusted to me. I was sidelined for this season but knew a day would come when I would be right back at it, going and doing and being. The day would come that I too would worship and labor and lead and love, that I too would be changed and transformed and renewed and empassioned.  So for a bit, I embraced my time on the sideline. Danny and I planned in our hearts and our minds for the day when WE would go and take Matthew with us to Haiti or wherever the Lord led us...

But then we brought home 3 more kids that we would inevitably adopt.  So the day we had planned and dreamt of came and went.  Danny went to Haiti but I was once again left behind...sidelined...

and so it has been again and will be several more times just this year.

Danny will go and be and do

while I hold down the fort.

But how does one sit on the sideline well

when all they long to do is run out on the field with arms wide open in reckless abandonment? 

And how does one cheer on others who are in the game

when they so long to be a part of the game themselves?  

And why is it so hard to embrace THIS season as equally important

when I know that God has brought the greatest assignment into my very home?

The TRUTH of the matter for me is that while I feel sidelined (a feeling I truly, truly struggle with), I am not sidelined at all. I am right in the muck of it all. The laundry and the dishes and the cooking and the cleaning and the homework and the correcting and the training and the instructing and the loving deeply ARE indeed the work of discipleship and ARE indeed the work God has called me to and ARE indeed the most difficult tasks I have ever faced. Every day, I am binding up the broken hearts of the children God has brought to me. Every day, I am caring for children formerly known as orphans. Every day, I am doing the work He has set before me for this time and this season...

but every day I am longing
for another day, another season,

where I will go and do and be,

where I will be forced further away from the known,

where I will be challenged in ways unimaginable,

where I will feel like I am right where God wants me to be

where I will feel at home so very far from home...

BUT I have committed

to go where God would have me go

and do what God would have me do

no matter where or what that is. 

Of course in my heart and mind, I had settled on the reality that it would be reckless and extravagent and risky and far away and unknown and challenging but for now it is here...in my comfortable small town american home, with the kids He has brought to me to be orphans no more.

In the process of becoming not me, I am learning to embrace the dream God has for me at the time He has it for me...

I know there will be a day and a time when He calls me to go and do and be and risk and leave but it just isn't yet...



When God and sinners reconcile...

Hark the herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!

Peace on earth and mercy mild

God and sinners reconciled"

Joyful, all ye nations rise

Join the triumph of the skies

With the angelic host proclaim:

"Christ is born in Bethlehem"

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

This is a song most of us could probably sing or at a minimum hum.  It's a song I have sung literally my entire life and has remained one of my favorite Christmas hymns over the years. We might not know all the verses, but the first verse seems to be a fairly popular one and rightfully so. Every word of it is a beautiful theological truth that preaches a gloriously triumphant message that Christ has come for a reason, with a purpose.  It's something to rejoice in and cling to, but this year something stuck with me in a way it never has before.

God and sinners reconciled

It's a truth I know well.  It's a truth I rely on daily. It's a truth I don't want to escape.

This year the lesson was different.

My dad is the eldest of 3 kids, the responsible one but never the favored one.  My grandad's blessing rested upon my uncle.  My grandmother's blessing rested upon my aunt.  Upon my dad rested criticism, blame, wrath and responsibility.  If anything went wrong, it was ultimately his fault and his job to fix it.  From what I have gathered, my grandmother's Irish temper and fondness for alcohol often created the perfect storm for chaos and dysfunction and my father usually stood directly in the path of her fury.  He took it so no one else had to. My grandad frequently took job assignments which took him elsewhere but used alcohol and passivity to cope when he was there.  It didn't change much as my dad grew into adulthood.  On my parent's wedding day, their car had to be hidden because my grandmother threatened to break out the windows.  She threatened to miss the wedding too but instead just showed up late.  My parents had every reason imaginable to sever their relationship with my grandparents...but they didn't.  Years passed and my brother and I came along.  My grandparents still drank and smoked.  They still criticized my dad, excluded my mom, and fought.  Their favor still rested upon my aunt and uncle. One would assume that my parents would keep us from them...but they didn't.  They protected us but did not isolate us.  We gathered at Christmas and Thanksgiving.  We honored them on Mother's and Father's day.  We celebrated their birthdays.  We invited them to all of our birthdays, events and activities. My parents called frequently to check on them and helped whenever possible.  My mom was always warm and caring.  My dad was always helpful and concerned.  From the way my parents treated them, no one would have ever suspected the deep wounds of these broken relationships.  When I was in high school, my grandmother died and my father rushed to her side and to my grandad's aide. That was many, many years ago.  Since then my grandad has given up smoking and alcohol but something much more miraculous has occurred.  My dad's relationship has been restored with my grandad in a way I never imagined possible and I am closer to him now than I ever was as a child...and all because my parent's chose to continuously extend unmerited grace and mercy to people that wounded them deeply.  They chose to be RECONCILED.

This past Christmas Eve, I sat at a candlelight service next to my parents.  As we sang the hymn above, I looked back for some reason and saw a dear older couple sitting alone on the back row.  The husband was someone I knew well.  He was a constant fixture on church youth mission trips when I was a teenager. My memories of his grace and mercy and humor are still so very fond.  He was a person I respected and admired at a time when I respected and admired so few.  When the service drew to a close, I hurried back to see him.  We quickly reminisced about the good old days on youth mission trips and it was as if neither of us had aged a day.  Then I asked him about his kids and he aged in a moment.  His response broke my very heart as I watched tears well up in his eyes.  "My kids don't have anything to do with me..." Those are words that cut.  How could I possibly respond? I hugged him and said I was sorry and that I would pray for changed hearts. What more could I say?  I am not naive. I don't assume he was the perfect father or that he was faultless in the brokenness of his relationship with his children.  I assume quite the opposite, that he was and is indeed a sinner...just like me...just like you...just like his kids.

As I walked to my car and watched my husband herd our 4 into the car, a thought stuck with me:

If God and sinners can be reconciled, why can't sinners and sinners be reconciled?

And I looked over my shoulder and saw my parents, who BOTH chose reconciliation over anger and hate and bitterness, and I was overwhelmed with one thought:

Reconciliation only occurs when the person in the "right" remembers their own sinfulness and reaches out with unmerited grace and mercy and forgiveness to people that wounded them deeply.

So someone hurt your feelings...BE RECONCILED

So someone was inconsiderate...BE RECONCILED

So someone criticized you...BE RECONCILED

So someone didn't support you...BE RECONCILED

So someone made you feel fat or ugly or unwanted or unintelligent...BE RECONCILED

So someone forgot your or abandoned you...BE RECONCILED

So someone wounded you in ways unimaginable...BE RECONCILED

Whether it happened 15 minutes ago or 15 years ago, the message of the manger, the message proclaimed by the angels, is that reconciliation with God is possible and if reconciliation with God is possible than reconciliation between sinners is certainly possible as well. 

This is a hard message.  This is a painful message.  This is a personal message. 

This is a message that I will have to wrestle with because I have kids who come from hard places.

In the process of becoming not me, I am learning that I must let go of hurt and bitterness and anger and I must choose to be reconciled

...to God

...to sinners

The message of the manger is the message of the cross...BE RECONCILED