Since our last visit I have had several new experiences both with MS and with God. I would rather gloss over the ugly stuff and focus on the wonderful outcomes unfortunately, that is not what I promised to do when I started writing this blog. I told you I would give you my perspective as someone with this diagnosis and share with you everything. Hold on you are in for a ride tonight!
Not last Saturday but the Saturday before, twenty-four women came knocking on my door..oops, my mind slipped let’s try this again. Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a woman’s encounter at my church. It was typical of any spiritual retreat I have ever attended with the exception of my very personal encounter with the Holy Spirit. Now, I don’t know if you all have ever had a “mountain top” experience but I think that is how most of you would refer to my experience that very snowy Saturday.
Like I said, it started as a typical church retreat. I was sitting in the front which allows for no distractions. I sit up front because I am so nearsighted if I sit in the back I miss half of the presentations, not because I am that Holy! At first, the whole thing felt like blah, blah, blah; been there done that; so much so that I almost left after lunch. Let’s face it I am totally driven by food so I was not going to leave until after lunch. If you know me, you know that during breakfast I think about what I am going to prepare for dinner. But after sitting around having meaningful and honest conversation with other women, I thought I would stay for one more hour.
When I returned to the sanctuary to listen to another speaker talking about things I had listened to several hundred times before, I realized I was listening with a different mindset. I became keenly aware that even though I had heard this exact teaching before, I had never taken the words to heart. I think this is an amazing saying, “taking the words to heart”, isn’t this saying really a statement about how words impact our spirits? It not only speaks directly to the fact that we need to be open to receiving the message behind what someone is saying before allowing them to become part of who we are, but that we must also be prepared to fight against them if they are even slightly damaging to our inner peace. Until we are ready to take the words we hear to heart, how do we apply the knowledge they impart?
So you are probably wondering what she said, to be honest I can’t remember exactly which scripture she was quoting but it can be summed up like this: To be a Christian means to live with a forgiving heart. This means you need to forgive everyone who has ever hurt you…this is not the news that impacted my life, this is how I try to live my life. The soul shattering statement, was if you hold unforgiveness in your heart for yourself, God, cannot and WILL not forgive you. WHAT? Isn’t guilt part of being involved with God, being a Christian? Doesn’t he want us to walk around flogging ourselves for our mistakes? Of course, all of this flogging occurs inside our heads and is NEVER to be shared with others, EVER! The truth is, it would be disastrous if we ever let slip the way we allow guilt to govern our innermost opinions of ourselves. In fact the world might spin right off its axis! If every woman in the world spoke to others the way we speak to ourselves, we would all be hiding in caves.
In spite of knowing that I was going to cause the destruction of the human race, I opened my mouth and told a small group of women that I held unforgiveness in my heart for all of my failures, that I was not worthy to receive forgiveness from anyone, let alone God. I asked them to pray with me to allow God to forgive me for divorcing the girls’ father and for not being able to protect them from the hurts we caused each other during our marriage. I honestly believed that I would be able to protect them from the sense of rejection I had experienced by removing him from our daily lives. I expressed feelings of guilt for being blessed with Marv who is such a wonderful husband, friend and human being! My Marv, the man who accepts me with all of my failings and treats the girls as if they were his own. Basically, I had an emotional outpouring of my innermost thoughts and the world kept right on spinning! Not only did the world continue spinning but all of that yuck was replaced with a deeper sense of God’s grace. Right in that moment one of the women who was praying with me asked if I had an illness. I said yes. She said is it MS? I said yes! Please know I had never met this women before in my life, she just pulled that one right out of the sky…I was completely freaked out! She said to the other women in the group that they needed to pray for my healing right then! I was even more freaked out but what the heck, I will take all the help I can get! They all prayed while I thought about how grateful I was for the forgiveness I had just received but how could I accept more? Almost immediately that inner voice began bringing up all of the reasons why I was unworthy to receive anymore blessing in that moment…I chose to allow them to pray for healing, but I didn’t take their words to heart until later that evening when I said, “I will accept whatever healing God has for me”! It was an amazing experience!
On the following Tuesday, I called my brother who is a youth minister in Texas and shared the experience with him! He warned me to be aware that with great blessings come great follies. He encouraged me to read and pray and pray and pray. I mostly listened to his advice. And then the bomb dropped on Thursday! I was sitting at my desk when I felt a burning sensation all over my body and I felt like I had something stuck in my throat! I turned to a co-worker and asked her if I looked like I had a rash on my chest and face. Her eyes got huge and she said, “YES, you look like you have a sunburn and you have white stripes running all over the place!” I grabbed my purse and drove immediately to the nearest urgent care! I was having an anaphylactic reaction to something, but what? I hadn’t eaten anything, I hadn’t had anything new to drink and the only medications I had taken were thyroid and Premarin. Nothing, I mean nothing was new. I walked into the urgent care, the receptionist looked at me, grabbed the nurse and put me in a room. Before the doctor entered the room, the nurse had the epinephrine ready to go. When he walked he nodded at her and she gave me the shot in my thigh… OUCH! They administered several other medications all of which made me feel like my heart was beating between my ribs! I was no longer attempting to rip my skin off however, I was on the ceiling! I thought my heart was going to explode and then the Valium! Yeah for IV Valium pushed through quickly by an understanding nurse! I rested for an hour or so and marvelous Marv arrived for the ride home! God, I love this man! He chastised me for driving myself and asked me to promise if that ever happened again I would accept a ride from someone else; I promised. I don’t think I was thinking straight; I just knew I needed to get to the doctor FAST. So far the consensus is that I had a reaction to the Premarin. I had my first of many appointments with the allergist today and there are many tests to come, but for now, no more Premarin. I will keep you posted…
So where is God in all of this, right here in the center of my heart beaming out from behind my eyes! I feel GREAT!
0.000000
0.000000
I just love to watch their faces, see them run to their documentation, and then look back at me all doe eyed with concern…it really is comical from my chair! I know that there is always something that can be done, usually they start with Benadryl, so I don’t panic. After another hour my eye and ear returned to normal without any intervention which was my choice not theirs. They wanted me to take Benadryl but I refused. It is nice to know I have the acquired the strength to say no to a “medical professional”! I assure you it wasn’t always like that for me! Whew, in the beginning I would take anything they recommended without question. That is a big mistake! 
