Thank You For Praying

I do not have a headache today.
I do not have a headache today!
I do not have a headache.

This is a sentence I usually get to say one or two days a year. But this is the third time in a week my pain has been gone when I wake up in the morning, and still hasn't shown up.

I can usually say "it's not too bad" or "I took something that's kind of helping" or "it's bad but I don't care." But this absence of pain is just a very foreign concept, like my loose tooth fell out. It was annoying while it was there, but now that it's gone there's a weird hole that's just as distracting as the wiggly tooth.

I'm scared to move, or not move, eat or not eat, sleep or not sleep, because I don't want to rock the boat and bring the pain hurtling back, but I have no idea why it's gone. There are many many things that exacerbate the headache, and some things that seem to make it somewhat better, so after 18 years of doctors and tests and med adjustments, I do have some semblance of control over the issue through meds and massage and trigger avoidance, but usually I hurt, and there's not really a reason, and sometimes it is excruciating, and there is still no reason. I'm used to it, I've learned a lot from it, and I would not be who I am today without it. But on anomalous days like today, I get very confused. I should hurt, everything that has been making me hurt for the last 2 days and 2 weeks and 2 months and 20 years is still here... some sort of dysfunction between my muscles and nerves and blood vessels and who knows what else... It's cold today and the weather's changing, which is a huge trigger, I took a practice test for boards, trigger... quit taking the meds that were working for awhile and then I didn't think were anymore, neck's still stiff and sore and I have knots all over...

The only thing that has happened was 2 weeks ago in women's group we talked about prayer and I was convicted about not praying for relief, so I asked for prayer. I hate doing that, because I generally feel like I am a pretty discouraging person to pray for. Growing up, I hated when people would come up to me and tell me they had been praying and ask if it was any better, since my response was usually always "Thank you, but honestly I am pretty much miserable." Not really one of those faith-building stories. When I was 12, a pediatric neurologist at Mayo told me it would be likely I would be dealing with this for the rest of my life, but that I could maybe get to a more manageable level. He gave me lots of different drugs with terrible side effects and kept talking about "6 headache-free months" to break the pain cycle. I liked that guy, but when he sent me to a headache specialist 4 years later we sure hadn't gotten to any 6 months. And that specialist turfed me to a pain management clinic after about 3 visits- I think he could tell I wasn't going to do his reputation as one of the top headache docs in the US any favors.

I've also struggled with if I should pray or not- maybe I'm just supposed to have this and once I accept it, I can better learn from it. After a lot of years of depression and desperation and anger, I've been shown that God's grace overcomes my small trials, and that life is not actually about being comfortable. I love my life, and am thankful for it, especially because for years I struggled whether or not it was even worth living in constant pain. I've found I enjoy life so much more when I'm not concerned about what I think it should be like. It's easier to give your life to God when you don't really want to live it by yourself. And on days like today I am reminded that my joy isn't tied to comfort at all- I am no more loved or at peace without pain than with pain. However, I am thankful for brief answers to prayer.... although thinking this through has definitely brought back the familiar ache (: Either way, I will continue to pray about this, and am thankful for the billions of other things that I have been blessed with out of God's grace.

Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape

It's been one of those times when I've been reminded that the lessons I am currently learning are lessons I have already learned, multiple times. Things like: If you don't trust God, all the time, with everything, bad things will happen. Duh, I know that. But apparently not.

I love Underoath... Too Bright to See, Too Loud to Hear

Here are the lyrics:

Good God, if Your song leaves our lips  

If Your work leaves our hands  

Then we will be wanderers and vagabonds  

They will stare and say how empty we are  

How the freedom we had turned us up as dead men
Let us be cold, make us weak 

Let us because we all have ears  

Let us because we all have eyes  

Good God
How they knew that this would happen? 

They knew, they knew that this would  

(We’re so run down)  

How they knew that this would happen?  

Good God, can You still get us home?

Good God, can You still get us home?

How can we still get home? (I’m not dreaming) How can we still get home? 
 

We’re forgetting our forgiveness

I think there is also a huge temptation to fix yourself before coming to God. While we are called in Romans 12 to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, we aren't getting there by ourselves, and if we try to get there before we go to God, we are missing the point of his grace through Jesus. Judging from the Old Testament (haha Judges, get it), I'm not the first person to struggle with being an epically slow learner. The Children of Israel were kind of disastrous too.

I've never understood why God wants to save people that he knows are going to turn away, sin, and break his heart. But if I could understand God, he wouldn't be that awesome, because I barely understand how a TV works. So now I am trying to remember the challenge of Hebrews 2:3- "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" The point is not why God has offered salvation, but that he has, and this necessitates a response, not out of obligation but joy.

This Underoath song has been one of my favorites for the last 6-7 years... and the Passion of the Christ video with it is pretty much amazing.
 
Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape 

 I heard a voice through the discord
Of a deluge of passersby.
I saw one gaze frozen in time
Watching me passing by.
I swear I'll know your face in the crowd,
And I'll hear your voice so loud
When you're whispering...
Hey unfaithful I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger.
Hey ungraceful I will teach you
To forgive one another.
Here's my kiss to betray
Desperate to brush the lips of grace.
Do you feel hollow when you think of how I've lied?
Oh sweet angel of mercy with your grace like the morning
Wrap your loving arms around me.
Oh sweet angel of mercy with your grace like the morning
Wrap your loving arms around me.
Hey unfaithful I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger.
Hey ungraceful I will teach you
To forgive one another.
Hey unfaithful I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger.
Hey unloving, I will love you,
I will love you, I will love you.
Hey unloving
I will love you

Jesus I'm ready to come home.

The Other Side of the Tract

So, I had an interesting experience that I can't remember having before... Katrina and I were in the Japanese food store that we go to every time I'm in Nashville, after partaking in the some of most wonderful sushi there is at the adjoining restaurant.
We waited for the saleslady to finish what she was doing, and after she'd rung up my tofu, brown rice, and chili oil, she happily gave us each a book. She didn't seem to speak much English, but she was so excited to share this with us, and pointed out that her email address was in the front cover. She indicated that we should email her, and sent us on our way. The title of the book is "As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen", and is the biography of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
I've apparently been under a rock, because I'd never heard of him, or his massive following, the Unification Church. Haven't started the book yet, but based on what I've been able to read about the religion, it's an offshoot of Christianity that falls into cult territory. I agreed with all of the stated beliefs of the church, which started in South Korea, but apparently Rev. Moon's followers believe he is the Messiah... which sounds like a problem to me.
Anyway, I fully intend to read the book, just so I can email the sweet lady back (although I sure can't type in Korean, or Japanese, and I don't even know which language she speaks...), but what really struck me was that I think that this was the first time I've had someone spontaneously share their faith with me like that. I'm usually more into building relationships than handing out tracts, but her enthusiasm and joy in sharing with us really struck me, and I honestly think that if I was in a situation where I was seeking spirituality from no particular source, as so many people are, I would really have been quite drawn to what she gave me.

Floating

In less than a week I will be finished with clinicals in Tuscaloosa... then in May we are moving to Sylacauga, AL for just 280 more clinical hours before I graduate and am eligible to sit for boards to diagnose people and prescribe medications. I don't know about anyone else, but personally this makes me quite nervous. I don't feel like I know anywhere close to enough to be responsible for anyone's medical care. Also, I haven't taught a kid to swim for months, and I really miss it. I've been teaching kids to swim since long before I was old enough to take the classes, and it is oddly enough a very spiritual experience.
My passion is bringing a child to the first moment they are able to float by themselves; their first time being independent in the water. Before a person can swim, they need to be able to float. But floating can be quite frightening. You have to lie flat in the water, which means it gets in your ears, and you feel like you're going to sink. My kids don't sink, because I hold them up until I know they won't go under (unless they really want me to let go because they are so sure they can do it themselves... then they quickly see they can't, I fish them out and we move on), but it can take a long, long time before someone trusts the water enough to float. If a kid is scared, their muscle tension and trying to hold themselves up by sheer willpower will make them sink. If they aren't scared at all and are over-confident, they usually end up arching their backs so much their face goes under. The kids who do the best are the ones who do what I tell them to do, and don't really worry about it too much beyond that. Huh, how 'bout that.
The phrase "Let go and let God" bothers me because I think it offers an excuse to deny opportunity and forgo responsibility. Or to admit you can do nothing, but allow yourself to be consumed with worry. In some cases, the harder you work, the worse things get.
Humility is similar... the more you work on your humility, the more self-absorbed you become. Habitual, addictive sin? You're either focusing on the sin, or focusing on not sinning. Either way, your focus isn't on God. Our problems are so much smaller than God's solutions, and the Enemy would much rather have us trying to hold ourselves up, being so close, just trying so hard to get there, than giving all of ourselves to God and being free to float, swim, and do whatever He wants us to do. I applied to go back to school because I had prayed and fasted intensely, sought counsel, and I guess it is a little ridiculous to then question all the details...

Russell

This week I am in Nashville with my wonderful friend Katrina. Tonight we are engaged in our usual routine of sitting on our computers studying, putting together presentations, and finishing discussion board postings, and I am remembering the last time I was here and we were doing just this. There was a knock on her door, and after looking through the peephole (it was almost 10), she got an interested look on her face. It turned out to be one of her neighbors, and he wanted to sell her a vacuum cleaner because he needed money. Since her vacuum was broken and I was tired of hauling mine to her house, I thought we should look into it. Also, I felt led to help him out. He told us he wasn't a criminal and we went to go look at the vacuum.

I got the feeling that he was not being honest with us (he couldn't take a check and only wanted $10) but felt reasonably safe in the situation and Katrina seemed to know him. The only cash we had between us was a 20 out in my car, so I went to get it and we invited him in. When I came back in, he was sitting on the couch, and began pouring out a story; how he had been lying to us about not being a criminal, and was facing eviction for prostitution and drug trafficking, and needed the money to get his truck back. We talked with him about how he'd gotten where he was, how ready he was to quit, and then shared the Gospel with him. He said he had maybe heard it before, but he was sixty years old and at the end of his rope. Katrina asked him if he would come to church with her. He said maybe, since he didn't know what else to do. We prayed with him, for God to open his heart and heal his life. He promised to come to church with her, and almost left without his money.

I felt like maybe he was serious about wanting to give his life to God, since he admitted he was in despair with seeing what a mess he was making of it himself, but I also know addicts will tell you what you want to hear, so I prayed earnestly for him but wasn't surprised when he wasn't in his apartment when Katrina went to get him the next Sunday. However, a few weeks later he knocked on her door and told her he'd been in jail, sorry that's why he couldn't go to church, he had just gotten out, the locks had been changed on his apartment, and could she please buy him a ticket to Memphis. She invited him in gave him breakfast while trying to help him figure out what would really be the best choice for him (rehab, a mission, Memphis where he had a history of trouble in the past). He didn't really know what to do, and fell asleep. Then my sweet, innocent, homeschooled roommate loaded him into her car and drove him to a mission she was familiar with, and gave him a ride later to pay off his crack dealer. He called her a few days after she dropped him off to tell her he had been meeting with a pastor there, been going to Bible study, and prayed to give his life to Jesus! He attended church with her on Easter Sunday, shared his testimony with the rest of the mission on Wednesday, and moved to a more rehabilitating situation in KY the end of last week.

This story touches my heart on so many levels.

God loves EVERYONE.

 Even sixty-year old crack addicts/dealers who run prostitution rings in the apartment where they have a picture of their twenty-something daughter hanging on the wall.

Luke 15:7 says there is more joy in heaven over this repentance than 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. (Of course, there is none righteous... seem to be a lot of people who think they are though.) Also, we didn't have to do anything. God literally lead him right to our door, asking for help. Katrina went well out of her comfort zone when the need arose, which was NOT at a time that was at all convenient for her, but we didn't seek him out, we weren't on a missions trip, we were just sitting and studying. He knew Katrina because he had met her at the mailboxes the week she moved in, and thought that she seemed the type of person that he could ask for food when he had used all of his money to buy alcohol and was hungry. He has limited phone access as part of his new living arrangement, but is still keeping in touch. Please be encouraged by this story of redemption not driven by human hands, and remember Russell in your prayers... he has come so far, but will be under incredible spiritual attack in the coming weeks.