This year I have much to be thankful
for. After being extremely sick for nearly 3 years, I am feeling
much, much better! I am not 100% better, but the difference between
where I was, and where I suddenly am now, is huge.
I did not realize how sick I was, when
I was going through the illness. I think I was so focused on
"survival" that I did not have the capacity to think about
it... I just kept going, trying to get through one more day.
Twice I was so sick that I can't imagine that death feels any worse. The dizziness was ALWAYS there. I did not get a break from it, only the severity of it changed. I was shaky. I also had trouble sleeping, trouble thinking, trouble speaking. It was all made worse very quickly from both noise, and movement. I had to be vigilant about noticing when it was starting to get worse, because if I did not stop what I was doing to rest right then, a few moments later I might be incapacitated, left to recover in bed for hours or days from just a few moments of exposure!
One of the greatest difficulties was in
how limited I was in talking to my children. Conversations had to be
short and spaced out. My own voice was one of the things that hurt me
the worst. I had to carefully choose each word that I spoke, because
I was limited in how many words I could speak without having to stop
and rest to recover from the hurt that my own voice did to me!
I had not given up hope for getting
well, but after 32 months of this, day in and day out, I did start to
wonder getting well would ever actually happen. Then one day this
fall, I took another new medicine. This one was probably close to the
200th thing I had tried. Within hours of starting it, I
was 80% better.
I can hardly believe that I am calling
myself "well" now! Really, I can hardly believe this.
Life is new, and fresh, and amazing. I
can speak a GREAT DEAL more words to my children again! I can read to
them! I can play with them! I can DO things with them! I can be in
public and be able to tolerate it! It does not hurt me anymore to
come to church. I can SING again! (I literally could not sing in
church... a little, quietly, alone, but not in church with the volume
of everyone else singing!) For the last 3 years, I could hardly make
it through an entire church service, but now I CAN. I can cook! I can clean! I can do the dishes! (I even
find I like doing the dishes now!) I can run, and yell and I
am not forced to suffer, "recovering", resting quietly for
hours or days from one little mistaken exposure to these things that
hurt me so terribly for so long! I do not need to wear my ear plug,
which I had to wear when I was around people for those 32 months! I
have not needed my headset at all since getting better. It takes a
lot of noise, and I can move a great deal now before getting sick and
having to stop and recover.
I am thankful, beyond words, to the
Lord for making me well again. This is an answer to the continuing
prayers of more people that I even know!
As I was considering how to give thanks
to God, publicly, for what He has done in making me well, all I could
think about was the way the Lord was with me through those long years
of illness. This is a bigger call for thanksgiving.
I cannot express how thankful and joyful I feel over being WELL again, after such a long, incapacitating illness, but it strikes me that God's love is better. I want to give thanks to Him for loving me throughout this long trial. Every day, He was there. Even when I was too sick to turn my head in bed, I could silently cry out to Him! When I could not clean my house because I had to spend my little bit of ability working so that I could pay the bills, He was with me, telling me it was okay, because He loved me. Hebrews 13:5 "He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." He spoke these words in His Word, and he has made them very real to my heart.
He has done marvelous things. He has
redeemed my soul. He has promised life eternal. He has given
Himself... He has loved me. He does all of these things, without
fail. There is not a moment when we cannot trust Him. There is not a
moment that He is not with us, no matter what circumstances of life
He brings us. He is good. He is faithful.
Romans 8:38-39 says, "For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, no angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
These have been my favorite words in the entire Bible for most of my
life, and they continue to be.
I am thanking God, with joy and real,
heartfelt thanks for making me well again. But I cannot thank Him for
that, without thanking Him for His love and care of me through
through the dark, difficult days! This is what sustained me, and His
love is a far greater thing than my recovery.
