Satisfied

John Piper says that his life quote is, “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied with Him.” I’ve been thinking about this quote and evaluating my own satisfaction in Christ. I’ve been realizing I have not been content with my current situation in life and consequently I’ve been saddened that God cannot be more glorified in me. During the months of dealing with Aplastic Anemia I trusted Him completely. I felt slain, but at the same time I was at peace in His presence. Once I became aware I was healing from this blood disease I think I expected life to resume as normal, at least normal in terms of health. I did not expect the body trauma of chemotherapy and radiation to leave me with the scar of chronic fatigue, nor the steroid treatment to weaken me and leave me with the pain of a bone disease. I was surprised to find that the chronic fatigue negatively affected my depression and the dark cloud it cast over my life. It’s left me with a sense of loss over my health and the things I am able to do. To be honest, the ongoing fatigue, pain, worsening depression, and the consequential losses have left me feeling unsatisfied with my life. In the realm of expectations I had for my days, none of these remotely fit in. I truly want God to be most glorified in me, so another process of surrendering my desires begins. As I render my desires, leaving them in the hands of my loving Father, I discover a greater degree of satisfaction in Him and a place where all things are possible. It is in this place I’m reminded and encouraged by Jesus’ words when He said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16.33).

Kiev

Ah, Kiev. The sights and sounds of being in a foreign land did my heart good. Memories of being overseas prior to illness filled my soul and I was happy. Everything from sidewalk vendors with little old Ukrainian ladies selling brightly colored fruits and vegetables to the smell of cat urine in apartment hallways made my heart smile. They were all a part of embracing a life overseas. The negative was that my knee started hurting after only short amounts of walking and we walked everywhere. There was one day we walked and walked throughout the day and tears threatened as I went from happiness to being overseas to sadness over my current state and lamented over the old me that could walk around carefree. I would look around me and see thousands of people walking around without a thought for their legs and for a moment, all I could see was the unfairness of it all. I wanted healing from this more than healing from my blood disease. If God had not healed me from my blood disease I’d be in Heaven, but to walk around in pain all the time and feel the weight of holding people up…in the midst of pain it all seemed too overwhelming. Later, when we returned to where we were staying and I had time to be quiet before the Lord I was encouraged by Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains –
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of Heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip –
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, He who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you –
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm-
He will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

I have been blessed the past two years by attending a free online conference during National Chronic Invisible Illness Week presented by Rest Ministies. If you or anyone you know struggles with a chronic illness of any kind, encourage them to check out this conference. There are a variety of topics and lots of helpful resources and information. Check them out!

For those of you waiting for an update from my Ukraine trip, it's coming. I've had some heavy chronic fatigue days since returning and a couple of other issues, but should post something very soon.

Ukraine Bound

I haven’t posted in awhile. I was on some medication for several weeks that made my fatigue even more intense. I seemed to barely function over the last couple of months. I have recently switched meds and feel much more normal now. Praise the Lord!

Tomorrow I fly to Kiev, Ukraine to spend about a month with my husband doing ministry. My husband works with a ministry that trains missionaries to the former Soviet Union in the Russian language so they’ll be more effective in their ministry. The ministry is going over to Kiev this summer to assist missionaries who are currently struggling with the language. My husband and I are responsible for the logistics of this.

Over the last several months I have struggled with going. I am an unofficial member of the ministry. I’m on disability. I struggle with walking long distances and standing for long periods of time because of my bad bones. I wrestle with chronic fatigue. Who in their right mind would want me to be part of the team? I spent two years as an overseas missionary many years ago and then I was healthy. I could zip here and there and not even think about it. It’s been almost 6 years since I got sick and I haven’t been overseas since. It’s scary. What if my fatigue and pain issues keep me from being useful? This trip is a little bit of a test to see how I can cope with the rigors of overseas travel. What if I fail miserably?

My challenge has been to be convinced that it is God who has called me. He is in His right mind and He will be faithful to what He has called. Of course I can go through the logical reasons, but to be truly convinced in my soul that He will work His good purposes through me, a physically weaker version of my old self is the question. The apostle Paul’s words have come with new meaning as I think of my physical state when he wrote, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty…I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” (Phil. 4:12, 13)

So I’m now looking forward to seeing how He’ll be strong in my weakness. I’m praying for Him to use me to be a blessing, in whatever way He sees fit. He hasn’t led me to go along with my husband for no reason. I may not have a direct purpose, but thanks to God, I now have vision for Him to use one even such as I.

Freedom of Spirit

For unclear reasons I’ve been battling fatigue issues more intensely and for a longer duration of days than I’m accustomed. This chronic fatigue slams a hammer on my depression buttons and I feel bits and pieces of myself break apart. It requires great effort to cling to the truth that I still have value and worth when I find myself struggling to do even the mundane daily tasks of life like unloading the dishwasher. The last few days I’ve been praying and meditating a little on the Lord’s Prayer. I found myself praying over and over for His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. I was thinking how in Heaven there are no battles with fatigue, depression, etc. and somehow I superimposed that into a hope for eventually none of these health struggles on earth. I realized how much I wanted to feel normal and healthy and how I had given almost no thought to whether or not God’s perfect will was for me to live right in the midst of the struggle. Then I read a Thomas a Kempis quote that spoke of “a pure and whole forsaking of ourselves and of our own will, that we might get freedom of spirit.” Light flooded into my soul and suddenly I understood that I was meant to submit my will of being desirous of good days and normalcy to the Lord of the universe who has perfect control over my body. He could, after all, heal whatever has been making me so fatigued and even though I knew somewhere inside that He has good reasons for allowing health issues, I’ve been fighting whatever those unknown reasons are. Freedom of spirit has come because of the death of the seed of my will and as Lilias Trotter wrote, now I wait “for it to heave its tombstone and come out into the light.” (From A Path Through Suffering, by Elisabeth Elliot, p.174, 1990)

BLOG Carnival

Chronic Illness and Pain Support is a BLOG by the founder of Rest Ministries, Lisa Copen. I've been honored by having one of my postings featured on the website as part of her BLOG Carnival. I've been so encouraged by the resources and connections I've made through these sites. If you or a friend struggles with any form of mental and/or physical chronic illness, I'd encourage you to check out the resources on these sites.

Little Troubles

My last few weeks have been marked by an increase in fatigue. I’m not really sure why, but it has discouraged me somewhat. Spring has sprung in my corner of the world and yet my body feels like hibernating. Yesterday I was longing for a hammock or some sort of outdoor reclining chair in which I could nap and still somehow enjoy the glory of a spring afternoon. It saddened me to “waste” the afternoon sleeping in my bed, but fatigue held mastery over my body and I had to relent. My husband even offered a Sunday afternoon trip out to a beautiful spot by a lake in a nearby town, but my body wouldn’t have it.

“These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious, and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain. For we are looking all the time not at the visible things but at the invisible. The visible are transitory: it is the invisible things that are really permanent” (II Corinthians 4:17-18 JBP).

It’s not always wanting to enjoy a spring day that feels hampered by my fatigue; there are countless things I want to do or feel I need to do that often stare me in the face. Once again I’m reminded that these things are “little troubles”. Some days I’m thoroughly discouraged by this transitory fatigue, but even if it lasts a lifetime, it’s still transitory and today I get to choose to “not lose heart” (II Cor. 4:16). I possess the very Spirit of God as an invisible thing, “a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (II Cor. 5:5). I long for those days on days like today, when I’m absent from the body, but present with the Lord (II Cor. 5:7). How thankful I am that in the meantime God is inwardly renewing me day by day with the invisible things (II Cor. 4:16).

Indulgence

I’ve been “in recovery” for close to 5 years now. So far I’ve had a setback every time I’ve gotten close to moving off of disability. This frequently has plagued me with the thought of, “What on earth am I supposed to do with my life?” After surviving a life-threatening illness I have this burning desire to not be happy with just anything. I want to do something I enjoy and that fulfills me with a sense of purpose, something bigger and higher than myself. It could be anything from the seemingly mundane to the seemingly glorious, but it must be something I know has been designed for me at this particular stage of my life. I’ve been re-reading and re-working through a book I’ve found extremely helpful called, Coming Up For Air: Simple Acts to Redefine Your Life, by Margaret Becker. I might mention this book several times in the future since I’m going through it again now. It’s been great in getting me to think about the things that really matter to me. In the last couple of weeks I’ve been asking myself a couple of questions that have sprung from this book: What gives me meaning? What would I do if I could do anything I wanted and for as long as I wanted?

I think it’s beneficial to ask ourselves these questions. I think they can help us determine the things God has placed in our hearts. However, our spiritual equilibrium can become upturned if we become too self-focused. A friend and sister I’ve never met recently sent me the following quote from Joseph Stowell’s Strength for the Journey; “If you are in the process of becoming a follower of Christ, life is not about a journey to get to know yourself but an adventure in getting to know Jesus…Your life will either be about self-absorption or about a Savior who is adored.” I feel the pull of wanting to search out who I am in this new life post transplant. That draw can entice my focus and take it away from Christ and onto an egocentric toll road of self-discovery where I’m left to pay the toll of my indulgence. I’ve been trying to salvage my life, as if I could or should be attempting to do so, and in the process I’ve often felt like I’ve been falling apart. “Do we not lose our very lives by trying so hard to save them?” (Elisabeth Elliot) Yes, ask ourselves questions that clarify who we are to be for Him, but let us not do so at the expense of moving our eyes off the precious mark of Christ. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me [Jesus] and for the gospel will save it.” Mark 8:35

Aplastic Anemia

My intention is not to bore anyway with medical details, but a couple of people have asked me to describe my illnesses/health issues.

When I was 33 I became pregnant with our first child. In my 6th month I began bruising and I figured this was related to pregnant clumsiness. A blood test at the beginning of my 7th month proved this wasn’t the case and landed me in the hospital for further tests. Two days later our son got into distress for unknown reasons and ended up dying. To make a long story short, a few weeks later I was diagnosed with severe Aplastic Anemia, a bone marrow disease where the marrow ceases to produce red, white, and platelet cells. If left untreated I was expected to die within 6 months. I started a drug treatment therapy called ATGAM that ultimately failed and the search began for a bone marrow donor. An unrelated donor was found and in May of 2004 I received a bone marrow transplant. I was given a 60% chance of surviving two years post transplant. In May of 2009 I’ll have reached the five year mark, thanks to the mercy of God and a very kind young man who donated his bone marrow.

To date I struggle with a few health issues that are side effects from my treatment, namely chronic fatigue, avascular necrosis, and infertility. The chronic fatigue is simply the result of all the trauma my body has gone through. Daily I wrestle with my energy levels and some days are better than others. The avascular necrosis is a bone disease that is a side effect from the high dose steroids I was on as part of my treatment. It has caused pockets of bones to die in my hips and knee. I went through a bone graft surgery a few years ago to try and correct the problem in one hip, but that didn’t accomplish one of the goals of alleviating pain so last year I went ahead with getting a hip replacement. In non-boring fashion, I managed to pick up a couple of staph infections during surgery and also had a nerve complication which has resulted in my left foot being (theoretically) temporarily paralyzed for roughly two years. The infertility is a result of the chemotherapy and full body radiation I received to kill my bone marrow in order to receive the new donor marrow.

The other “issue” I battle is depression, which I’ve had for years. A variety of things related to my health issues can intensify this battle from the chronic fatigue to dealing with physical pain to emotional issues surrounding infertility or grief related to the loss of our son to not being able to do the things I used to be able to do.

So, there’s the nutshell version of all things related to my health. If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask. I may get weary of the battle at times, but I do have a great hope in a Great God whose love for His children endures forever. If it weren’t for Him, I would have given up long ago.

Buried

I’ve been slowly working my way through Elisabeth Elliot’s book, A Path Through Suffering. There are many lessons for me to grapple with in this book, but today I’m considering the idea that sometimes death is only part of the final step in surrender. Elizabeth shares the story of Lilias Trotter, the first missionary to Algiers. After seven years of enduring the harsh climate, Lilias returned to England utterly exhausted. “The doctor said her nerves and heart were worn by the strain of the battle and by the climate.” In addition to the physical sufferings, she had experienced firsthand the spiritual oppression of living in a spiritually dark land. What was her response?

While in the autumn months of England she noticed acorns falling on the road and “thought how they would never come to anything because they were only lying on the ground, not in it.” “She wrote of ‘a lovely sense of what it meant to be ‘buried with Christ’- not only ‘dead’ but ‘buried,’ put to silence in the grave; the ‘I can’t’ and the ‘I can,’ put to silence side by side in the stillness of ‘a grave beside Him’ with God’s seal on the stone, and His watch set that nothing but the risen life of Jesus may come forth.’” So Lilias renewed her commitment and took the words of John 12:24 to heart: “In truth, in very truth I tell you, a grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls into the ground and dies; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest.”

So today, and probably for awhile, I’ll be contemplating just how to bury those “I can” and “I can’t” statements. In this new life of limitations there is great temptation to focus on all I can’t do and lament over what I used to be able to do. I look at the immensity of various tasks and wonder how I can effectively take part.

I am greatly encouraged by Lilias’ story, and I hope you will be too. She returned to Algiers, with all her limitations and with the enormity of the task before her and when she returned she experienced discouragement upon discouragement. “She was strengthened by the thought of Moses’ unanswered prayer to enter the Promised Land. Centuries later he was allowed to stand on the mountain there with Jesus Himself. And Elijah, because he was denied his request to die, experienced the glory of the fiery chariot when it was God’s time for him to go.” So too am I strengthened this day with the power of prayer that surpasses the “bounds of physical possibility,” just as the risen life of Christ breaks through those who are buried with Him.

(With exception to the quote from John 12:24, all quotes are taken from A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship Between God’s Mercy and Our Pain, Elisabeth Elliot Gren, Servant Publications, 1990.)

Unbeliever

One of the things I’ve been learning about sickness is that it can have the affect of making you an unbeliever in yourself. Seemingly unending days of not feeling like yourself can wear you down and things like vision and dreams give the impression of something that was part of a former life. To do anything beyond existing can seem utterly exhausting. I don’t think those of us who struggle with physical limitations are alone in this. We all experience twists and turns in life that lead us down an unexpected road. But what about our dreams? Did we get too old for them? Do they seem unreachable? Does it seem pointless to dream? Maybe I have to reinvent my dreams because of my limitations, but so what? At least I’m moving forward, even if only in my thinking.

Thinking about dreams and vision has forced me to think about how I see God’s Hand in my life. I’ve realized that I’ve been acting contrary to what I believe. Although I do believe God sometimes orchestrates things in such a way as to make the direction obvious, I also believe that He is no Great Puppeteer, pulling our strings to get us to move where He wants. But this is not the way I’ve been behaving. I’ve acted as if I can’t make a move unless I’ve clearly heard Him speak, “This is the way; walk ye in it.” This is not to discount times of waiting upon Him for that clear answer. Sometimes He asks us to wait. In fact, He often asks us to wait on Him. Yet how often am I personally in a stalemate because I’ve used waiting on God as an excuse when in reality I’m just too chicken to make a move? Don’t I trust God enough that when I live a life submitted to Him He is perfectly able and big enough to re-direct me if I start down an unwise path? Limitations may be the reason for this perverted belief that I’m useless because I cannot do the things I used to do or dreams are a forgotten art of the past, but He is not an unbeliever in me and so I must lay down my fear, since this is not the spirit He’s given me, take a deep breath, and move forward.

Hard Pause

When I started this BLOG I thought I was ready for the adventure. It was a goal to do something with writing. I’m learning that part of the adventure of goal making doesn’t just require making reachable goals, but leaving room for failure or hard pauses. The unexpected happens - More sickness; more setbacks; depression. I was tempted to delete my two entries or start a new BLOG because of the long absence, but I decided that it was important for me to openly admit to myself (and the world?) that I can keep trying on a thing even after a long and unintended sabbatical. I do not need to hide the fact that I “failed”.

I’ve never been good at failures. It’s a battle not to equate any kind of failure with viewing myself as a failure. It’s just how I grew up. But now this seems liberating to me…to allow myself a “failure”, accept the hard pause for what it was and not a reflection of me, and move on.

So, in all honesty, I don’t know where this thing will lead. I really don’t even know what specifically I’m writing about. All I know is that I’m jumping off the cliff of writing in obedience to my Lord that “this is the time” and I fully expect Him to not only catch me, but to help me soar. I welcome you on the journey with me to see where this adventure leads.