Miracle in process...

To catch you up to speed I have to go back to last Thursday. I was sitting at my desk, minding my own buisness when I received an email from Dr. Bolognese in NY. According to him, my urodynamics test was negative which meant that I was not longer a candidate for the tethered cord surgery. His recommendation was to proceed with the posterior fassa decompression surgery (i.e. major brain invasion!) Surgery date - Jan. 28, 2009.

I was in SHOCK! I had spent a whole week shifting gears, quite happily, to the idea that I could have spinal cord surgery and skip the invasive brain decompression. My heart was SO heavy as I called my husband to fill him in on the news.

I spent the rest of the day at work pondering these things and trying to determine if the heaviness in my heart was just disappointment and fear or if it was God telling me that I should not have surgery.

A few hours later I was talking to a friend in the campus bookstore, Yaks, when another girl overheard our conversation and asked me 3 times if I was open to prayer. After I answered yes for the third time she took me over to a group of her friends and asked them to pray for me because I had just found out that I needed to have brain surgery.

The students began to pray that God would heal my body from cancer and tumors and restore me to wholeness. (of course they did not know what was actually wrong with me - they were just assuming that would be the cause of needing brain surgery). I prayed too and was overwhelemed once again by the love of God toward me and by His glory and greatness.

After we finished praying they asked me what I felt while we prayed. I said that I felt God's love and glory. They each shared with me. One said that they felt I was supposed to be writing. Another said that they had a strange picture flash into their mind. I asked what it was. He said that he saw me, but that my head was big, and God's hands reached through a layer of cloudy stuff and lifted my head up above the cloud. Although this did not make sense to him, instantly I knew what he had seen. I spoke to him and said, "While you have been praying for God to heal me from tumors and cancer, the reality is that I need my brain to move up, to be picked up 6 mm." Then I prayed for them.

I wish I could say that I walked away from this and felt differently, but in all reality I still felt the real heaviness in my heart. Several hours later I got in my car for the 1 hour drive home. The pledge drive was on Klove and instead of listening to the music as I usually do I turned down the radio and just began to pray outloud. This might sound funny, but I usually try not to pray in the car because I tend to close my eyes. However, I find that I can pray with my eyes open if I just have conversations with God.

Well, it was not a one sided conversation. God began to speak to me. Our conversation went like this.

God: "Marie, why is it easier for you to believe that I could do a miracle and provide the $8k you need to have surgery but you don't believe that I can heal you.

Me: "I believe that you can heal me

God: "No - you don't.

Me: "I guess it is because I have seen you provide financially, even this last trip to NY, you provided everything we needed in an unbelievable way.

God: That is not it. You don't believe that I can heal you because you are afraid of rejection

Me: "That is so true. I am afraid to believe you can heal be because if I pray for healing, If I tell everyone I am praying for healing, and then I am not healed then I will be disappointed and feel rejected.

God: Marie, what have you learned throughout the last few months? What have I been showing you about myself? What have you testified to others that you have learned through this experience?

Me: "That you love me. I have been experiencing your love and understanding your love for me in a way that I never have before.

Then God began to speak really directly to me. He said,
"I love you. If I love you and you are comfortable in my love, how can you still fear my rejection? I love you! The truth is that you stay where you are comfortable, where you are in control. You sit on the edge of the pool, you dabble your feet in the water. You are not hot, not cold - you are comfortable. If you want to go deeper in your faith, you need to jump in the water with both feet - not walk around and get in as you are comfortable, but jump in the water and trust me."

I accepted this word as being true from God's heart to mine. It was a chastiesment that was given in love and I could see how this is true in my life. I crave control. When I go swimming with my kids, they get in the water and I sit on the edge of the pool - dipping my feet. If I do get in, I never jump in! I walk around and go down the stairs and only as far as my chest- where I can touch and where I am comfortable. God was speaking to me about my faith in terms that I could really understand. I knew what he was saying was true. Even in my relationship with Him I always have a plan B, just in case. I control our relationship and in doing so I really am missing out on something.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. I had a vision. Now I know this sounds crazy since I was driving but it was as someone else said - seeing in my mind's eye.

I saw myself in heaven and I was standing with God and we were looking out over the heavens. I knew that it was the end of my life and that I was going to look with God over my life and this would be the time that I would examine with him the things that I had done. I felt a little scared but overwhelmingly loved - like my whole self, body and soul were wrapped in a warm blanket or a tight hug. I looked at God as though to signal that I was ready.
He moved his right hand and the heavenly mist parted. I could see my whole life - all simultaneous but all various points. There was an overwhelming feeling of pain and sickness. I looked at God and I expressed my understanding that it had been hard and I was so glad that it was over and that I was in heaven. He looked at me with such love! Then, he asked me to look on his other side. He then moved his hand and peeled back the heavenly mist on his left side. There I saw, what I new was an alternative path that my life could have been. There was an overwhelming sense of JOY and peace. I looked at God as if to ask him what that alternative was. He looked at me with kindness and said "This is what I had planned for you, but you didn't trust me to be in control."
I knew that God was saying - regardless of whether or not I chose to trust him to be in control, he would always be there with me, always love me and there was nothing I could do to change the end. However, there was something I could do to change the time I had left on earth. I could trust him instead of trusting my own knowledge.

I was shaken! I still had 20 min. to drive home and by the time I reached the house I had also arrived at a very strong conclusion. I was giving up Plan B. I was not going to leave myself an option for anything other that jumping in the pool with both feet. This was not an easy thing but I have to say that I was more certain than anything that I didn't want to miss out on what God has for me because I needed to understand and be in control.

I walked in the door of my house and told my very suprised husband that I was NOT having surgery. After talking for awhile, he admitted that he has never felt comfortable with the surgery but that he wanted me to be healthy. We prayed together.

I did not have pain or any symptoms at all until Tuesday (5 days). Tuesday was a very stressful day at work. I began to be scared as the pain began and the numbness in my face returned with a vengeance. I began to pray. I put my head down on my desk and prayed my heart out. What happened next is hard to explain, but I will try.

Have you ever eaten a piece of mint gum and then breathed in cold air? You know that very cool, tingly, almost hollow feeling that you get in your mouth and throat? I began to experience an intense pain and this type of cold, tingly feeling in the base of my skull. It was so intense that I thought the back of my head was going to explode. Suddenly it was over. I have been pain free and symptom free ever since.

To those who haven't seen me and seen how deteriorated I had become I feel the need to explain some of my symptoms.
1. I could not stand up or walk without having increase intercranial pressure and syncope (blacking out).
2. I absolutely cannot run and have difficulty going up and down stairs
3. I cannot laugh or cry (this causes great pressure in my neck and cuts off breathing)
4. I feel like I am choking all the time and can no longer eat certain foods
5. Numbess on the left side of my entire body.
6. Numbness in my feet
7. Sensitivity to light and sound
8. Severe and debilitating pain in my head (I lived with an ice pack on my neck to even manage).

We had talked several times recently about going on disability. Several days my mother-in-law would come and pick me up from work or take me to work. It was awful and getting worse all the time.

Friday night, I laid in bed after I got home from the ladies retreat and I realized that I had laughed!!!! I had laughed vigourously without any thought about it at all. I hadn't become sick, my head hadn't swollen. I was so exctied I couldn't wait to tell someone.
Then, on Saturday, when I was at the retreat, my cousin was cold and I said I would go to the car to get her a sweater. I got up, bounced down the stairs, jogged across the parking lot and was half way back before I realized what had happened!! I had gotten up without blacking out , manuevered stairs with ease (instead of holding on and going step by step), and jogged!!!!

I feel like a new person! My husband said last night that this is seriously hard for him. I went from being a near invalid to being my healthy self from over a year ago. And it is incredible.

I have been sharing my story with anyone who will listen. And in return I am hearing great stories of miracles they have experienced in their own lives. I am asking that if you have experienced a miracle - big or small, will you write me? Will you share with me and remember the amazing things that God has done in your life?

Thank you for praying for me and supporting us financially. Currently, all of our medical bills are paid for due to your generosity, and, why should I be suprised, there was just enough - not more and not to little, to cover these expenses.

I pray that you are blessed by the miracle that God has done in my life. I look forward to hearing from you.

Marie

Slow Faith

I am working through what I believe about healing. Over the past few days I have really been challenging myself to think about what I believe on this issue.

I mentioned previously the movie "Facing the Giants" and how the pastor says that two men prayed for rain and only one man went out and prepared his fields for rain - which man believed God would provide the rain? The one who prepared his fields.

In the exact opposite manner, is it really faith believing for God's healing if I continue to plan for surgery? When I see people and they ask how I am doing and what the plans are do I speak of the surgery plans or do I speak of what God is doing in my life?

Right now I am straddling the fence. In my conversations I give glory to God for the great things He is doing in my life and then say that I am asking for healing but we are looking at surgery in January. It feels really hypocritical!

Last week a sweet Christian sister was sharing with me an intimate conversation she had with God one morning about a tree in her yard. She was enjoying this tree and noticed that all the other trees had been cut down but this one remained in the perfect spot. She felt God speak to her that he put the tree there for her to enjoy. Not only for that purpose but he knew that one day she would drink her coffee and enjoy the beauty and shade of the tree. How much does God love us? Enough to plant a tree for our pleasure? Certainly. I can acknowledge that God would be pleased to see us enjoy his creation.

Yesterday morning I sat in discouragement at my computer looking at my ever shrinking paycheck and this one loan for $550 that I keep meaning to pay but the money is never there. On my gorgeous one hour drive to work I listened to the encouraging words of KLOVE and pondered the ways that God has been providing for my family in the past few weeks. I know that God has been providing for my medical bills and my travel expenses but somehow it does not seem right to ask him to help me out of my own stupid pit of debt - the pit I put myself into. Yesterday when I got home from work there was a gift from the school where my children attended last year. They took up a collection and sent us a check to use "wherever needed". The amount of the check - an even $550 - exactly the amount I had been beating myself up over in the morning.

What is God trying to say to me in this? I hear his gentle voice speaking to me "I love you!" Love is defined by rules and guidelines. Love can give a shade tree, love can provide to cover a multitude of sin, love is symbolized in the blood shed on the cross. The blood that was shed on the cross was in payment for my sin and my sickness. There is healing in the blood of Jesus!

I am wrestling with my heart and with my intellect. Imagine with me if you will two little people, one on each shoulder : Intellect and Faith.
Intellect speaks and says: "You have a birth defect. God formed you and knew that this moment would come. He guided you to find the best team of surgeons in the country and provided for you to travel there to see them. He is providing for you to have this surgery and he will walk through this valley with you. " This intellect is masking itself to sound like faith.

Faith however has an entirely different voice: "You have wanted to see the Almighty God in a real way. This is the pinnicle of the crisis of faith you have been walking through for years. This is the time where you choose whether you will trust God or man. This is it! You have a choice here, walk in the way of faith- scary but exciting, or choose to walk in the way that makes sense. If you truly believe that God is who he says he is - don't have the surgery. Seek the Lord and Trust in HIM not in medicine."

This is not easy. Either way.
Tonight I went to the coffee shop for sustanance and ended up praying with a group of students. I felt the love of God in an entirely new way. I wonder when I will exhaust the ways to feel his love?

Two people have spoken into my life that God's will is for healing. One to my mother in New Mexico and one tonight. Without even really knowing my situation, one man who prayed for me tonight(who was somehow under the impression from our conversation that I had cancer) had a picture of my head breaking through the clouds- being pulled up. I have that picture in my mind but of my brain - that my brain is lifted up and my spinal fluid is restored.

I am still in the baby steps process of this. I need to research my theology on healing and I need to spend some time talking with my heavenly father. Right now though, I can see that I sit straddled on the fence- healing on one side and surgery on the other. I really don't believe that it is my fear of surgery talking here, actually surgery is what everyone expects me to do. Not having surgery will be hard too - especially if the healing is not quick in coming. There will be trials ahead.
There is a song on the radio right now called "slow fade" and it is playing over and over in my head but what I am hearing is a different version that sounds more like this...

"its a slow faith - when you give yourself away
its a slow faith - when black and white fades to gray
choices made, prices to be paid when you give your life away, it's a slow faith"

My faith may be slow in growing but the strongest and longest lasting things are not easy to obtain or quick in the making.

First day back at work

Today is my first day back at work all day. I am super tired but it is nice to see all my co-workers again. I have made an appointment to see my primary care physician on Wednesday, October 22. After that we will be working on referals to other doctors. I am praying for strength to continue to work.

Thank you for your financial and prayer support

Thank you for all your prayers. Jered is back at work this week after nearly a month off and we are so thankful to have work again. I go back to work tomorrow.Thank you again for all of you love and support. I want to write each of you a thank you note and I keep sitting down to try. I am so frustrated by my inability to finish these tasks because of the pain. Jered and I are deeply blessed. Because of your generosity in giving to our family we have paid all but $375 of our medical bills! Thank you so much! I pray that you will be blessed for your generosity. We feel so loved.

10/13/08

Hi friends. I am having trouble sending out emails to all of you so I welcome you to check out my blog as we go through this amazing journey. Either Jered or I will be updating this blog site as we go through the next few months.
At this time we are waiting to hear back from the doctor in NY and we are going to seek a referral to a doctor in California.
We really believe that God led us to and provided for us to go to the TCI clinic in NY so that I could be properly diagnosed. Now that we have that diagnosis we are going to look for a surgeon who specializes in spinal neurosurgery who is a little closer to home. The reasons for this are very practical. 1. closer to home means less travel expenses and no long flight after surgery.2. we will only be gone for 10 days or so as opposed to 21 days.3. Jered can stay with family in the area and I can have family visit while we are in the hospital.4. The insurance will pay in network prices for these doctors which we feel is fiscally prudent on our part.5. There are very good neurosurgeons in CA and now that we have gotten a direction we feel confident we can find a surgeon who can do the surgery and follow up as well as help should any complications arise. Follow up will be in CA which means less traveling over the next year.
I am looking at 2 doctors right now, Dr. Kee D. Kim and Dr. Boggan who are both part of the UC Davis spine clinic. We are praying that God will give us wisdom and favor as we seek out the person who will be our doctor for this surgery.