Perspective

The other day I was sitting on the couch and thought, I hope, someday soon, not every single minute of my day is consumed by the thought, I Have MS. It was consumed my thoughts. It has consumed my conversations. It has consumed my wardrobe choices to make sure I stay cool enough. It has even consumed my shoe purchases and pedicures to make sure I am sporting orange.

I know my constant talking about it and posting on Facebook about it and thoughts about it are just part of the acceptance process of the diagnosis of this disease. And I am sure one day soon, it will get easier to just live and not be consumed with the thoughts of the disease. But right now it is all very new and scary.

In the wee hours of the morning today I was reading a book by Joni Eareckson Tada titled A Place of Healing. If you do not know Joni's story, it is a huge testimony of God working through pain to bring about beauty. I remember even hearing her story when I was a young child. This woman dove into a shallow end of a lake and hit her head on the bottom, breaking her neck, and paralyzing her from the neck down. Yet she uses her injury to be in ministry to others with debilitating conditions. She is a painter. She holds the brush in her teeth and paints beautiful works of art. She is a speaker and speaks many places around the country to bring hope to others.

The chapter I was reading today was about regaining perspective. She wrote:

God won't always change our circumstances, but if we ask Him, He will often step in to help us catch a glimpse of life through the eyes of faith, as He sees it. And that glimpse is worth everything.

My disease has no cure. It is a disease that could rob me over the next years of the ability to do anything and everything I hold dear. And most likely, I don't see a god changing these circumstances for me over the next years. Someone told me that I can be a "faithful realist." Someone who trusts in the full power and love of God, but also realizes that what I am facing doesn't have a cure and miracles do not happen for everyone.

And yet. The perspective of what I am facing is something that God can and will change. If I can look at my circumstances as He sees them, and know that by faith, God will see me through, that is what will carry me through.

By faith. Hebrews 11:1 says,

Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you have never seen.

Realities I have never seen. What sort of realities have I not seen by looking at my disease through God's eyes? How can my perspective change? Hebrews 11 is often called the "By Faith" chapter. The chapter tells about how many people didn't understand exactly what God was doing, but by faith, these people were able to follow God through the storms of life. Here is one example of faith:

24 By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be identified solely as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter 25 and chose instead to share the sufferings of the people of God, not just living in sin and ease for a time. 26 He considered the abuse that he and the people of God had suffered in anticipation of the Anointed One more valuable than all the riches of Egypt because he looked ahead to the coming reward.

Things were pretty good for Moses for a long time. The son of a Pharaoh. Then he lived in Midian for awhile, where he had a pretty peaceful life. But then, God called him. God came to him and told him that he had a plan for him. A plan for him to be a leader for the entire nation of Israel. To rescue them from oppression. And he answered God's call. From a burning bush. For a hard job. That did not make sense. But by faith, Moses stepped from the comforts and peace of his life to follow the plan God had for his life. When Pharaoh would not let the people go, when the people grumbled in the wilderness, when they worshipped other gods when Moses went up the mountain, he continued on. His circumstances did not change... As a matter of fact, his circumstances kept getting worse. More whining. More grumbling. But he kept looking to God's plan for these people.  In the end, he never even got to live in the land God had promised to the people. But by faith, he knew that what he was doing was a part of the bigger plan for the people of Israel.

So what part of my perspective needs to change? How can I catch a glimpse of God's perspective of His plan for my life living with MS? Even when I am feeling overwhelmed? Here is the beautiful thing: trusting God has NOTHING to do with following my feelings. I can feel completely overwhelmed but God's plan for me never changes. I can feel sad about being unable to write a card to friends because it hurts my hands too much. But God is still there. I can be happy that I am having a good day, and go out and have lunch with my fabulous mother in law. And God is still working His soverign plan for my life. Always. And by faith, I am going to try and follow and believe that. My circumstances will not change. But I hope to one day see, even if I don't get to live there, a glimpse of the Promised Land that God has for me as a result of these hard times. And until then, I will walk by faith through this valley, through this storm, and let God take my hand.

Restoration

For the last few months, we had been "operating under the assumption that Multiple Sclerosis could be the cause for my current problems." This week the Official Diagnosis came in. I had a spinal tap after an exacerbation where I had lost some vision. In spinal fluid, there are certain markers that are apparent in 95% of patients with MS. After almost 8 months of tests and worry and fear and more tests and more worries and more fears, the spinal tap finally came back as positive for Multiple Sclerosis. An answer. A diagnosis. More fear.

Unfortunately, right now, there is no cure for MS. And it is a nasty, nasty disease. Basically, your white blood cells see your brain and spinal cord as something bad that needs to be attacked. When this happens, the myelin sheath on your nervous system is eaten away, and it causes nerve impulses to not transmit correctly through your body. Nerve impulses for things like walking. Speaking. Thinking. Moving. I am learning that my vision can go. That getting too warm causes me to pass out in a restaurant. That there will be times I can barely move my extremities. Here is a great video that explains the science of MS.

Yesterday I opened my health record app through my doctor's office on my phone. I noticed something new had been added to my health record. There it was: Multiple Sclerosis.

I have been hearing the "possibility of MS" since August. But when you see it there, written in your health record, staring back at you, as a finality, it stinks. Like hardcore. It isn't going to change. It is what it is. A disabling, permanent, horrible disease.

And then the fear came. Fear of living like this. Fear of more episodes. Fear of the unknown of how this body will react with my body. And then anger. Why me? How could this happen to me? Why is God allowing this to happen? Why is He not stepping in and doing something about this? Do I not matter?

Right now it is the season of Lent in the church. A time of preparing ourselves for the celebration of Christ conquering fears, our anger, our sorrow and bringing forth new life. Today I was listening to a sermon, and the pastor was preaching on Jesus healing a leaper in Luke 5. This man, whose body was completely ravaged by disease, says to Jesus, "Lord, if you wish to, You can heal me of this disease." Jesus then says, "I do want to." and the man is healed (more on this in a moment).

This REALLY sat raw with me for awhile. Lord, if you want to? Why would God not want to heal me? Why would he say, "Yes" to heal some and "Nah, don't feel like it" to others? Still, right now, I don't really understand why this interaction happens with these words. I do believe that God's desire is not for us to suffer. It is not his ultimate plan for me to be filled with pain and sorrow all the time. But I also am filled with a realistic faith that there is not a cure for this disease.

I did have someone tell me a quote this week that, "healing is the restoration of meaning to life." I really found this powerful. Physical healing will most likely not be in my future. Yet, to have restoration of meaning to life, that is possible.

Meaning to life in friends supporting me.

SPE Friends dressed in orange

Sandy and Nora wearing their orange

Meaning to life in fighting with all I got.

Steroid treatments to fight an "episode"

Meaning to life in learning new limitations. Meaning to life in soaking up beautiful spring days. Meaning to life in LIVING life through it all.

And I do believe that God can orchestrate this healing and WILL. When Jesus healed the leper in the passage in Luke, it says that Jesus touched the leper. I learned from the sermon today that this was hugely significant. Lepers were "unclean" and were not allowed to interact with people in the Jewish culture. When Jesus touched this man, Jesus also became "unclean." He took on the sickness, the sorrows, the disease, the status of this man. He took it on and he told him it was no more. He healed this man and restored meaning to life for this man. He was able to return home, return to the temple to worship, return to a life. Jesus met this man in his ashes, in his mire, in the pit, and made something new and beautiful in his life.

Right now I still feel very much in the ashes, in the mire, of this diagnosis. Yet, during this time of preparation to celebrate new life in Easter, perhaps it is a time where I can prepare for a resurrection of my new self. A self that has restoration of meaning to life through Christ's love. A self that is broken, but made new by God. A self that sees the hand of God reaching down and touching me with all my infirmities and sorrow, and still is able to make something beautiful and new.