I slunk out of the office exactly at 6:00, not even saying farewell to single soul. I have now showered and re-wrapped my left arm and am hoping to sleep some this evening. I have not been sleeping well, being so ill, and am hoping to combat the constant dizziness that I know has to be from fatigue...and...well...losing 10 lbs as of this morning. I cannot fathom how this medication can be helping me save for the uptick in my oxygen saturation. I have not, in case you failed to notice, the slighted bit of patience when it comes to violent nausea.
My left arm is wrapped because four days ago, a tiny spot of poison oak rash appeared on the back of my wrist. Two little dots. Now, mind you, I have not even stepped foot in the yard for two weeks as of this evening. However, somehow that doesn't matter with me. I am slow to respond and when I do it is a great battle to conquer it. The rash spread to the inside of my upper left arm. One tiny spot. Then two. Now, I have pustules dotting the span of a palm across that area. I usually take a course of prednisone as the only way to stop this, but right now I was advised not to do so because of my condition. While topical creams only abate the itch somewhat, I slathered the spot and covered it with bandage and wrap so that I might not scratch it. As I was doing so this evening, I noticed a new spot on the back of my left hand. Funny, it is all on that arm...nowhere else.
When I am puttering about the soil, I wear pants and gloves and then I scrub my arms with Comet when I come inside, on the off chance I might have touched the stuff. I still cannot find it, but I know it lurks somewhere about the back yard.
Don't you think two weeks is a bit ridiculous to actually be having a response to a possible poison oak contact?
I was able to talk via Skype with a specialist, going over the realities of the surgical repair I desire. The conversation was so very hard, yet she is one of those women who just plain exudes gentleness and kindness. My goodness, if she were my doctor, I will willingly come in at the slightest crook of her finger and strip bare. No avoidance whatsoever. She was honest, though, and I did not find the situation hopeful. Actually a bit less than what I had thought and I had thought I was being pretty realistic about the situation. The recovery would be even longer. I know the chances of success are only about 70%, but I did not really understand that I could actually be worse off.
I should admit that I started started crying in frustration and then found that I could not stop weeping. The situation in itself is hard for me, but I also have been struggling to wrap my mind around a degenerative neurological condition that interrupts autonomic functions. There is so little out there. Some reads as...oh, okay...but some is just plan distressing. If you stumble upon people talking about it, well, you'd be asking to have MS instead. Oh, yeah, I got that one. There is a connection to diabetes, but since it is an autoimmune condition, it just has to have some connection to MS as well.
Yesterday morning, I fainted when I got out of bed. [Somehow, I need to remember to sit up slowly and then stand slowly only after I have been sitting awhile.] And when I was talking with a woman at work, sitting in a chair, I suddenly started feeling the pressure in my neck signaling lowering blood-pressure and started seeing stars. So, I had to lay down on the floor. Now, all the stress and nausea and lack of food just has to be contributing to that. In fact, the vesovagal syncope can happen just from stress and fear. But a person should be able to wake up and get out of bed without endangering her health, shouldn't she?
So, I wept.
I would like to note that the sister of my heart shouted a great big "I love you, Myrtle!" to me last night. While I was talking on the phone, I heard my email ping. I try not to get my hopes up with that because I have had a fair amount of junk mail of late. But when I checked my inbox before heading off to bed, I discovered an email from Bettina.
That dear woman, that magnificent creature, made an audio clip of the piece I posted yesterday from Pastor E on Sweet Has Christ Made the Bitter Waters! I was right in that listening to it I heard more, that it was different to have the teaching of the Gospel fall upon my ears rather than to take it in merely with my eyes.
Do you think that bitter waters made sweet is part of the joy of trials?
You know, the world would truly be a better place would it were that everyone had a Bettina in his or her life. It absolutely would.
After 15 years of having her in my life, I have only now just come to realize just how extraordinary, just how rare it is the gift of her friendship. If I doubt that God loves me, in the midst of trials, I really only have to look so far as her and know that I am loved with a love greater than I will ever fathom, deeper than I will ever see, and more precious than I can ever know.
He gave me the tangible of my baptism. He gave me the tangible of the body and blood of His son. For anyone, these are enough. For me, they would be. But God loves me so much, so very much, that He also gave me the tangible of a woman who loves me, minding not that I no longer remember much of our friendship, and spends her time and energy searching for ways in which I might know that I am loved. She simply could not do this without Christ. No one would. No one could.
How much more, then, does my Father in heaven love me when He has lavished upon me such selfless love?
Remind me of this, please, whenever I forget....
When reading from the Book of Concord about baptism to "Manna," I came across one of my favorite bits (yes, I know, I have too many "favorite bits" to keep track of when it comes to our confessions):
For it [the Word] has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. (LC, Part IV, 17-18)
This I know to be true with a certitude that is absolute, even in the midst of great confusion. It oft makes no sense to me other than this simple fact that the Word is Living, the Word is God.
Whenever I come across this, though, I always pause to ponder why it is that Luther chose to insert that truth into his section on Baptism. I mean, I know that he is tackling the first Sacrament and explaining that which makes a Sacrament is the very Word attached to it (without the Word there simply is no Sacrament) and emphasizing that since it is a Sacrament that it is a work of God, not man. However, this is such a profound teaching. Why not insert it into his instruction on the third commandment on the Lord's Day? For ought we not to understand what it is that we are receiving in the Service of the Word portion of the Divine Service, the Living, Saving, Forgiving, Sanctifying, Justifying Power of His Word poured upon us? Or...why not insert it in his instruction on the Lord's Prayer? Ought we not to understand the Living, Saving, Forgiving, Sanctifying, Justifying Power of praying the Lord's Prayer?
No! Instead, you are two thirds and a bit through his instruction before Luther drops this bomb in your lap. Hey, by the way, don't you forget for one moment that those are no mere black marks on a page. They are God. They are God given to you. They are God spoken to you. They are God Giving. They are God Speaking. They are all that which is God and all that which He has done.
Is that not, then, one of the greatest mysteries of which undershepherds are stewards? The mystery that the Holy Scriptures are alive. Alive!
Anyway, I know this to be true, for when I am in the depths of despair, you can read aloud to me from the Bible and I will respond, almost against my own will, to its power. A while ago, a woman came into where I was crumpled on the floor in abject fear and sorrow and frustration, sang the Agnus Dei (from page 198) to me, then flipped to the Psalter and told me to give her a number. Without thought, I called out 77. By the time she finished praying that prayer for me, praying with Christ, my torrent of tears had abated, for I cannot deny the wonder that God would cause to be written the words of my heart that I might pour them back to Him. And I cannot resist the power of His grace and mercy working in my heart as His Word falls upon my ears.
The power of the Living Word, the fact that is all that our triune God is and can do all that our triune God does, is why I happen to believe that one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given is "Manna," a woman who reads of my abject longing and utter hunger to be read to more than I am, even though she has taught me I have an embarrassment of riches in that department compared to even those in confessional Lutheran churches and even though she is in the midst of her own great trial, the loss of her son, and says, "Well, I can do that!" and does so freely, selflessly, lovingly. A stranger in a far away land. Literally. Yet the instrument of God's voice to me.
Should you ever long for the same. Should you ever wish for someone to pour out the Living Word upon you, sing over you His truth, send me an email with your phone number. I will do the same. How could I not?
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things. ~Romans 8:32
19. JESUS BLESSES US BEYOND OUR IMAGINATION.
It's true that the road is narrow; following Jesus is not a life of luxury. But it's also true that God has numbered the hairs on our head, and that "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him," (I Corinthians 2:9b).
We can count on God's provision and blessings because He's already proven His faithfulness by providing His Son. Because of Jesus, we can approach our days with faith and watchfulness. We never know how God might bless us today.
Lutherans see blessings differently, I believe, than most Christians. They count as beautiful the crosses I am bearing, for Lutherans know that they are the instrument of my salvation, that God will be glorified in them, and that I will be raised with Christ by and with and in and through them. Someone wanted to help me see this and wrote:
The Lord Jesus loves you, Myrtle. He has made Himself like you in every way, and He has also borne your sins and griefs and sorrows, every one of them. He has atoned for your every sin, redeemed you from every evil, purchased and won you for Himself, cloaked and covered you in His perfect righteousness, sanctified you by His Holy Spirit, as He daily and richly does for you by His Gospel, and reconciled you to His God and Father, so that He is your God and Father.
The things that threaten you within and without, cannot harm your life in Christ, which is safely hidden with Him in God, because that life -- via the Cross and in the Resurrection of the dear Lord Jesus -- is whole and complete, intact and perfect within Him, in His own Person, within the eternal Unity of the Holy Trinity. All of His is yours, because His Word declares it to be so. His Word gives you Christ with all His fruits and benefits of His own Cross and Resurrection. When you bear and suffer the Cross, therefore, it cannot undo you, but binds you the more closely to Christ the Crucified, who loves you. Such a Cross bears fruit in you, for your benefit and for the benefit of others, because it remains the Cross of Christ, the instrument of His great salvation. And because His Cross was His great victory over sin, death, the devil and hell, and because He was crucified for you and your transgressions was also raised for you and your justification, there is nothing at all that can defeat you forever. God raised Jesus from the dead. Therefore, you also are raised, and you now dwell with Christ in the heavenly places of His Father.
...it [the cross] cannot undo you...
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
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