My Endless Headache

Apparently, I get migraines. I thought I was just sensitive to atmospheric pressure changes when rain is coming our way. Alas, that may be so, but I get these also! It looks like they may be hormonally triggered. I am in so much pain at this point, I am not sure I care what the cause is. I just want relief!

I am now into day three of this latest migraine. No pain reliever has worked, nor Sudafed to help relieve some of the pressure that I am feeling in my sinuses....I am pretty sure that the pressure is from my brain wanting to explode through my right eye. I have dabbed peppermint oil on my temples and the nape of my neck and eaten grapes---something natural that is said to help---to no avail. I was helped by a very kind woman at Lowes about 8 weeks ago during my last migraine who told me to pinch down on the inside of my skin between my first finger and thumb to find some relief---which does work very temporarily---and to increase my calcium intake, something I am guilty of skimping on because I am lactose sensitive/intolerant and have been working on since then. I am now eyeing my husband's vice grip in our garage as a possibility for relief.....

But as I sit here in pain, feeling a bit sorry for myself, I am humbled by friends who are going through far worse and without real solutions or true physical relief in site. A good friend continues her fight with breast cancer, more than 7 years since she found the lump in her breast, with two recurrences and no cure in site. Our pastor's wife battles stage 3A colorectal cancer, said to be in remission, but continuing to wade through 6 months of chemo with the hope that it won't come back, a hope that has failed my first friend, who had a better prognosis following her first round with her own battle. Two friends from Bible study are going through radiation for breast cancer right now, both ladies young and love the Lord. I am praying for three others I have never met who are battling breast cancer also. A sweet girl from my Bible study is in danger of miscarrying her precious second child after beginning to spot over the weekend. I just prayed with her two weeks ago over this little one. Another friend has MS and is close to my age. Another friend has a slue of symptoms that the doctors have not been able to diagnose and they are dibilitating her one day at a time. I have one Muslim friend. She is completely lost to the Lord and doesn't know it and I have no idea how to tell her who Jesus is---Muslim Jesus is not even close to who our Lord is---other than to stop at her home the day following the Ft Hood shooting and tell her that I love her and that Christ does also. She judges me on my witness--- our oldest son having a girl friend which they don't approve of---as being better than me and pities me. But I know that the Lord put me at her door in my humbleness, knowing that it's His love that matters, not anything about me or my family, that has the potential to make the difference in her ever knowing the truth. I cannot bear the thought of she and her family eternally lost. Puts that pesky migraine into perspective a bit for me, and makes me want to pray over them.

Father, I love you. Thank you for the sacrifice of Your only son for my life and for anyone who accepts the grace You extend through His life. Lord, all these women, some suffering greatly, one lost for the moment eternally, with You as our only Hope. Lord, it is my hearts desire for each of these women to know You and to experience Your presence through every moment of their lives. May each trial bring about a greater closeness with you. May every blessing bring praise to Your Holy Name. May the lost have their eyes and hearts opened to You and those that are Yours already feel the comfort only a Heavenly Father can provide. Thank you Lord for the blessing of this migraine that I may lean on You more, that I may see the needs of others who are far greater than myself as more important and spend my time in prayer over them instead. I find myself thankful for a trial that helps me to see You better and live out Your command and to understand it truly: to think of others as better than myself. In Jesus precious name.

One Poopy Diaper After Another

My nose has had an overload of ragweed this week at 15 miles an hour, so I am off my bike for the day today as I succumb to the tail end of my cold and my ever-present allergy to heal up by Sunday so that my allergy is the only thing I am contending with.

Our youngest is teething and caught my cold to boot. Our 3 year old is potty training and it's not going very well. My days have become one poopy diaper after another between the two of them, and I keep thinking how fortunate I am to live at a time when we have disposable diapers and pull-ups while I wade through cleaning all the poop--and there is a lot of it as anyone who has ever had a teething child or any child who is not yet fully potty-trained would know. And I also rest in the thought that somehow I managed to get our 12 and 16 year olds out of their diapers too.

So last time I mentioned James 4:14 that compares a human life to vapor in the wind:

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

The verse is not meant to make little of us. The Bible tells us that the Lord knows our hearts and our every thought, that He walks with us through every experience, and that He even stores our tears in a bottle and writes down what they were shed for. We are not little and insignificant to God. He made us in His image and loved us enough to humble himself to put on flesh in His son Jesus, and then offer Himself as a sinless sacrifice on the cross as payment for all sin. We are a big deal to Him. If you read the entire chapter of James 4 in context, James talks with us about drawing closer to God and then warns us against judging others, something the Lord Himself was only designed to do, and against self-confidence.

We live in a culture that teaches and preaches our nothingness without dependence on self only, polarization of the haves and have nots which is only becoming deeper with a socialist political agenda coming out of the White House, not to mention what is happening all over the world, the idea that what God says is sin we don't want to call sin anymore, or that one sin is not as bad as another, and that we place our confidence in our own plans without consulting God about His plans or what He might think of the plans we have---are they really what is best?

I planned to be a doctor and live in a mansion and drive a convertible and enjoy constant tropical vacations where I could regularly work on my tan. God planned for me to become a stay at home wife and mother of four and wipe poopy butts and snotty noses, amoung other humbling duties. God won. I started listening to Him, and His best is far better than what mine was, a lot less selfish and certainly less glamorous, lest anyone think that wiping a poopy bottom is going to land me on the cover of a magazine or create a buzz in Hollywood to film my life story.

My confidence is in the Lord. He can work best when I am weak and submitted to Him. It is easier for me to love Him and to find Him in a weakened state when I am broken in my circumstances and not depending on myself to fix the unfixable (2 Corinthians 12:9). I love that He cares for me and never leaves me that way, but invites me to rely on His strength and tells me that is my joy. I love that I can trust Him to judge and that all I have to do is look to Him and be confident that when He says He has good plans for me (Jeremiah 29:11), He means it, even if they are not the ones I would necessarily make for myself.

Now, I am not sure that I should characterize changing one poopy diaper after another as broken. Yesterday, our littlest managed to get one side of his diaper loose at the exact moment that he was having a very runny bowel movement that mostly ended up on the wood floor at his feet right as I was walking up to him. Never a dull moment in our home, I rushed to action with baby wipes, a clean diaper, Windex and paper towels, oh and Lysol. Not your idea of a typical action movie, but it was impressive how fast I cleaned it and was reminded in that split second of how I care for my little ones as the Lord cares for me--with slightly different tools---and I was humbled. Of course I am not going to leave this sweet little one whom I love with all my heart standing in a poopy, stinky mess. I am going to scoop him up in his tears and help restore him to a better state. He lies helpless, trying to fight the clean up at times because he still wants to go play, poopy or not, but I win this time, and he is like a new little man, ready to go again, until the next poopy diaper calls out my name.

And in the God inspired words of Paul in Romans 8:38-39, "...I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^a]">[a] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." We are no different than my little man, who needs my loving and compassionate care in the middle of a huge mess called life.

Something to Say

I was an avid exerciser. I had "retired" as a fitness professional with the birth of our third child three years ago. At that time, I began to enjoy, once again after years and years of teaching, my workout time as being completely for my own benefit instead of making sure that I was not going to collapse in a class I was leading. Instead of being the gym rat that I had been for 15 years prior to that, I went outside with a jog stroller, kiddo in tow, when she was 15 days old. I found I did some of my best thinking when I move forward and was out in the air. (I cannot say fresh air here in Houston when it's packed out with every allergen known to man in every season!)

But, two years ago, I stopped exercising completely after a miscarriage. It wasn't on purpose at first. First, I was recovering physically and emotionally. Then I was just so sad, and I would, in my mind, link being out on the trails with the two agonizing weeks when I was losing the pregancy. I just didn't want to think about it, and that became an excuse not to return, not just to the trails but even to the gym. Then we got pregnant with our fourth little one about six weeks later, though long enough to derail me from a long-engrained habit, and the pregnacy and caring for our three other kids and our home drained every last bit of energy I had left. I was out of commission and remained there until this summer. I got on a bike. My husband bought one as an anniversary gift and bought a trailer for the kids to ride in with me.

During all this time of being down and out, my faith took on new life. We joined a church, finally. I began actively seeking the Lord in prayer, Bible study with other believers, and study on my own, and developed an intimate, personal relationship with Christ. My marriage improved and old relationship wounds began to heal miraculously. I had a healthy pregnancy and a new son, as our other three kids continued to grow up. I felt contentment and joy in a way that I had never experienced that came directly from my deepened relationship with Jesus and a new reliance on Him for strength I used to try unsuccessfully to muster.

Our new son, now a year old, started sleeping through the night over the summer too, shortly after I started exercising. I regained my energy and got some of my brain back! Maybe sometime I will write about Mommy brain. So I am back. I am on the road (actually, it's a sidewalk on a greenbelt, a little safer for the kids and I than our roads) rolling faster than before, even with a 35 lb bike trailer carring two kids weighing 23 lbs and 30 lbs inside it, and I am still wishing that I am going to get to redefine Mommy legs if I keep pedaling long enough, and not just Mommy brain!

My brain back on, and the Lord, as I meditate on Him and His Word while I am out breezing through swarms of knats which end up plastered on my chest and quacking at ducks with my kids for extra fun and to hear them laugh, has blessed me with time again with My Savior. There aren't that many ducks, obviously! My thoughts of Him and His thoughts for me are clearer and easier to hear in the quiet hum of my wheels and pedals, and the occasional duck quacking that I mentioned. That time is totally undeserved, and I am grateful daily that I have it and that He blessed us with the ability to be home with our children. And He gave me back something to say, what I hope are His inspiration and not just my meandering mouth, and at a time when everything around us in America is changing so fast that my head is spinning faster than I will ever be able to pedal, and I wonder what my life will look like in a year.

I know that I am no one, really. I won't be announcing to anyone but my husband that I am blogging. Maybe I will be the only one reading what I have to say. I think that my email list may just want to have me stop salting them with my commentaries, as I aspire to be the salt of the earth the Lord says I should be. The Bible tells me that each of us is like vapor in the wind, and while that thought could inspire a puff up of my ego as not wanting to be mere vapor, I can see how my life is passing by so quickly and that God did not breathe that thought to hurt me, but for me to see that this mortal part of my life is no dress rehearsal, but a time to prepare myself for His eternal presence as His bride, as a Christ worshipper--something far more important than my own agenda. What I have to say is for the sole purpose of glorifying His name here for the work of His kingdom and that my life purpose is to glorify Him while he does a good work in even me daily as I work out, quite literally in every sense, my salvation.