Rather than call this next post Isolation Day 4-9 I'm breaking them up. They are what God showed me over the time and I'm going to break them up. Blogs will follow in this order:
1. Reflecting
2. Focus and Persevere: What is Your Filter?
3. Wait, Work, Watch
4. Living in Righteousness
5.Family and the Next Generation
6. Teaching and Passing It On
I really couldn't bring myself to write about those days just yet. They were so bittersweet. Diving back into them tonight it just seemed almost depressing after the amazing drive I had Saturday morning. It was just awesome!! We drove to drop the kids off and headed to Abilene. For those of you that have made this drive and know where we are, you are not allowed to laugh. I have always thought that it is a pretty drive and appreciate the progression from nothing to something to green...yes green compared to where we live. The beauty I appreciate. Mainly just driving has blessed me because God speaks. Especially through music. I love The Message but quickly flipped over to the ipod list....My Redemption. That is what it is. Reminds me of where I came from and just how much I have to be thankful for. It pulls something deep inside of me out til I shout....God loves me and died for Me! How awesome! Now that's what LOVE IS! It draws a DEEPER calling for this life....for the day to day to day. To change it, to not just settle for it, but to allow God to use it and make something of it for HIM.
For those of you who really know me, I grew up with a strong music background. Piano, band, choir, etc. (The last few months have been hard because that's something that was attacked first. The vocals. I lost range first, then hoarseness and the track back up since surgery has been very hard. It attacked the one thing that whisked me into His presence the fastest...just singing and worshipping......remember Satan....you don't win. You LOSE!! The scar tissue and tightness have not been fun. I notice these things to the Nth degree because of course... my training teaches me to be very aware of them. Through great care and great hands (thanks Kaysi!!!) I am getting my range back and enjoy it again very much.....especially in my car! I have this old camp shirt that perfectly describes me. It has a little guy singing and head bangin' sitting in a little beetle that says "I sing in my car". ) Music lights something in my soul. It is my language. When I can't express myself, music can express it and pull it out me. I think that music has a way with all of us.
But driving Saturday reminded just how much My Redemption List has spoken to me over the last several months. This last year. Of course it has pulled me through hard days, tough decisions, hard study days/nights, reminded me of His call on me, CFMT, etc but that list reminded me of JUST HOW MUCH GOD has overcome in and through and despite of me. HE JUST PROVES HOW AWESOME HE IS. Driving Saturday we headed out before sunrise and of course right as the sun was coming up, breaking across the landscape it came to "You Lift Me Up" by The Afters....the part of the song that says Waiting for the sunrise, waiting for the day....and later when it says... I can feel an overtaking of your Love. Yes Lord! I can! It was awesome! (Word of the blog today!)
Other songs on the list like Glory to God by Exodus, Redeemer by Santus Real, Your Great Name by Natalie Grant, Blessing by Laura Story, You Reach for Me By Peter Furler (just to name a few) launch me back to the drive to Steamboat.....to the Christian school we drove to every morning during that week of CFMT. Ramping up for the extreme and hard day ahead. There are not words to describe that week. The songs however come close and just send me back to that week in particular. They transport me to that week of remembering HOW close and How tight and HOW loved and HOW much I felt the Lord that week. That list reminds me of just HOW MUCH I saw God overcome FOR ME that week. Not just that week. But even UP TO that week for me to even be there and know there was nowhere else I was supposed to be. He is so faithful to call us to do things that we are passionate about....but that week I wondered so many times....why this certification? Why this pressure? Why this much material? Of course I knew why....I had been shown many times....through IPA's excellence and passion; a rare form and I would not go another direction until one was complete through IPA. That week showed me that it will never be complete. Not with certifications or teaching or as Christians. There is daily calling to step it up, to keep pressing in, keep improving, to persevere, to encourage others to do the same, to keep striving ALL for HIS GLORY! Nothing else. GLORY TO GOD! Nothing else matters! That list played over and over and over that week and transported me into HIS presence. Where I need to always remain. It reminded me that if it was not for Him then it wasn't worth it. Nothing ever is if the striving is not truly committed to HIM. It flashed me back to the drive from Steamboat back to Denver after the week had ended and as we drove through God's beauty we all just worshipped Him. Relieved it was over. Cut loose to just Praise.
Driving with that playlist just blessed me to just praise again. To cut loose all that did not really matter. Worshipping has a way of refocusing our heart to Him and letting our hearts do what they were meant to do without the excess. To shed ourselves. I thank the Lord for worship and knowing us and gearing us to never be complete unless we are worshipping Him. Singing and praising just helps us do that and fill us back up. To be filled with Him to be able to pour him back out instead of our sourness. Instead of our bitterness. Instead of our focuses. Our busyness. It allows us to be filled with the fullness of HIM so that when we pour out our other forms of worship....studying, working, playing, teaching, treating, serving, coaching, cooking, driving......that we have something better to offer than the stress that all those can produce. So as that 3 hour drive reminded me....it is just GOOD to worship God and be in His presence and to be reminded of HOW GOOD God IS, Has been, and will always be! It is good to be exhausted by a good worship session! Enjoy your "Redemption List" this week and praising and worshipping HIM!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Medication
Funny how medicine can make you feel. Or not feel as I am finding out. Everyone has been so sweet lately to ask, "How are you feeling after treatment?" My reply, "Great and thanks for asking." I'm such a bad liar. Why do we do that? Is it just easier not to give the real answer....probably. Easier not to bother people with reality. For me, it is really just because someone always has it worse and chances are I have run into them through the course of my day. I'm just thankful! Of course when Oct 28th comes I will be elated! It will mean that I get put back on my medicine. A medicine that I am both ashamed and embarassed to say I feel terrible without. I feel the weakness, I feel the muscles cramps, I FEEL THE RIDICULOUS fatigue. Fatigue is a word that I have never understood or ever let myself camp out on. It is a word that for years I have rejected through sleepless nights of study for years. I have rejected working 9-10+ hr days pregnant with the second. Rejected studying for CFMT with 2 kids and working full time. Then came the speed diagnosis of thyroid cancer, surgery, and finding yourself instantly living on a medicine that you don't really know all that much about.....until you're not on it anymore. Out of all the symptoms, the most frustrating has been the one I'm fighting through to type this. So if I blink twice talking to you face to face, don't hold a gaze with my husband for very long, or just glance at you instead of make good eye contact, don't be offended. My vision is blurred and there just might be 2 of you. So far driving and far-sighted have not been affected so that's great! But it makes typing irritating and frustrating and even confusing. It takes twice as long but accuracy is a must for me as I am blessed to be a perfectionist. I'm spending extra time at work to get it all done but my prayer (is in sight) for the next 2 weeks, I will push through. This to will pass. It is silly but true. His strength is made PERFECT in my weakness, in my lack of meds because others have shared some crazy stories about how they felt. I just smile and nod. I feel those, but so much more I feel Him scoop me up and carry me through and I KNOW that it is HIM because it is nothing else. No med, no will to overcome it myself. Just Him.
I want to sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand, lay back against you and breathe. Feel your heartbeat. Your love is so deep. It's more than I can take. It's overwhelming.
I love that sweet song right now cause I'm just sitting in my daddy's lap. Exhausted, wrung out, and limp. Nothing left but Him....but that's really all I've ever needed.
I want to sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand, lay back against you and breathe. Feel your heartbeat. Your love is so deep. It's more than I can take. It's overwhelming.
I love that sweet song right now cause I'm just sitting in my daddy's lap. Exhausted, wrung out, and limp. Nothing left but Him....but that's really all I've ever needed.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Isolation and Revelation
Treatment Summary:
So I guess to summarize the treatment experience: you swallow a radioactive pill like any other and within 10 seconds you're emitting more radiation off than would be safe to be in the public X 4-5 depending on your dosage. Everything I have learned to this point I again say depends on your doctor. The extreme 14 days was specific to be away from MY small children so that I did not damage their developing thyroid glands. After 3 days in the hospital you are safe to be in public 3-4 ft from people and avoid pregnant women at all cost. You can pass them just skip an isle in the store if you see them, just to be safer. Weird experience to be quite honest one of inconvenience. Inconvenient because I have very small children who would not understand, "Mommy can't pick you up. You can't be by my neck." Full separation of environments was for them to be sure that mommy did not expose them to anything their little bodies would be damaged by. Please refer the LAST blog...not really inconvenient...we will say "Divine appointment."
Other than general stomach upset, bouts of welcomed diarrhea (speeds the exit---sorry to be blunt), very sore throat, swelling/ tenderness to salivary glands, loss of appetite and some taste; the treatment was no big deal. The more you can drink the better off you are because that assures that the collection of unabsorbed radioactive iodine isn't camping out in the bladder or bowel and getting out faster....no time to hurt the surrounding tissue! I drank tons, sucked on hard candy, worked out, sat outside to sweat it out (once I was home) and took 2-3 showers a day. After the iodine diet, my stomach sort of rejected normal food again so everything has upset it but like I said---at least it isn't camping out in there! I got bronchitis the night before I went in so time in isolation was welcomed to rest and cough and cough and cough. Made breathing a little harder just because my throat was swollen and sore from the treatment but again....time to rest and recover was doubly welcome.
So I read, wrote and at nights mommy would cry. Nights were very hard. When babies are winding down, getting baths, reading stories, saying prayers....momma was gone. Jody said they asked every night....where's momma? Is she sick....no baby....she's making sure her neck is really better. She loves you...she misses you TONS....she will be home soon!
As you may have read....God was good to return me home at day 9 after a perfect Geiger reading of ZERO...meaning no radiation was coming off my neck area or body and I could be around the kids! God was faithful to surprise me with that!!
Hospital Nights:
God was faithful day and night. At night I would get a second wind. To read more of the Bible or just write. I stuck mostly to Revelation in the hospital and find that funny. (Many others after I got out!) I knew I had 3 days and had never read the whole thing in a sitting and definitely could not say I understood it. Ch 2-3 to the churches were interesting. Sort of you are doing good, BUT not THAT good and keep up the work. Always ending to each with encouragement that doing good comes with its reward.
I found parts fascinating and profound: the 2 witnesses- Ch 11 (WOW!), 7 Plagues in Ch 15, 7 bowls of God's wrath Ch 16, The Woman- the prostitute in Ch 17, The Fall of Babylon in Ch 18, The New Jerusalem Ch 21.
Chapter 22 was great. Read that one before but really walked about from the book in its entirety differently after Rev 22: 10-13: Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."
and lets not forget the end especially Rev 22: 18-19, 20: I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
v20: He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
I mean this blog not as ANYTHING but to share and reflect on the 3 days of hospital isolation. It was an interesting book He guided me to and for that I was thankful for the time alone to go over with God alone, like I said. It is a hard one but such a good one!! One I dare say, that I avoid because it is confusing and loaded and scary. But now not all that scary. It is in there for us to read too!
The warnings to all the churches Ch 2-3 is very relevant to us everyday: we all need to shape up, we all need to do better and not forget that HE IS COMING. Now you OVERCOME! : look at these verses:
Rev 2: 7: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Rev 2: 11: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.
Rev 2:17: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.
Rev 3: 3-6: Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Rev 3:11-12: I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God: and I will also write on him my new name.
Rev 3:20-22: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
All in all, I'm not commenting much because I am not trying to add to or take away from these words. Just found the warnings....the BOOK, good and not scary. Just keep on keeping on! This is what will happen. One day He is coming! For that we look forward to and that we are so thankful for!
I will write more later on Day 4-9 in isolation. They too were very, very good! Funny that I got to go home on Day 9 because I actually didn't get to make it through all the books and Bible books I wanted to. But glad that I have my own studying lined out for a while! It is so nice to be lead by the Spirit. It is nice to close all the noise of other books and bible studies at times and just depend on His Word. It truly never fails! Sharper than any double-edged sword......
So I guess to summarize the treatment experience: you swallow a radioactive pill like any other and within 10 seconds you're emitting more radiation off than would be safe to be in the public X 4-5 depending on your dosage. Everything I have learned to this point I again say depends on your doctor. The extreme 14 days was specific to be away from MY small children so that I did not damage their developing thyroid glands. After 3 days in the hospital you are safe to be in public 3-4 ft from people and avoid pregnant women at all cost. You can pass them just skip an isle in the store if you see them, just to be safer. Weird experience to be quite honest one of inconvenience. Inconvenient because I have very small children who would not understand, "Mommy can't pick you up. You can't be by my neck." Full separation of environments was for them to be sure that mommy did not expose them to anything their little bodies would be damaged by. Please refer the LAST blog...not really inconvenient...we will say "Divine appointment."
Other than general stomach upset, bouts of welcomed diarrhea (speeds the exit---sorry to be blunt), very sore throat, swelling/ tenderness to salivary glands, loss of appetite and some taste; the treatment was no big deal. The more you can drink the better off you are because that assures that the collection of unabsorbed radioactive iodine isn't camping out in the bladder or bowel and getting out faster....no time to hurt the surrounding tissue! I drank tons, sucked on hard candy, worked out, sat outside to sweat it out (once I was home) and took 2-3 showers a day. After the iodine diet, my stomach sort of rejected normal food again so everything has upset it but like I said---at least it isn't camping out in there! I got bronchitis the night before I went in so time in isolation was welcomed to rest and cough and cough and cough. Made breathing a little harder just because my throat was swollen and sore from the treatment but again....time to rest and recover was doubly welcome.
So I read, wrote and at nights mommy would cry. Nights were very hard. When babies are winding down, getting baths, reading stories, saying prayers....momma was gone. Jody said they asked every night....where's momma? Is she sick....no baby....she's making sure her neck is really better. She loves you...she misses you TONS....she will be home soon!
As you may have read....God was good to return me home at day 9 after a perfect Geiger reading of ZERO...meaning no radiation was coming off my neck area or body and I could be around the kids! God was faithful to surprise me with that!!
Hospital Nights:
God was faithful day and night. At night I would get a second wind. To read more of the Bible or just write. I stuck mostly to Revelation in the hospital and find that funny. (Many others after I got out!) I knew I had 3 days and had never read the whole thing in a sitting and definitely could not say I understood it. Ch 2-3 to the churches were interesting. Sort of you are doing good, BUT not THAT good and keep up the work. Always ending to each with encouragement that doing good comes with its reward.
I found parts fascinating and profound: the 2 witnesses- Ch 11 (WOW!), 7 Plagues in Ch 15, 7 bowls of God's wrath Ch 16, The Woman- the prostitute in Ch 17, The Fall of Babylon in Ch 18, The New Jerusalem Ch 21.
Chapter 22 was great. Read that one before but really walked about from the book in its entirety differently after Rev 22: 10-13: Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."
and lets not forget the end especially Rev 22: 18-19, 20: I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
v20: He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
I mean this blog not as ANYTHING but to share and reflect on the 3 days of hospital isolation. It was an interesting book He guided me to and for that I was thankful for the time alone to go over with God alone, like I said. It is a hard one but such a good one!! One I dare say, that I avoid because it is confusing and loaded and scary. But now not all that scary. It is in there for us to read too!
The warnings to all the churches Ch 2-3 is very relevant to us everyday: we all need to shape up, we all need to do better and not forget that HE IS COMING. Now you OVERCOME! : look at these verses:
Rev 2: 7: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Rev 2: 11: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.
Rev 2:17: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.
Rev 3: 3-6: Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Rev 3:11-12: I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God: and I will also write on him my new name.
Rev 3:20-22: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
All in all, I'm not commenting much because I am not trying to add to or take away from these words. Just found the warnings....the BOOK, good and not scary. Just keep on keeping on! This is what will happen. One day He is coming! For that we look forward to and that we are so thankful for!
I will write more later on Day 4-9 in isolation. They too were very, very good! Funny that I got to go home on Day 9 because I actually didn't get to make it through all the books and Bible books I wanted to. But glad that I have my own studying lined out for a while! It is so nice to be lead by the Spirit. It is nice to close all the noise of other books and bible studies at times and just depend on His Word. It truly never fails! Sharper than any double-edged sword......
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