Tag: auto-immune disease

Ooops

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

You know how just yesterday I was talking about ‘reintroducing foods’ and doing it cautiously?  Well, yeah, that’s a good idea.  I wrote that blog yesterday morning, and by last night, my husband’s birthday, I had ordered three entrees, two appetizers, and two orders of naan from a local Indian restaurant and had purchased two bottles of red wine to go with it.  For the first time in over two weeks, I did not worry about what I was eating — I thoroughly enjoyed that food and let me just say, it was delicious!

However, when I woke at 3:30 feeling a little “rough around the edges”, I rethought my choices and decided to do be a bit more cautious today.

We had vegetable pakora, lamb saag, bhindi masala, yum, yum, yummy.  None of it is bad in itself, but after almost two weeks with little more than rice, vegetables, chicken, fish, broth, and more recently fruit, potatoes, and eggs, it was a bit of a leap. Combine that with maybe one too many glasses of cabernet and you’ve got a tired, dehydrated, stiff, achey girl who wishes she would’ve eaten more of the basmati rice and drank more ice water instead of that last glass of wine.

So, what do you do when you fall off the horse, you get right back on.

This morning I started with the juice of half a lemon in hot water with one teaspoon cinnamon and two tablespoons honey — a new addition that is purported to decrease inflammation.  Then I had my UltraInflam shake mixed with one banana and a handful of frozen berries before I met a friend to go walking for an hour.  After our walk, we each had a cup of green tea before I headed back home.

Lunch was two eggs over easy with a half cup of rice.  Right now I am on my second cup of black tea.  I’m still not feeling great, but hopefully a day or two of discipline will restore me back to the energetic self I wrote about yesterday.

All of life is like that, isn’t it.  We have good intentions, we walk down a straight path for a while, but then we slip off the path into the rough and it feels, well, … rough.

So, here’s to getting back on the horse, and back on the path.  Here’s to a fresh start, a new day, a clean slate.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail; they are new every morning.

Great is Your faithfulness.

Bye, bye, for now, Joe

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

I just finished half of my caffeine supply for today.  Sigh.  I’m going to try not to dwell on this too much, but guys, it’s a loss. Maybe just a temporary loss, but still a loss.

I used to give up caffeine for Lent.  Sometimes I would give up all caffeine, sometimes just coffee.  Somewhere along the way, I switched from giving things up to adding a lifestyle change during Lent that would last beyond the forty days — daily exercise, prayer, Bible study, healthier eating.  But, as I am sure you can guess, my intentions didn’t always match the outcome.

I vaguely remember giving up all caffeine right before we moved to the Seminary ten years ago.  Not only did I give up my coffee and tea, I also cleaned up my diet, added some exercise, and trimmed down a little.  Granted, it probably was out of anxiety for the move, a way to get some control in a tenuous time, but I think I remember feeling strong and healthy.

Well, a lot of things changed at the Seminary.  For one, there was a fabulous little coffee shop adjacent to the campus. My husband and I began to frequent it.  I also began running again after several years’ hiatus. I went to work full time while continuing to do my best as a mother to three school-aged children.  And the soldiering began.  Soldiers do drink coffee; everyone knows that.

In fact, my students and colleagues were well aware of my love for java.  I wrote sonnets about coffee — it’s true.   My husband would sometimes surprise me with a classroom coffee delivery — forget flowers! My colleagues and I would often escape during our prep period for fifteen minutes to run out for a cup of Starbucks.  In fact, I had one student teacher who regularly volunteered to go pick up our orders for us! My love for caffeine was so well-known that during my last month at Lutheran North, several students brought me Starbucks gift cards tucked inside thank you notes.

Over the last two years, as I have been on and off a variety of medications, my tastes have changed:  I often now prefer a strong cup of English breakfast over coffee;  I used to drink my coffee with cream, now I drink everything black and unsweetened.  But let’s be clear here: I always, I mean always, drink caffeine.  Usually three or more cups of the stuff.  Every day.

So, in anticipation of the ‘ultra simple diet’ experiment, I am tapering off.  I am allowing myself two cups of tea today.  Two tomorrow.  One cup each on Thursday and Friday.  I think I have established Saturday as Day One.  I gotta gear up, especially when the first instruction for each day is to “drink two tablespoons organic extra-virgin olive oil mixed with the juice of half of an organic lemon.”  Who does that?   It’s supposed to “help flush the toxins from your bile and liver into your gut to be excreted.”  Good morning.

It’s weird.  So is washing yourself in the Jordan seven times.  When Elisha sent the messenger to tell Naaman to do this, Naaman was ticked!  “Come on, I could’ve done that at home!”  He stomped off in a rage.  (Sounds like something I would do.)  But his servant ran after him and said something like, “Is it really gonna kill you to give it a try?” (That’s the Rathje Revised Version.) Now, I am not saying my doctor is a prophet.  But she’s not asking me to have surgery, to take daily or weekly injections, or to acknowledge that I am going to be in pain for the rest of my life.  She’s just asking me for seven days.  Is it really gonna kill me to give it a try?

Sigh.  Probably not.

Psalm 6:2

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;

heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.

Burden bearing

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

“I don’t want to bother you with my issues.”

Ever said that?

I mean, who wants to share their troubles with the people around them?  Do you really want to hear about my health issues, or my financial difficulty, or my stress at work?  I am sure you have enough problems of your own.  You don’t need me dragging you further into the gutter.

Haven’t you said these things inside your head?  Or even out loud?

Surely we’ve been taught from our childhood, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  We are supposed to smile, say nice things, and put the best construction on everything.  Right?

Yes, and…then there’s the Bible.

Galatians 6:2

Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Here’s the thing, I don’t mind carrying your burdens, but I really don’t want you carrying mine.  Right? I mean we all want to rush to the rescue when a friend is in the hospital, or lost a parent, or needs help moving, but we really don’t want to invite anyone in to help us when the basement floods, or our kids are sick, or (gasp) we can’t do everything that we used to be able to do.

But Paul, in Galatians, says, to bear one another’s burdens.  That implies reciprocity.

I think I have established through this blog that I have most of my life been pretty self-sufficient.  I can do it myself, thank you very much.  I don’t need anyone’s help.  I kick butts and take names and God help you if you get in my way.  Notice I said ‘most’ of my life.  For the past couple of years I have been learning a new way.

Last May, at the very end of our school year, as a result of medications I had been taking, I contracted ocular herpes.  Yes, herpes. In my eyes.  (My teenaged daughter who drove me to the eye doctor got a kick out of that.)  Let me just say here that it is miserable.  Other than the itching, burning, and aching of my eyes, they were extremely sensitive to light, so I could not drive for a few days.   During that time, we were having end of year faculty meetings and a faculty luncheon at a restaurant a bit of a distance from the school and from my house.  My daughter dropped me off at school in the morning, but I needed a ride to the restaurant and then from the restaurant to my eye doctor and from the eye doctor to my house, which happened to be in the opposite direction of anyone I worked with.

So, self-sufficient me decided to ask my friend, who lives with severe rheumatoid arthritis, if I could ride with her to the luncheon and then if she would drop me at my eye doctor which was not terribly far out of her way.  She said that would be fine.  I then figured out how I could take public transportation from the eye doctor to my house.  I had done this before, it was no big deal, and it allowed me to be self-sufficient.

But, after the luncheon, my friend took me to the eye doctor and insisted on staying with me and driving me home afterward.  I didn’t want to burden her.  By that time in the day, I knew that we both needed some rest and this would add an hour or more to her day, and to her driving.  But she said to me, “this is something I can do.”  And although it was admitting that I couldn’t do everything by myself, I knew at that moment that I was allowing her into my need.

After the decision to ‘allow her’ to help me, I was so thankful that she was there.  She sat and had coffee with me before my appointment time, and even helped me select the glasses that I now wear.  She drove me to my front door and then headed home.

It was a small thing, driving me home, wasn’t it?  Not really.  It was a big thing for me.  It was a symbol.  It was my admission that I need others, and in that need, I am blessed.  And, you know, I think she was blessed, too.

I know that I am blessed when others allow me into their mess, allow me to walk with them for a minute or a mile, allow me to shoulder part of the burden.  Why would I deprive someone else of joining me in mine?  Mostly because I’m a proud butt-kickin’, name-takin’ soldier.  Or, I was.  Anybody can change.

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Changing

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

I got home at 2:30 am today. That’s a real time.  I left the Washtenaw County Courthouse around 2:15 and drove through a mostly abandoned Ann Arbor, past the medical center, and the VA.  I was less than a mile from home, near Gallup Park, when I thought, “Oh, I better watch for deer—” and as I said it,  one appeared, as my son would say, “at eleven o’clock.”  I stopped in the middle of the road, met eyes with the critter, and nodded for him to go ahead and cross.  I swear he nodded back and then sprang across the road in front of me.

After over seven hours of chatting with the two agents from the Associated Press, entering tallies into my iPhone app, and playing countless rounds of CandyCrush (yes, I re-installed that dumb game on my phone!), I was not quite ready for sleep.  So I plunked down on the couch and read.

A friend recently loaned me a book called, Still Alice, which chronicles the life of a woman about my age who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.  It is told from her point of view from before the diagnosis until she no longer recognizes the people in her family or even herself. I read and I cried.  I’m not sure what touched me more, her sense of loss, or the ways that her family learned to love and care for her as she became something that she had never been.

Around 4:30am, with only about thirteen pages left, I decided I was too drained to finish the book, so I crawled into bed and knocked out.  I woke up of my own volition around 11.  Chester may have been willing me awake, because when I stirred, he leapt to his feet and pleaded with me to take him outside.  Apparently I understand deer and golden retrievers.

I took him out, went back to the couch, tried some more to conquer Candy Crush and pushed away thoughts of eating, making tea, blogging, and working out. I wasn’t sure I would do much at all today.  My body ached and I was tired. I didn’t feel hungry and I wasn’t even really interested in tea.  Maybe I would just lose the day to couch-dom.

I hadn’t been in my position long when the front door opened.  My husband entered and found me looking, I’m sure, pathetic in my jammies with a glazed look on my face.  “I thought you might be up.  Can I make you some lunch?”

“I guess I should eat something.”

“Can I make you some tea, too?”

“I’ll come join you in the kitchen.  Maybe if I washed the dishes my hands would feel better.”

He sautéed onions and spinach in butter and stirred in scrambled eggs, just how I like them.  I washed dishes and told him about my night downtown.  We ate and laughed together and by the time he left I was ready to go back to my book, to think about driving to the gym, and to sit for a few minutes at my computer to blog.

It’s not lost on me — the connection I am making between my life and the book.  I am a someone I have never been.  Sometimes I don’t recognize myself.  Yet, I have a husband, and children, who are learning new ways to love and support me.

Oh, and I think I am learning to talk to animals.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

A lesson in perspective

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

When I teach the elements of literature, I always have to spend considerable time discussing perspective or ‘point of view’.  The way a story is told changes dramatically depending on who is doing the telling.

For instance, slavery, from the point of view of a wealthy southern land owner, was a pretty genius idea.  Free labor that reproduces itself.  Brilliant.

However, from the point of view of the actual human being who was being held against her will, in a barely habitable shack, subjected to rape, physical abuse, and near starvation, it was not such a great idea.

Similarly, perspective is impacted by how close you are standing to the story.

Recently Bill O’Reilly, in an interview with Jon Stewart, argued that there is ‘no white privilege’ because “there is no more slavery, there is no Jim Crow..” From his point of view, “If you work hard, if you get educated, if you are an honest person, you can make it in America.”  It worked for him. 

However, from the point of view of young black man being educated in an inner city school in America, surrounded by poverty and the lack of resources,  it may not seem so simple.  The system doesn’t always work where he’s living.

But this post isn’t really supposed to be about slavery or about white privilege.  It’s about perspective. I recently got some.

I was sitting next to my friend last Saturday after the memorial service for his wife of forty years who had just finished her eight-year battle with breast cancer.  He said to me, “So, what’s this health issue you are dealing with?”  Perspective.  I was frankly a little embarrassed.  Not because he implied that my illness was ‘less than’ breast cancer.  Not in the least.  He was genuinely concerned about me.  However, my internal dialogue went something like this.  Wow.  He has just watched his wife go through round after round of chemo, several surgeries and hospitalizations, not a few brushes with death, and then the final blow.  And I am complaining about joint pain and fatigue.  Perspective.

This past Wednesday I, of course, went to Bible study.  The teacher was explaining that in the Bible there are three time periods mentioned — now, a little while, and when Jesus is revealed.  My internal dialogue went something like this. Right now I’ve got it pretty good.  Yes, I feel kinda crappy most of the time, but I am not really limited from living my life.  And seriously, it’s only going to be a little while until Jesus is revealed.  How do I want to spend that ‘little while’? Perspective.

Now, let me be clear.  I am still living with some kind of health issue.  It, as I told my friend, “slows me down.”  However, as I have explored over and over again in this blog, having been “slowed down” has been a huge blessing for me.  Slow, it turns out, is a pretty good speed for me.

From inside this body, I would say that my life has changed.  In some ways it is less comfortable, but in some ways, it is much more healthy than it has ever been.

From outside this body, I would say that I’ve got a pretty amazing life. I am living with a husband who loves me and supports this grace period.  I live minutes from two very competent medical centers.  I have access to great foods and a phenomenal exercise facility. I have so many friends! I have healthy children and a grandbaby on the way.  And I get to spend a lot of time in my pajamas!

I do love pajamas.

Sometimes we need to move around a little bit, stand in a different spot, and get a healthy dose of perspective.

Romans 8:18

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing

with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

My life as a lab rat

~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments

Did you ever feel like a lab rat?

Let’s think about lab rats for a moment.  They stay in cages and are given a variety of ‘treatments’ and then are ‘observed’.  They really don’t do anything else.

My nephew is a physician.  During medical school, he told us about a summer during which he daily practiced sutures on a lab rat.  Each day he would take the rat out of the cage, anesthetize it, slice it open, suture it up, then put it back in its cage.  Poor rat.

Ok, I don’t really feel like a lab rat, but I do share some characteristics with one.  You already know that I love my little house by the river, so I won’t compare it to a cage.  After all, I have a lovely view, I can come and go as I please, I make my own food, and I have the steady companionship of my husband and my dog.  However,  even though I am not currently ‘caged’, I am an object of experimentation.

You may recall that my doctors are unsure of my diagnosis; they don’t think I have Psoriatic Arthritis, which is what my doctors in St. Louis diagnosed me with. So, experiment #1, they discontinued one of my medications — the biologic, Humira, which is used to treat Psoriatic Arthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.  They are currently observing me to see the effects of that change.  Two doctors stood near me last Wednesday and asked me questions about what symptoms were resurfacing, and asked if I thought they warranted taking the medication I had been on.  We agreed to do some more observing.

They also decided to add a new medication, Neurontin, which they said is used for fibromyalgia,  to see if it alleviates some of these symptoms. Experiment #2. Well, since I am not currently working, and am not in danger of missing work due to illness, I agreed to give it a try.  I mean, maybe they are right.  Maybe I do have fibromyalgia.  And if I do, doesn’t it seem that Neurontin would help with my symptoms?

Well, here’s where I differ from a lab rat.  I have a computer and am quite adept at doing my own research.  I do have a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree, after all.  So, my research shows me that Neurontin is used to treat epilepsy and the nerve pain associated with shingles.  Let me assure you that I do not have epilepsy, nor have I had shingles.  Now, I have been around doctors long enough to know that medicines can be helpful to treat maladies for which they were not originally designed.  So, I did more research to see if people with fibromyalgia had any success with Neurontin.  The results I found were overwhelmingly, ‘No.’  In fact, it seems that Neurontin is great at causing sleep, lethargy, dizziness and weight gain.  Great.

So, I am supposed to take 300 mg at bedtime for one week to see if that ‘helps’.   Then I am can, “if you want” take 300 mg in the morning and 300 mg at midday.  Really?  They are letting the rat decide if she wants to sleep more, be more lethargic, dizzier, and heavier?

I have been taking it for four days.  No, I don’t feel better.  Yes, I sleep very well.  I sure hope I haven’t gained weight in four days.  Lethargy?  I mean, we may or may not have watched ten episodes of Criminal Minds this weekend while lounging on the couch.  But, I did also go to the gym on Friday, walk on Saturday and Sunday, and yell loudly every time Michigan State scored against the University of Michigan.

This rat is skeptical.  But, two years into this thing, nothing has really alleviated all the symptoms.  No tests exists to definitively diagnosis what I have.  In fact, all my labs say I am ‘normal’.  [Insert laughter here].  Actually, if I was truly a rat, no doctors or scientists would be doing anything to me.  From the outside, I look just fine.

But I am not a rat.  And I can tell you that I am not just fine.  But I can also tell you that what I have is not life-threatening, it just slows me down. It makes me uncomfortable, and it forces me to rely on others.  Because I hurt, I have more empathy for others. Because I am slowed down, I have more time to listen.

Do I want a cure for that?  I think I need more time for observation.

Isaiah 55:9

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Evaluating Exchanges

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

It came this morning — my first rejection notice.  “Thank you for taking the time to apply.  We are contacting you to let you know that the position has been filled.”  I should have kept every letter or email like this I have received over the years.  You can’t be addicted to applying for jobs without experiencing the rejection letter.  And, just like with parking tickets and library fines, I take rejection letters in stride.

I actually was not surprised by this one at all.  The position needed to be filled as soon as possible, and I recorded that I would be available starting January 5.  This letter didn’t sting.  Actually, it spurred me on to look for more openings and to put in more applications.  You know, improve my chances.  So, I checked all my usual spots for jobs, to no avail, and then said to myself, “OK, on to blogging.”

The fact is, as much as I am looking forward to finding a position, I know I will make an exchange when I am actually hired.  I will exchange availability for schedule.  I will exchange boredom for activity.  I will exchange rest for work.  I will exchange energy for pay.  It’s math, guys.  24 hours – 0 working hours = 24 Kristin hours.  Right now I spend each of those hours virtually as I please.  I sleep for 8-10 of them.  Yeah, I know — luxury.  I cook for 1.  I read for 1-2.  I exercise for 1-2.  I socialize for 1-2.  I do Bible study and blog for 1-2.  I rest for 1-2.  I clean or run errands for 1-2.  And pretty soon, my twenty-four hours is used up!

Now, one thing I know about math (besides the fact that I am lousy at teaching it) is that it is consistent.  It always works.  So, if I work for 4 hours a day and sleep for 10 hours a day, that leaves for 10 hours for everything else — exercise, cooking, cleaning, shopping, socializing, spending time with family (including my husband, of course), and resting.  That might work.  If I spend 8 hours a day working and 10 hours a day sleeping, I have six hours left for everything else.

Before I slowed down due to my physical limitations, I was spending about eleven hours a day with work-related activities — travel to and from work, actual time at school, grading and prepping, and extracurricular activities.  I started to realize that something needed to change when I would drive dazedly (I think that’s a word!) home from work, collapse onto my couch, and then crawl off to bed before I started the whole cycle again.  After all, 24 minus 11 hours at work minus 10 hours of sleep = enough time to shower, eat, switch one load of laundry, and respond gruntingly to the people I love the most.

I can’t go back to that. I would exchange too much.  I am not willing to trade time on the phone with a daughter or son for time in the car.  I am not willing to trade dinners with my husband for supervising a hallway.  I am not willing to trade time blogging for time grading papers.

But I think I am willing to trade a couple hours of Netflix for a couple hours in a library, or teaching a community college course, or editing a dissertation. I am willing to trade time spent hunting for jobs for doing an actual job. I am willing to let my husband cook dinner occasionally so that I can use my God-given gifts to connect with others.

I am close to the time when I will be ready to make an exchange. But I won’t trade time with my son who is coming home on leave next month. I won’t trade the Christmas holidays with my daughters who will both be here.  I won’t trade meeting my new granddaughter.  I won’t trade walks with my husband.  I won’t trade time re-connecting with Jesus.

This gift of time, of being still has allowed me to appreciate the value of time with those I love the most.  It’s worth more to me than any job, any title, any paycheck.

I won’t trade it for anything.

Matthew 6:21

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Exceptionally Late

~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments

There’s an exception to every rule.

If you have been following this blog you know that for several weeks I have made it my business to roll out of bed, make a cup of tea, have my Bible study, and get busy on this blog.  Up until today the only real exceptions were when I was out of town.

But, today happened.

As a result of feeling like I was run over by a truck earlier this week, I have been having difficulty sleeping.  Which means I am having difficulty waking.  This would not be a problem on any other day, but unless I am physically unable to walk, on Wednesday mornings at 9:30, I am going to be at my Bible study.  This morning I dragged myself out of bed at 7:45, moaned my way to the shower, got dressed and drove to my pre-Bible study coffee shop for the cup of delicious caffeine that would keep me engaged for the next two hours.  I am really glad I made it to Bible study. These ladies are becoming very dear to me.  I am sure they will appear again in this blog, they are teaching me so much.

After Bible study, I met a friend from our former life in Michigan for, you guessed it, lunch.  Isn’t it amazing that ten years can pass and you can hug and share as though you haven’t missed a day?  I know I have written about so many of these encounters, but I am still surprised when they happen, and I keep pinching myself to see if my life right now is real.

I wouldn’t let myself go home until I had exchanged books at the library and gone to the gym.  I wasn’t silly enough to think that I could do 30 minutes on the elliptical, 15 minutes of weightlifting, and time in the pool, but I knew that if I spent just 30 minutes in the pool, my body would thank me.  I was right.  Being in the water erases my pain and even my fatigue.  I am not sure why that works, but it is lovely.

I drove myself home, plunked myself on the couch, and have been there ever since.  After dinner with my dear husband, I will begin the decline into what I hope will be a restful night’s sleep.  The last two nights I was exhausted and was sure that sleep would come quickly, but ended up awake into the wee hours.

I am happy to report that in my exceptionally late nights, I have had the company of Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller (which I highly recommend) and a few night-owls who play Words With Friends at all hours.  I haven’t hated being up late, it has just broken the routine.  So, here’s to adapting.  Here’s to being thankful that my schedule allows for flexibility.  And, finally, here’s to hoping for a sound sleep.

Proverbs 3:24b

When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

My life is an object lesson

~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments

The to-do list is kinda long today.  And, I kinda feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.  It wouldn’t be terrible to crawl right back into bed and read the Jodi Picoult book that I started on Monday.  But, I have been putting off a few things.  I’ve been busy socializing!  So, whether or not I feel up to it, the list has to be attended to today.

I never know when one of these days is going to sneak up on me.  Since I discontinued one of my medications at the end of August, I have actually been doing ok.  I have had a few rough days, a few days when I had to slow down, but for the most part I have done pretty well.  I had almost convinced myself that, you know, I don’t really have an auto-immune disease.  You know, maybe it was all in my head.  Maybe I should, you know, apply for some of those holiday jobs that are being advertised on TV.

Come on, I tell myself, anyone who looks at you can see that you are doing just fine!  You go to the gym, for Pete’s sake.  You look good, girl.  (Just get a different haircut, would you? Justin Bieber has that look trademarked.) Stop your bellyaching and get over it!  It’s the old Kristin way — buck up, take care of this, kick some butts, take some names. I got this!  Exercise, adjust the diet, add the correct supplements, and bam — healed.

And then, I end up on ice. I am doing all the right things and still, it’s not enough. I cannot control this on my own.  

My life is an object lesson. I am a very slow learner.

I cannot do this on my own.  Sure, it’s great to exercise, eat all the right foods, take all the vitamins, blah, blah, blah.  But ultimately, my health is not in my hands. Is it?  If I had a dollar for every time I have written in this blog that ‘I am sitting in the palm of His hand,’  I would no longer even be thinking about looking for employment.  And yet, I still forget and get into my ‘I got this!’ mode.

Now, I am not saying I believe that God gives me the smack-down and puts me on ice to teach me a lesson.  But, let’s be honest, I need a lesson.  If I was my teacher, I would be very frustrated with me.  I actually think God has lifted his hand, with me in it, up close to his face so that he can verify that “Yup, she’s really doing it again.”  And he lovingly smiles and shakes his head and watches while I pull the ice packs out of the freezer and slow myself down enough to say, “I see you.  I hear you.  I do not have this.  You have me.”

So, I’m sitting on ice, looking at my list, getting ready to scratch off one item at a time and try to listen to the still small voice so that I will know when it is time to crawl back into bed with my book and be still and know that He is God and that I am still sitting in the palm of His hand.

Luke 4:40

…all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him,

and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them.