I love goofball songs from the past. One of my very favorites is a Roger Miller classic, "Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd." The song lists crazy impossible stuff you cannot do. Like, shower in a parakeet cage, change film with a kid on your back, or go fishing in a cabbage farm. The one thing that the song tells you you CAN do is be happy if you've a mind to. "All you have to do is knuckle down, buckle down, do it do it do it" Oh bless you Roger Miller for that. God uses these sort of things to teach me. He reaches down, thonks me on the head and says, "Listen" here is what I've learned.
In my life I have tried to do the same broken and ridiculous task over and over determined that it will bring me happiness. I've tried to fit in. I've tried to "make" people like me. I've tried to change my personality completely. However all of the above is as smart as trying to roller skate with buffalo.
I can be nice. I can be nicely dressed. I cannot force something to happen that isn't. This is a mindset that says, "I can't change these things (circumstances, looks, core personality etc...) but I can be happy in this." I recently had a friend say I was flawed but, "You're the sort of person who can find fun in a burning building." That's just life and living it. You can keep trying to do the impossible (not the good kind of impossible, I mean the parakeet shower sort of impossible) or you can just be. Just be happy.
On my first visit to him, I had just been discharged from the hospital. I wasn't feeling too bad...in fact, I was surprised that I had been kept overnight for observation because my only sensory symptom at the time was a rapid heart rate which I thought was anxiety.
As he assessed me I told him that I wanted to figure out how to change my lifestyle so I won't have to be dependent on medications. "Oh, you are definitely going to be on medications for the rest of your life" was his candid reply. Then he stated that I should be on insulin and made no bones about how "unhealthy" I was. At my very vocal resistance, he settled with doubling my blood sugar medication and kept me on the other 3 that I had left the hospital with. He ordered an ultrasound on my thyroid and sent me on my way.
Within a few days, I began to experience cold symptoms including a fever, my period started, and I developed an infection in my arm from the IV site. Another trip to Dr. Doom added an antibiotic, steroid, and narcotic pain reliever to the regimen. He informed me that the ultrasound showed a cancer (yes, he said the "C" word) indicator and ordered a biopsy. My body was starting to react to all of the medications in a not so good way. I was weak, dizzy, nauseated, and couldn't walk across a room without nearly passing out. My heart would pound so loud I could hear it in my ears and see my chest pulse. My arm hurt so bad that it woke me up at night. I was sicker than I have ever been in my life, and now, I was worried......
I had already been making MAJOR changes in the when, how, and what I was eating. I was monitoring my blood sugar and my vitals, and being compliant with the medications. I was praying like crazy. It took about 3 weeks before I finally stared seeing normal numbers. Then my energy levels began to return and last longer each day. I dropped almost 20 lbs over the course of 4 weeks. Then came the call from the radiologist who was to perform my biopsy...... I didn't need it.... There was no reason for him to do it. (Huge sigh of relief).
I visited Dr. Doom a few days ago....proud of my progress. He looked over my labs and informed me that I am still diabetic (my blood sugar was 128....down from 391). My A1C which gives a picture of blood sugar levels over a 3 month span (normal is around 5) had dropped from 9.5 to 7.7 in 30 days time! My weight had dropped again to the lowest it has been in 23 years. Dr. Doom finally admitted that I had been making some good strides, but I could still hear the cynicism in his tone.
I am determined to prove him wrong. I am continuing with the changes and am down from 7 medications to 3. I am seeing normal blood sugar levels (without the insulin he was insisting upon) ..and every time I see those numbers, I think to myself..... "My hope is NOT in medical opinion.....My hope is in the One who made me.......Take that, Dr. Doom!!!!"
I am suffering from a lack of direction today. What is important? Why am I doing this? There's a distinct lack of cosmic clarity and everything is falling flat. It is one thing to push through a difficult circumstance or project with the emotional equivalents of fan mail and theme music in your soul. It is quite another when you aren't very sure what you do matters anymore or if it does that you care.
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Recently while "pondering" my attention turned to Isaiah-who was sharing that "people who walk in darkness have seen a great light,and to those living in the LAND of DEEP Darkness (emphasis mine) that LIGHT has dawned. This is a wonderful promise! I realized anew how intentional as kingdom carriers that we must be in allowing HIS light to shine forth through us and His love and grace to be shed abroad in our hearts-as freely as we have received-we are to give. Our role then is Light,Love and Life. God help us to be his arms extended embracing all AND to allow God to grow these ALL up at the rate of growth of HIS choosing without our judgement or comment.Some kids grow faster than others,some learn quicker than others-do we love them less-NO-well neither does God.HE knows how to grow us from newborns to senior citizens :)
My prayer became-Oh God-Infuse us with a caring that won't quit for yours who are imprisoned, the broken, the unchurched and the burnt-out and whatever fallen state in which we find ourselves.. Let us declare that there IS life after death-here and now-that HIS name breaks every chain of bondage-that HIS love brings beauty out of ashes.To the Walking dead let us exude life. To the unloved -be conduits of love and to shine so brightly in the deep darkness that the darkness cannot overtake it.
This has been a very emotional week. My husband has taken up residence in his beloved father's hospital room, and I have spent the majority of my days working in Pennsylvania, then driving to Maryland to spend the evenings with my husband and the family at the hospital. My father-in-law became gravely ill last weekend, and we do not know what the outcome will be. Right now all we know is that decisions must be made. Very difficult decisions. Much prayer and discussion has taken place, and I have noticed all week that whenever I have the slightest moment of quiet, the thing that I hear almost every time is the song by Bethel Music, It Is Well. It calms my soul and refocuses my gaze on the Lord and allows Him to steady me, so that I can better help my husband and his family.
Around this time of the year, I get a yen for cleaning top to bottom. It's the cooler weather that makes me think, "Oh crap, I'll be stuck in this house for the next several months, this place better be clean". I also tend to notice things that need to be fixed too. Our bathtub was designed to only be a tub to sit and bathe in. That didn't work for the Smerdell family. We like to be clean, rather then "Sitting in our own soup", as my dad would say. So before we moved in, Paul put in a shower head. It's not as aesthetically attractive as we would like, but it does the job till we remodel the bathroom this spring/summer. I noticed the edge of the tub wall at the bottom looked like it was deteriorating, so I brought it to Paul's attention. No fungus and ick in my house if I can help it. So, Paul went to Lowes, got the necessary items to fix it up but not put a bunch of money into the project or effort, so as not to hurt himself and waste money before we remodel. Done. I commenced in cleaning the bathroom, and scrub, scrub, scrub, I did.
Ahh, nothing like a clean room to stand back and look at, for like a nano second, before it is messed up again. In the fall I think, clean up, and hunker down with extra food and supplies, just in case we are stuck in this house. In the spring I think, lets get outside and enjoy. Yes, I know, I am going to Florida to live this winter. However, I will be here in the cold for a while till we get to go to the lovely warmer, non snow filled bliss, of sand beaches. I can run away soon, but I want my home really clean because it's how I am wired.
Do we do that with our lives too? God calls us to get rid of the dirt of sin. Fix what is broken and change into His likeness and image. He cares about what the inside looks like, more then the outside. He doesn't want a white washed tomb, as Jesus described the religious leaders of His day. God takes our structure then cleans and fixes it to be like new. He doesn't demolish and start over. He made the original structure and cares for it. When He is done, the polished masterpiece is revealed for all to see.
So, I say, "get out the Brillo pads and scrub brushes, polish away, chisel off the icky dirt and scum of sin and show us what your masterpiece is God", cause that will last for eternity when clean.
This past week, I woke up with a headache that started on Wednesday. It was a doozy. I took headache meds. Nothing touched it. I went about my day, I went to bed, next morning, I still had a headache. I went to my daughters school for class pictures, fell into a hole, and wrenched my ankle. Not broken, not twisted badly, but it makes me limp a little still. Came home took meds tried to sleep but now head AND ankle throbbed all night. Friday, I woke up with the same headache. This had never ever happened. Then I started crying for absolutely no reason. I called my doctor, she set up a same day appointment for me, I called my mom, and she and Dad came that day.
Now, Dad had been sick for a week and Mom wasn't feeling great, but they came. When they showed up, the relief was palpable until I saw their condition. Well, buy this time I had been administered a shot of Toradol in my hip and the headache was gone. But we then proceeded to help each other.
God brought us together in a time when we were both hurting physically and used our care for each other to alleviate pain. I started getting soup out and they started talking and laughing with me. As is so often in life, when I stopped focusing on me and started focusing on others, my hurts started to feel better.
The shot in my hip was meant to break the headache cycle. What God uses comraderie for is to break the poor pitiful me cycle. The Bible says it this way, "A cord of three strands is not easily broken." We as people need each other. I know I get a palpable boost in my mood when I dig in and help others. Remember in hard times to look up, look around, and love where needed most.
