Can Wisdom be elusive for the wise?

Hey there friends.

So thankful for your prayers. Olivia continues to need them.❤️

Yes, we are still in the hospital. Three weeks today. Sigh.

Testing...scanning.....blood work....ultrasounds.....Echo's.....such sophisticated tests, all of which are mostly normal. High temps, no bacterial indications, high liver enzymes.......constant hand biting.

I'm not a doctor but the obvious (in my opinion) continues to get pushed off the table.

Wisdom teeth.

Pain.

I can vouch for Olivia. Never have I witnessed her biting her hands for days and days, week after week. It's just never been part of her picture. Ever.

I remember vividly the day my wisdom teeth attempted their shenanigans in my mouth. I was a sophomore in college.....living without a care, day in and day out. It was an average day. Work, class, a little hang time with my friends, late night studying, then bed. All of a sudden, at 3:00 in the morning I woke up in extreme pain. A pain I had never felt in my mouth. I did what every other college student would do, I called my Mom. By 8:00 that morning I had an appointment with the local surgeon and by that afternoon they were out.

My baby girl has no voice. Her ability to explain her pain has been stolen. Can you even imagine?

What has complicated this hospitalization is a known fact......mouth pain and doctors do not gel. I've heard apology after apology from the hospital staff, this is definitely a hole in our current healthcare system. Dentists are a luxury at hospitals.

Most people are able to explain their pain when it first begins like I did in college.  For those who are nonverbal, that option doesn't exist. So they suffer. They cry. Soon they have no choice but resort to behaviors they can no longer control. They lash out. They lose control. They bite themselves.....inside screaming silently at the top of their lungs. Help Me!!!!

And then. Then they are medicated. They are heavily medicated to end the struggle, with the root problem never addressed.

One analogy I recently shared with the rounding doctor -- Someone steps on a nail. They go to the doctor and they are prescribed antibiotics and pain medication and sent on their way. The pain continues to get worse.....the nail is still there....the root cause of the pain never addressed. He laughed and said that would never happen -  but is that true? I think it happens more than we think. We have a symptom, it's not well understood and the only tool in their toolbox is a medicine that just deadens the symptoms, many times creating more problems from the treatment.

When we checked in here all of Olivia's blood tests were normal. Now, we are dealing with high liver and kidney tests and a host of other complications that happen to be "side effects" of potent medications that haven't resolved a persistent high fever that magically started after iv treatment.

I've been praying for wisdom for quite a while. I never dreamed it would be this literal.

The Bible teaches that wisdom is ours for the asking, He gives it generously (James 1:5) Even if we don't believe it.

I really like The Message translation on this 1 Corinthians scripture on wisdom and the wise:


The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation, it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust Him into the way of salvation.

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”1 Corinthians 1:20-31 The Message (MSG)


Another version of the most important verse here:
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 1 Corinthians 1:27 NKJV

Please don't get me wrong. I appreciate and am thankful for the hardworking doctors and nurses that have been taking care of Olivia for the past three weeks, but sometimes the simple answer is passed as illegitimate, common sense thrown out the window.

I know. I'm only a mom, but I'm seeking the Keeper of Wisdom. The Wisest of them all, and continue to pray that He guides them to the answer - simple or complicated - so we can get her back on her feet. Back to our healing mission.

xo

Back here again.....

What in the world is going on? We are back. Again. Sigh,

This past Saturday was such a great day with my little dancer. One phone call later and it's a buzz kill.

Olivia has been having "rage" sessions again, a major side effect of the anti-seizure drug Keppra. We've been down this road before with this medication, and the timing seemed right since they doubled her dose during the hospitalization in December.

For those of you that have been following our journey for awhile, I've been trying to wean her off Keppra for years. Sounds weird, right? Why is it taking so long?

It seems like I almost get her there and then boom.....she's in the hospital. The first thing they do is double it, because, you know.....Keppra is wonderful for EVERYONE. MORE=BETTER.

Not for Olivia.

For more on past side effects, please read SIDE EFFECTS ARE BRUTAL.

It's always a process when you haven't found a medicine that works, and especially when that elusive "cocktail" of meds has not been concocted.

This time was intense but it seemed like she was doing way more self harm than usual. She was scratching her face, pulling at her cheeks and biting her hands......like crazy. Most of it was done in the ER before they settled her down. Something I hadn't seen before. Something was different.

First day in they started the wean, going down faster than I had ever done with her. Like, really fast. Every three days they were decreasing it by 125mg 2x/day.

The rage against herself was not going away.

A couple days later, one of my favorite nurses walked in to say hi and happened to notice how much weight she had gained.....especially in her face. As I looked Olivia's way, I realized that her face had morphed drastically. She had big cheeks.....bigger than normal. It was then that I realized that there was something wrong with her teeth.......and after a couple xrays it was confirmed. WISDOM TEETH!!

All four were on the move, and unfortunately, they have no room.

Olivia needs them out.....yesterday. This type of procedure is typically not done in a hospital, generally it's an outpatient procedure......at an oral surgeons clinic most likely.

It's been a couple days of navigating a path very few take. Doctors are not dentists and do not venture in the 3 inches or so between your chin and your nose. Some challenges have been presented and some protocols overturned.

Remember my snowball analogy I used in my last post? This hospitalization is completely different. Olivia is in A LOT of pain. Can you imagine having that much pain and not being able to communicate it? Know wonder she was thrashing at her cheeks, and biting everything in site.

Today we are trying to get ahead of the pain. We lost some ground and have been piggy backing pain meds to get it under control.

I'm grateful for the Hospitalist that has gone to bat for Olivia when hospital protocol leans toward discharge and reschedule. She literally can not handle one more day of this excruciating pain.

Please pray that a surgeon's schedule opens up, she tolerates the surgery and is on the road to recovery SOON!

xo

Where do you looketh?

After sitting down with my favorite healing book for what seems to be the millionth time, something dawned on me. Eighteen years later, and I continue to look the wrong way. The author led me down an interesting path with one tiny line of scripture:

Numbers 21:8
It shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten when he looketh upon it, shall live.

Look here to live.

Looketh where? It shouldn't be work...right? Why is it so difficult?

What is it that I looketh upon? Scripture is clear as to how healing comes. It comes by faith, not sight. So where do I looketh?  Where I always have.....at the devastation, the fall out of vaccine injury.

Honestly, sometimes I get so frustrated. I realize we are to look away from our symptoms, to turn away to what we do not see.

Ugh.......but those pesky seizures. They demand our attention. They are loud, and scary....they hold center stage, how can you not see?

She’s 19 and cannot talk. Autism 101. Unable to "not" see this symptom or so many more....

She’s weak and cannot walk very good by herself. She wears a diaper. Her immune system is shot.

Symptoms of the unwell. Symptoms of a damaged body.

How do I look away and "not see"? Isn't that a common cry of the chronically ill. These are the ones that can't look beyond their demanding symptoms.

Remember the old cliche that some people wear their hearts on their sleeves? I would say this is a description of me before the injury. My emotions (normal emotions), good and bad, there for the world to see. Like many women.

But then......I had a child and that heart suddenly relocated from both beneath the breast and from that comfy flannel sleeve.  Now full of unexplainable joy, it peels itself off easily and jumps full bore into each precious little soul that suddenly became my responsibility, becoming the love of my life.....my heart.

Soon my heart starts babbling, crawling, walking and talking.

And then suddenly, one is gone.....Olivia's soul is trapped in the prison of her own injured, impaired body.

Her soul, my heart. Gone. Stolen, right from under me.

Unexplainable pain for so many Momma's out there.

I think it was around day 22 in the hospital this time around. Suddenly, things turned around. In an instant. Finally, the constant seizures were under control. The trips to the ICU.....thwarted.

This hospital stay was like all the rest. Olivia gets admitted for uncontrolled seizures resulting from an illness. In most cases, it's the same scenario. I often liken it to a snowball released at the top of a snowy hill. Illness.......weakness......stops drinking and eating.....dehydration......increased seizures....loss of control......standard of care.....ICU.  IV fluid is a miracle for her, but that is where the benefit of "standard of care" stops. In most cases, the medications that are administered from this point on complicate her symptoms from the onset. She just does not respond to medications like the average person and honestly, it is maddening.

This time, the neurologist confirmed it. They use a protocol that "works the best for the most people". He used the medications that he has had success with other children. I get it. That line of thinking seems to never work for Olivia, and after 3 drugs in the same family and a trip to the ICU it was painfully obvious. They say....she's complex, she's complicated. The truth is she BECAME complex and complicated by the vaccines and their toxic ingredients. Rest assured, this will be proven.

This time I had a recollection of a medicine that helped her in 2012 and we tried it. And it worked. Suddenly,  in an instant,  there was peace.

My adrenaline was slowly dissipating and I snuggled in one night with Olivia to watch a movie. Moana, the Disney animated movie was one of the choices and I realized I had never seen it.

What is it with me and Disney princesses? Ha!

What’s most surprising is that I have a younger daughter, who at the time this movie was released, was the prime age to head to the theatre with. Not sure if you can guess, but something else took priority and my darling little girl watched this movie without me. So my first viewing was day 22 of a stressful hospital stay, December 2017.

For those unfamiliar with this incredible tale, Moana, the daughter of Motunui's chief, has a destiny to fulfill. The entire movie bleeds Christian symbolism. The ocean (God) chooses her for what looks like an impossible mission. Tragedy strikes her remote island and she is thrust into her calling unprepared. As she moves through her mission, she questions why she was chosen, is ridiculed by one who says the ocean was wrong to choose her, and at one point, gives up on her mission. She overcomes her shortcomings and finds her way through tremendous obstacles.

She overcomes......with the Ocean's help. Towards the end of the movie, I realized the truth of the widespread devastation to Moana's island that fueled her destiny and it surprisingly hit home.

Her mission ----- to restore the heart of Te Fiti. Ancient stories dictate that once stolen there was widespread devastation.

Te Fiti's heart......my heart. Stolen....right out from under us. Unfortunately, the similarities didn't end there . Once Te Fiti's heart was gone she became Te Ka, the damaged and angry shell of her former self.

I could identify with Te Fiti and the person she became when her heart was stolen by a self serving, greedy guy who thought he was a God. Maui thought he was doing good, but suddenly, within seconds, his actions put into motion a devastating cycle that destroyed beauty. Does that description strike a cord with anyone?

The ocean returned Te Fiti's heart. That’s where the story gets good. It was the only One that could do it. He used Moana.

I guess this would be a shout out to all the Momma"s and Daddy's who have had their hearts stolen. I’m not proud of what I became for a while.....I did resemble Te Kā in some ways. I was angry, overwhelmed and ‘fiery’ to everyone and anyone for several years. Like Te Ka, I pushed away some of the people who were there to help restore my heart......I guarded my turf. My heart was at the bottom of the ocean, barely beating......sorely missing it’s former brilliance. But then He found it, held it up and I couldn't help but crawl across that ocean floor to get it back.

The lyrics in this short clip provide healing insight to those who have lost their hearts, however that may have happened:

I have crossed the horizon to find you (Ezekiel 34:11)
I know your name (Genesis 16:13)
They have stolen the heart from inside you (John 10:10)
But this does not define you (1 Peter 2:9)
This is not who you are (Colossians 1:13)
You know who you are (Ephesians 2:5)(Many others)

Oprah is raving about how ‘My Truth’ is the most powerful tool, I feel she is sadly mistaken. My truth falls flat without His Truth. My truth was full of ugly feelings, hopelessness and unforgiveness towards those who stole my heart.

It could only be returned by Him.

Oh, but looketh over here. This is where you live. Not at her symptoms but in the Hope that lies in stepping into each day that she's still here with me. There are many vaccine injured children who do not get a chance to live, for they lost their lives. She's still here for a reason.

For you who have made some bad decisions, for your children or for yourself, please remember you are not defined by them, you are MORE. In addition to God's powerful healing Word, the song "You are More" by Tenth Avenue North ministered to me many days as I worked through the horror of that fateful decision to vaccinate. One decision suddenly changed the complete trajectory of Olivia's life.

Lean into these key lyrics:

You are more than the choices that you've made,

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

You are more than the problems you create,

You've been remade.




For when my outward action doth demonstrate / The native act and figure of my heart / In complement extern, 'tis not long after /But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / For jackdaws [birds] to peck at: I am not what I am.  Shakespeare

xo

No more shame......

I had a hard time writing in 2017...

It was this persistent feeling of having to "wordsmith" each and every post. An unrelenting feeling of pushing back what I really wanted....and needed to write about. As time went on it became impossible and the words stopped coming.

I mean, this is my journey....my story, so why am I fudging my way through blogging it? I think I misinterpreted who my audience is, and what they "want" to hear. A couple months ago I heard a heartbreaking interview with a young couple who had recently lost their 20-month old son.  It was her question that rocked my world...... It went something like this....."Why haven't I heard stories of other children before? If I would have heard their stories, I may have questioned it and made a different choice and he would still be here."

I need to apologize to this young couple. I need to tell them I'm sorry for being a coward. I haven't been brave enough. I feel as though I've lived two lifetimes with this sobering reality. I've learned so much about Olivia's situation and am passionate to put my pen to paper, but in order to move in that direction, I need to explain an important truth.

Olivia's illness....her disability.....her uncontrolled seizures....this cruel interruption to our lives is the result of vaccine injury. I know, it's a hard reality for some to accept, but unfortunately, it is true. Vaccines destroyed my daughter's health.

It's been my family's reality for 18 years now.

Vaccines killed that couple's little boy.

I'm tired of feeling ashamed.

It's been 18 years of people not wanting to hear it. 18 years of being silenced. 18 years of being looked at like I am delusional or misinformed, or my favorite...... I'm desperate. A desperate mom looking for anything to blame.

Shame is a sneaky one. It's invisible and destructive. Carl Jung deems it the "soul eating emotion", Brene Brown says shame is the "swampland of the soul". Although some of us bring it on ourselves, the act of "shaming" is prevalent. Words or emotional body language thrown our way, leaving us with seeds of emotional baggage. Like every good seed, it's cultivated and grows.....I'm not smart enough to understand.....I'm not good enough to be worthy of someone believing it.....someone has to be the "sacrificial lamb" to keep our society safe.....just accept your daughter's "genetic" illness......science is never wrong, you are.....she's complex and there is no real reason, it's just the way she was born. These are just a few of the words spoken to me by doctors, others in the healthcare field, family, and friends.  It's always someone else's job to set you straight - right?

You'd think I would have been able to overcome this feeling after 18 years, especially since I had a lot of experience with it growing up. What is it about having red hair and freckles that makes you the perfect "shaming" target? Complete strangers, classmates, and even teachers felt confident and comfortable teasing me about my freckled face and/or my unique shade of red hair. We all have heard the rhymes - "I'd rather be dead than be a redhead", "carrot top", or "Look at all those freckles, can I count them".  Why not just scream, "you're different and you're ugly so go hide, go away, you're not worthy."

I have to admit, the red hair and freckle jokes did make me stronger. It gave me a perspective on cruelty and it provided me with a great life lesson......people can be idiots, don't internalize it...... thrive, don't dive, and that is what I did......I let the cruelty strengthen me. Even though at the time, I wasn't a "practicing Christian" (I believed in God but wasn't actively engaged), I can look back now and see that I became a stronger person/personality from those personal attacks.

I get it. People don't want to imagine that vaccinations have negative consequences. We don't want to think that we take our healthy child to well visits and actually allow bad things to happen. We all can agree that we just want to keep our children healthy. It's almost like an act of obedience. It's just what we do.

We want to feel confident as parents. We want to have confidence in the decisions we make for them... for their future. Some of us really don't want to learn something that may question our decisions. It makes us do crazy stuff. It's what made a college friend of mine think he needed to call me and set me straight. I'll never forget that phone call. "Kelly, there is a story in the Star Tribune that proves you are wrong. MMR did not cause Olivia's seizures or Autism. They are right, you are wrong. (Shame) I will mail you the article." Click. Shame. Hopelessness. Shame. Sinking back into a hole. Shame.

Brene Brown knows a thing or two about my shameful position. "Shame needs three things to grow exponentially in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment.”

That looks a lot like pride, doesn't it? Voicing the truth about how vaccines ruined my child's life brought into question his decision and therefore that needed to be defended. In reality, it comes down to a belief system, wouldn't you say? I was taught that vaccines save lives. I acquired that "belief", not from researching and learning on my own, rather by "trusting" individuals and organizations that I believed in. Period.

I believed what I was told.........vaccines are safe and effective. But the problem is, I didn't learn the whole truth. Did you know that legally vaccines are deemed "unavoidably unsafe" and that is why Reagan's administration signed into law the "National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act". This law provided vaccine manufacturers complete protection of financial liability in the event that a child was harmed or died as a result of their product. Dangerous product/no liability. No wonder the number of required vaccines administered to young children has skyrocketed since 1986.

I wish I would have known Truth. That "He made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. That I am "fearfully and wonderfully made."  Psalm 139:13-14

Could it be that He made a mistake? That's the big question for any Christian. Did God mess up with His creation of our immune system? Do we need to "help it" by injecting a myriad of toxic chemicals to become or stay healthy? What gives?

2018. The year to step up and be brave. Even if you are skeptical of my claims, I hope you stick around and consider what I have learned over the last 18 years. Learn about the difficult journey of a vaccine injured child and the tragic fall out to the entire family. You can do it anonymously. It's time to get real.

I absolutely love this fellow redhead. Princess Merida from Disney's "Brave". I love this quote even more. "Some say our destiny is tied to the land, as much a part of us as we are of it. Others say fate is woven together like a cloth so that one's destiny intertwines with many others. It's the one thing we search for or fight to change. Some never find it. But there are some who are led."

Copyright on "Brave" picture - Disney

Destiny. Intertwined with others. Fight to change.

If you've seen the 'Brave" movie, you know that Princess Merida's free will put her in her dire situation, just as my free will landed Olivia where she is. We both trusted hocus pocus. We both tempted God's Will in our loved one's lives, not completely understanding the fallout and consequences.

Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.” (Jeremiah 33:3, MSG)

Pretty sure this scripture means we can be led.

Apparently, to God, I guess a warrior can look like this:

Freckles and all. Shameless.

Last Brene Brown quote. Did you know that vulnerability is the most accurate measurement of courage? That it is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change?

Not sure why I'm being vulnerable. I just feel led.

Don't worry, sweet friend. I'm not going to exclusively talk about vaccines, this blog is still about Olivia's healing. I needed to put her story in perspective with the truth of what landed her here.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  Marianne Williamson


xo

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year from Olivia & I!

I realize that some of you only follow my blog sans Facebook. Wanted to catch you up on a couple FB only posts from the end of December. You can connect with those two posts here and here. In a nutshell, Olivia was hospitalized the whole month of December. Yeah......Not Good.

But now. Now it's 2018. A NEW YEAR. NEW BEGINNINGS!

If you've been reading my blog, you know I kind of get into knowing the biblical meaning for numbers.  This post gets into the nitty gritty. Remember what 17 means? Overcoming. Complete Victory.

Well. We are starting year 18. Unbelievable. If you would have told me that first day, seeing her first shaking spell...... that I would still be trying to figure it out 18 years later, I would have cried even harder. Believe me, fear had the upper hand. It was the overcomer, not me. (sigh)

Year 17 gave me so much new information. New understanding. So much wisdom. So much in fact, I am in love with this verse from Isaiah 42:16 

"I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them."

This can only lead to one thing ----- LIFE, which happens to be the biblical meaning of the number 18!   Olivia reclaiming her stolen life.

Bring it on.

Hope to see you more this coming year. I have lots to share with you

xo

I prefer Answers to my Prayers

I know. Sounds crazy - right? I prefer answers to my unanswered prayers. We all have them. Some big. Some small(er). We're all looking for the answer we desire. The goodness of restored joy....restored vitality of life. We can't help ourselves, our hearts ache to believe in such things.

I've heard from a couple of my readers in the last couple weeks. They are worried about me after reading my last post, "Even If You Don't".  Have I given up? Have I lost my faith? Why on earth would I write about the other side of the coin? That awful "tail-side" face of doubt.

Unfortunately, I am so ridiculously human that this journey sometimes gets the best of me. I felt led to share my weakness. There are so many reasons why Bart Millard's testimony was comforting to me. Hearing him speak about his son's chronic medical issues makes me feel less alone. I love his honesty about his struggles and I thought you would too.

Funny thing is......I've given up so many times on this crazy idea of mine.....that Olivia would be restored.  But inevitably, I'm always drawn back to Hope again. It's like I get lassoed by an invisible rope that holds me tight and won't let me go. The idea that I could simply wiggle out of the loop escapes me as I allow the tightening to commence. The gentle tugging from despair's darkness into the light of day is a rescue that never gets old. Deep down I know I don't want to break free, unbelief is lonely and can present itself in so many ugly ways. Daylight feels safer.

It never fails. Each and every time I'm drawn in close, I receive some sort of revelation to my situation. In this particular instance, I came across a sermon from Bill Johnson at Bethel Church in Redding California entitled "Answer's Matter", and it reignited my hope for Olivia.

Answer's do matter.

This sermon provided me with so many nuggets of truth. Bill explains that "prayers without answers are pointless and that complacency and ignorance tolerate unanswered prayers. He went on to say that we were not designed for unanswered prayers.....that’s why there is no instruction for it in the Bible.  There can be a delay, there can be room for a process, but we were not designed to coexist with unfulfilled prayers. We are made to co-labor with God to help release His will and purposes for our lives on this earth."

Say what? Just what I needed to hear.

Just when I tried to give up for the 100th time, I immediately feel the tugging of the rope from these life-giving words.  So much to unpack from the first five minutes. Complacency. Ignorance. Co-labor.

Merriam Webster defines complacency as "marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies".  Is that my problem? As I dove in and studied related words other negative synonyms popped up, like conceitedness, ego, egotism, pride, pridefulness, self-admiration, self-assumption, self-conceit, self-glory, self-importance, self-love, self-opinion, self-satisfaction, smugness, vainness, vanity. And here I thought it just meant being lazy and unmotivated. Can this be true of me?

Complacency can and does become a heart thing when you are alone in a fight for such a long period of time. You begin to rely on you. After several years, most family and friends moved on with their lives while my heart remained the same.....broken. I couldn't shake my one objective....to save Olivia. And herein lies what could be my complacency. Pride, self-opinion and ego trump the real Savior. What's equally enlightening is that I can have this misplaced pride while experiencing the feelings which are the exact opposite.......words like self-loathing, self-doubt, timidness, passivity and shame.  I didn't protect her. No wonder I feel like my prayers for wisdom go unheard. It's like these words....these feelings are a pack of wolves chasing me here, then there.....always towards the darkness, not the light. Words like should've and could've dominate the night.

Ignorance, on the other hand, shouldn't be my problem. From day one of this nightmare, I've taken her to every "expert" physician I hear about within driving distance. Aren't we taught that experts lack ignorance? It's kind of why they are experts - right? So many hours waiting to see each and every one of them. They all have given me zilch. How is it that she can become so incredibly weak, to the point of being hospitalized, and all the tests come back normal? Is she a mystery or could their tests be wrong? Could it be that my ignorance is that I've relied on ignorance for 17 years? Even though God is known as The Great Physician, my reliance has always been on the physician with "skin on".  I've been told over and over that God works through doctors. Not always.  I guess I forgot the full meaning of Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

This sermon reminded me of truth.

Every. Single. Time. Jesus ministered to someone, he brought deliverance.

I was reminded of Matthew 4:24 "News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering acute pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed--and He healed them."

But what about the theology of suffering? Some say we tolerate sickness because God uses it to build character in us. Do you believe that? Bill Johnson doesn't. He refuses to have a "theology for something that shouldn’t exist, because to him it's a direct violation of what Jesus taught and modeled. Jesus suffered to get rid of all disease. He goes on to say that "we all have unanswered prayers, so the challenge is to navigate through the process without accusing God or blaming ourselves. Mournful prayers are subtle ways of accusing God. It’s like you are saying “I have more compassion than you do for this problem.”

The disciples became experts in Jesus's healing ministry. They were walking alongside Him, healing people left and right. Jesus even says, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven", in Luke 10:17-20.

There is just one instance they were not to bring healing, that of the epileptic boy. Does this verse sound familiar to those who have followed my journey this far? I have written about this Bible story so many times. I've even gone as far as to say that Olivia and I are the Mother/Daughter version of this Father/Son journey. You can read my older posts on this scripture here, here, here & here. Needless to say, I've gotten some mileage out of meditating on this story.

To refresh your memory, the story is about a father, whose son has been having seizures since childhood. He has spent years trying to help his son. He hears about the disciples and takes him to them, but they are unable to heal him. The disciples do not understand why they are not able to free the child, and therefore brings him straight to Jesus. He chastises the father and disciples about their lack of faith and delivers the child. Read the full story here  (Mark 9:17-29).

Sound familiar? 

Olivia's doctors remind me of the disciple's and their efforts to free the child. Doctors are accustomed to helping people as did the disciples. For Olivia, they never had an explanation on hand.  For years and years, the dogma recited was.......you guessed it........it's genetic (which recent extensive genetic testing obliterated).  It's Olivia's fault and in 20-40 years science will have an explanation. 

As Bill explains, the disciple's reaction to the mystery of their failure is the exact opposite. They were unsatisfied with the result. They had to know why they were not successful, so they went to Jesus. What they didn’t do was create a theology around what didn’t work, as to say, this is ok."  

That darn pride exists everywhere......even in the conventional medical system, where complacency runs rampant for the patient who doesn't respond appropriately.

I've made the rounds to all the experts in every field, including the religious arena. Most of the spiritual "experts" (i.e. Pastors) I've met with were extremely thoughtful and caring people, but none were ever bold enough to stick it out with me. Friends continue to support me as much as they can, although 17 years is a long time to believe for something. I was struck by Bill's candidness when it comes to supporting people with unanswered prayers. He says, "In our attempts to comfort people in loss, we tend to create untrue places of safety, untrue tenants of faith, and untrue doctrines that make unanswered prayers ok.  I can’t look for answers that keep me comfortable in the middle of a mystery when it’s supposed to aggravate me to a breakthrough. Some things are not supposed to be comforting some things are supposed to be provoking. Some things are just simply to summoned me out of what would be a complacency because complacency and/or ignorance tolerates unanswered prayers."

And so I continue. Hoping I will soon have the chance to co-labor with Him for her. While mulling over the ideas for this post I heard the song Hard Love by Needtobreathe and Lauren Daigle on the radio. That title seems so fitting. This love has not been easy....by far the hardest thing in my life. As I leaned into the lyrics, I realized so much of this song details my path:

Trading punches with the heart of darkness

Going to blows with your fear incarnate

Never gone until it's stripped away

A part of you has gotta die today

Hold on tight a little longer

What don't kill ya, makes ya stronger

Get back up, 'cause it's a hard love

You can't change without a fallout

It's gon' hurt, but don't you slow down

Get back up, 'cause it's a hard love

When the wolves come and hunt me down

I will face them all and stand my ground

'Cause there's a fire burnin' in me

They will see my strength in this Love I found

Even if the night is long, I'm reminded that He's in the waiting. 

I am a "child of the day, of the light. I do not belong to the night or to the darkness." 1 Thessalonians 5:5 

xo 

Happy Birthday Olivia❤️❤️

Happy 19th Birthday to this beautiful soul.❤️

I. Will. Never. Give. Up. On. Her!

No to complacency, yes to perseverance.

#gettingclosereveryday #shesinthere 💞💞