I haven’t posted much in the past month. It wasn’t just because of the business of the Christmas season. Life hit hard around Thanksgiving and it’s been a process recovering. I made a decision long ago that I was going to be real on my blog. I don’t want to just post “good Christian thoughts” just to post them. I want it to be real and transparent and give an accurate picture of the journey I am on. I haven’t quite known how to articulate what has been going on, and honestly I haven’t had the desire to figure it out.
Right after Thanksgiving, Angela went to the emergency room showing signs of a stroke. They ran scans for that and a brain tumor, and thankfully both of them came back negative. They referred her to a neurologist, who said it was most likely hemiplegic migraines or multiple sclerosis (MS) and referred her to get an MRI. It took weeks, but the MRI came back negative for MS, so now we are in the process of figuring out if it is a hemiplegic migraine and how to handle it. Trying to get test results around the holidays is a fun process and we spent all of December wondering what was going on.
The whole process hit our family hard. The experience has taken us so many places that this is likely just the start of a post series processing it all. I have always turned to writing as my way to process things, but I was so thrown I didn’t even want to do that. I’ve always known that no one is immune from the storms of life, but I wasn’t prepared for this one.
I didn’t have anything prepared for what to do when your wife loses most of her vision in one eye and has such weakness on her right side that she can’t hold anything. Or what to do when this hits right in the middle of her trying to fulfill forty orders for her business. For a little bit more fun, throw in all the craziness that is the Christmas season. I was so confused. In what is supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year and in what seemed like a season of blessing for us, we got thrown the biggest curveball and I was completely unprepared for it.
I’d love to be able to tell you that I stood firm in Christ and weathered the storm like a champ, but I didn’t. I was confused, angry, upset, and just about every other negative emotion there is. I had so many questions for God. How could something like this happen to the most loving person I know? I knew I wouldn’t get the answers I was looking for, but I asked anyway.
The prayers I prayed during this time are probably the most real prayers I’ve ever prayed. I didn’t hold anything back from God. I never doubted God or who He is, but I wouldn’t say we were best friends at the time either. I knew it was an attack from the enemy, and it did some serious damage. There were days where I had to force myself to read my Bible, pray, or do anything related to spending time with God. There were days where I didn’t do those things.
As test results have come in, we praise God that all the major concerns have been eliminated. As time has passed, and I’ve wrestled with God, I’m learning how to trust Him even more. The storm is not over, but I am much calmer and peaceful. The process is way too many words for one post, so I’ll be sharing it over the next few ones. God is good. He is always good, but sometimes it can be hard to see that through all the clouds.
until next time…