Relieve
Etymology: Late 14c., "alleviate (pain, etc.), mitigate; afford comfort; allow respite; diminish the pressure of," also "give alms to, provide for;" also figuratively, "take heart, cheer up;" from Old French relever"to raise, relieve" (11c.) and directly from Latin relevare "to raise, alleviate, lift up, free from a burden," from re-, intensive prefix (see re-), + levare "to lift up, lighten," from levis "not heavy" (from PIE root *legwh- "not heavy, having little weight")
The notion is "to raise (someone) out of trouble." From c. 1400 as "advance to the rescue in battle;" also "return from battle; recall (troops)." Meaning "release from duty" is from early 15c.
The bruises are healing and the swelling is going down. I don't have good veins in my arms, so, the past two times I've gotten my blood drawn in the last three days, they've used my hands.
But boy, when I feel hope rustling in the wind, I'd endure anything to realize it.
I hate cliche christian things, but the Lord undeniably gave me the word "relief" for the year 2020. And man was I glad to hear it. After seven years of slow-boiling torture (read: cancer + mood disorder + high motivation + low productivity), I might have a shot at becoming a translator, moving abroad, financially supporting and living by myself. All because I'm going on a cousin drug of Zyprexa. The only reason I can't stay on the solid gold that is Zyprexa is because it makes me gain weight "like a racehorse" as my psychiatrist so quaintly put it. But this new drug is "the most effective drug made" and the weight gain is less. So I have to get my blood drawn every week. The bruises and swelling may continue, but I plan on blasting forward. I feel hope for the first time in years. Real, genuine, down-in-your-bones hope.
The seven years started with my cancer diagnosis and treatment at age 18. I find it interesting that I'm starting my 7th year since then because, in ancient times, the Hebrews were called to a Sabbatic year every seven years. Debts were forgiven, slaves released, and, here's the biggie, NO cultivation of the land. This would fundamentally change the fabric of an agricultural society. And for the first time, after many times studying this concept, I realized the radical trust in the Word of God, Jehovah-Jireh, that it would cost the pre-exilic Israelites.
Though it was sad that they didn't listen, I hope to learn from their mistake. So, just as much as this is a year of divine relief, it is also to be a year of trust in God for radical provision.
I plan to update this blog more often and would be honored if you joined me on my journey towards healing and increased agency... and fun :)
Much love,
Anna Jo
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Saturday, January 18, 2020
I Didn't Wear A Jacket Today
I didn't wear a jacket today.
Depression is like a dementor sucking out your soul, leaving nothing but a shell of a human behind.
I woke up today and felt nothing. I still haven't decided if I can tolerate the anxiety or the abyss better. Either way, it's not like I have a choice.
But as I was preparing to leave for my bestie's bridal shower, I decidedly left my fake leather jacket draped across my club chair; I wanted to feel something and who says that something has to be an emotion?
I felt the bitter winter wind whip across my face. Bliss. Feeling.
I didn't wear a jacket today.
Depression is like a dementor sucking out your soul, leaving nothing but a shell of a human behind.
I woke up today and felt nothing. I still haven't decided if I can tolerate the anxiety or the abyss better. Either way, it's not like I have a choice.
But as I was preparing to leave for my bestie's bridal shower, I decidedly left my fake leather jacket draped across my club chair; I wanted to feel something and who says that something has to be an emotion?
I felt the bitter winter wind whip across my face. Bliss. Feeling.
I didn't wear a jacket today.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Cruciare
I'm currently on my seventh beer of the day (it's 6:15pm and I started at 6am, so they were spaced out). When I drink on a weekday, I know it's the anxiety. It's my salvation. Not really, but in my desperate grasps at sanity, it feels like it.
Along with the booze, A Beautiful Mind is playing in the background. It's taken me all day to get through it; the writing is so good and the acting to match. I feel less alone in my version of crazy.
Wow, I just started crying writing that. It's devastating what our minds can do to us. Schizophrenia and Bipolar are both classified as mood disorders, so, the similarities, especially with my occasional audio psychosis, helps me more than relate with John (the paranoid Schizophrenic genius), and sympathize with Alicia (his wife) as his caretaker. The psych ward scenes are particularly hard for me to watch. Russel Crowe (my celeb crush) does a great job exciting the fear and confusion that comes with mandatory admittance into a psych ward.
But, the main reason I'm posting is because today, I'm anxious. None of my meds helped, I went on three one mile walks and drank more beer that water. But nothing could taking the feeling of falling away, out of my gut.
'Anxiety' comes deep, deep from the word 'anguish.' Anguish is defined as 1. excruciating or acute distress, suffering, or pain. Yes. My psychiatrist once explained my drinking problem (the first time) to my parents like this, "A person can live depression; it's the anxiety they can't cope with. They will desperately attempt anything to temporarily cure the pain, the feeling of falling."
So here I am, without any answers. My Jedi psychiatrist put the ball in my court and I'm playing. I just don't know the rules. They change all the time, with the mind. It's a very transitory, ephemeral, and convincing organ. My psychiatrist said I was handicapped by this mental illness. I understand what he means; it's just hard to hear.
There is one relief. The word 'excruciating' from the definition of 'anguish'. Christ knows excruciating; it means 1. to inflict severe pain upon, torture 2. to cause mental anguish, irritate greatly. Yup, Christ knows. In face the word comes from 'cruciare' to torment, crucify (derivative of crux cross).
I remember a critical moment in my faith in Christ that changed me forever. It was at a Young Life camp. They were playing videos of the devastation around the word explaining that Christ took all the (physical) pain on himself at the cross. But in that moment, something clicked and I realized he also took all our psychic, our soul pain. I don't know why, but when I think of the cross, I always think of that aspect first, now. I cry almost every time, okay every time, I hear the gospel story. Because my pain has drowned me at times and I can't imagine what Christ experienced, taking on the psychic malaise of the world through all ages. I thank him. Thank You, thank You, thank You. I was 16 years old and crying at the gospel message. I looked over at my Young Life leader, Ally, and she nodded solemnly, knowing what I was just now realizing.
I am not alone in this wasteland of mental anguish; I am not alone.
Along with the booze, A Beautiful Mind is playing in the background. It's taken me all day to get through it; the writing is so good and the acting to match. I feel less alone in my version of crazy.
Wow, I just started crying writing that. It's devastating what our minds can do to us. Schizophrenia and Bipolar are both classified as mood disorders, so, the similarities, especially with my occasional audio psychosis, helps me more than relate with John (the paranoid Schizophrenic genius), and sympathize with Alicia (his wife) as his caretaker. The psych ward scenes are particularly hard for me to watch. Russel Crowe (my celeb crush) does a great job exciting the fear and confusion that comes with mandatory admittance into a psych ward.
But, the main reason I'm posting is because today, I'm anxious. None of my meds helped, I went on three one mile walks and drank more beer that water. But nothing could taking the feeling of falling away, out of my gut.
'Anxiety' comes deep, deep from the word 'anguish.' Anguish is defined as 1. excruciating or acute distress, suffering, or pain. Yes. My psychiatrist once explained my drinking problem (the first time) to my parents like this, "A person can live depression; it's the anxiety they can't cope with. They will desperately attempt anything to temporarily cure the pain, the feeling of falling."
So here I am, without any answers. My Jedi psychiatrist put the ball in my court and I'm playing. I just don't know the rules. They change all the time, with the mind. It's a very transitory, ephemeral, and convincing organ. My psychiatrist said I was handicapped by this mental illness. I understand what he means; it's just hard to hear.
There is one relief. The word 'excruciating' from the definition of 'anguish'. Christ knows excruciating; it means 1. to inflict severe pain upon, torture 2. to cause mental anguish, irritate greatly. Yup, Christ knows. In face the word comes from 'cruciare' to torment, crucify (derivative of crux cross).
I remember a critical moment in my faith in Christ that changed me forever. It was at a Young Life camp. They were playing videos of the devastation around the word explaining that Christ took all the (physical) pain on himself at the cross. But in that moment, something clicked and I realized he also took all our psychic, our soul pain. I don't know why, but when I think of the cross, I always think of that aspect first, now. I cry almost every time, okay every time, I hear the gospel story. Because my pain has drowned me at times and I can't imagine what Christ experienced, taking on the psychic malaise of the world through all ages. I thank him. Thank You, thank You, thank You. I was 16 years old and crying at the gospel message. I looked over at my Young Life leader, Ally, and she nodded solemnly, knowing what I was just now realizing.
I am not alone in this wasteland of mental anguish; I am not alone.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
A Case Study On Bipolar I, or, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
It was normal, like any other visit. A touch of apprehension. Excitement at the idea of stimulating conversation (my doctor, unfortunately, chose to go to UVA, but he's brilliant).
My faithful psychiatrist (of four years now), the one who'd seen my veriest highs and my veriest lows, closed the door and returned to his desk. "You don't like med students, right? You can sense their presence."
"No," I said as I scrunched my nose in pseudo-disdain. "You can sit in on the next one, (blank)," he said to some eager med student on their psych rotation.
"How have you been?"
"I'm okay today, but I've barely gotten out of bed in months." (3 months between visits is standard in psychiatric care).
He looked down. My eyes were drawn to where his were looking and I noticed his eccentric blue socks with zig-zag green stripes on them.
"Will I have to live at my dad's house forever?" meaning, would I always be held back by this illness, would it be this bad forever?
He sighed and looked down again, "I don't think so; I think you'll come to a point where you can manage it."
"Lots of my patients that have bipolar are dentists [here I briefly interjected and asked if there was a common factor for that to which he replied 'intelligence'] they begin to realize how the system works, what medicines they need at what time. I think you're close to that, that soon you'll connect the dots." Oh yeah, did I mention my psychiatrist is like Yoda? He put the ball squarely back in my court.
I began to think of the litany of drugs I'd been on in the course of the six years since diagnosis.
Interrupted, my doctor lamented, "You were going to conquer the world when I first met you."
Weakly, after a pause, I replied, "That's still the plan," with as much cheer as I could muster.
"It's sad to see what's happened. You really were going to conquer the world."
...
"I don't watch movies often but there's a great one you should watch..." ... "A Beautiful Mind?" I finished.
"How did you know?!" During his fast-paced career he'd forgotten that he'd recommended it to me before and that even at that time I already said it was one of my favorite movies.
"Your life is just like his; he never was rid of the effects of his mental illness but he learned to manage and function and eventually achieve his dreams."
All very inspirational *tear*.
"I remember one of the first things you told me, when you walked into my office for the first time, is that you don't like men who drive big trucks, you, being one of the genuinely nicest people I know." He laughed.
"Now when I see men driving trucks, I think of that and think, 'You know, she's right. I don't like them either."
"Should refill all your current meds?"
It was like a dream coming to an end too soon. He always seems to possess the answer, the key, to my mental success, but he never quite tells me. I left the office and got back into my mother's car (I was too scared to drive this far away from home).
The next day, I went on my first walk in probably a year. My first time outside, other than to go to my car.
I took a walk.
"Does the cosmos contain keys for opening up my diving bell? A subway line with no terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I'll be off now."
-Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Berck-Plage, July-August 1996
My faithful psychiatrist (of four years now), the one who'd seen my veriest highs and my veriest lows, closed the door and returned to his desk. "You don't like med students, right? You can sense their presence."
"No," I said as I scrunched my nose in pseudo-disdain. "You can sit in on the next one, (blank)," he said to some eager med student on their psych rotation.
"How have you been?"
"I'm okay today, but I've barely gotten out of bed in months." (3 months between visits is standard in psychiatric care).
He looked down. My eyes were drawn to where his were looking and I noticed his eccentric blue socks with zig-zag green stripes on them.
"Will I have to live at my dad's house forever?" meaning, would I always be held back by this illness, would it be this bad forever?
He sighed and looked down again, "I don't think so; I think you'll come to a point where you can manage it."
"Lots of my patients that have bipolar are dentists [here I briefly interjected and asked if there was a common factor for that to which he replied 'intelligence'] they begin to realize how the system works, what medicines they need at what time. I think you're close to that, that soon you'll connect the dots." Oh yeah, did I mention my psychiatrist is like Yoda? He put the ball squarely back in my court.
I began to think of the litany of drugs I'd been on in the course of the six years since diagnosis.
Interrupted, my doctor lamented, "You were going to conquer the world when I first met you."
Weakly, after a pause, I replied, "That's still the plan," with as much cheer as I could muster.
"It's sad to see what's happened. You really were going to conquer the world."
...
"I don't watch movies often but there's a great one you should watch..." ... "A Beautiful Mind?" I finished.
"How did you know?!" During his fast-paced career he'd forgotten that he'd recommended it to me before and that even at that time I already said it was one of my favorite movies.
"Your life is just like his; he never was rid of the effects of his mental illness but he learned to manage and function and eventually achieve his dreams."
All very inspirational *tear*.
"I remember one of the first things you told me, when you walked into my office for the first time, is that you don't like men who drive big trucks, you, being one of the genuinely nicest people I know." He laughed.
"Now when I see men driving trucks, I think of that and think, 'You know, she's right. I don't like them either."
"Should refill all your current meds?"
It was like a dream coming to an end too soon. He always seems to possess the answer, the key, to my mental success, but he never quite tells me. I left the office and got back into my mother's car (I was too scared to drive this far away from home).
The next day, I went on my first walk in probably a year. My first time outside, other than to go to my car.
I took a walk.
"Does the cosmos contain keys for opening up my diving bell? A subway line with no terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I'll be off now."
-Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Berck-Plage, July-August 1996
Saturday, January 4, 2020
Are You Living With A Victim Mentality? I Was
Wow. I'm going through a bible study by Havilah Cunnington. What drew me to purchase the study was not because Havilah wrote it or that it was associated with Bethel or all of the other wonderful things that it is, but it was the name: I Do Hard Things. I knew it would challenge me, but, boy, I didn't think it would expose so much in me, personally.
I got the study four days late so I quickly caught up on the good content of days one through three, but then I hit day four, entitled, "What Is Stopping Me?" from getting out of the spiritual, mental, physical pit of pain, from living a Spirit-empowered life, etc.. I've read the story of the Pool of Bethesda several times as a YL kid and leader, so I wasn't't expecting anything life-altering to come about. But then Havilah focused on the mentally-victimized, spiritually disempowered man who couldn't walk for 38 years. Jesus saw him (Jesus sees you). He knew how long the man had been in that condition. After approaching the man, he asked, "'Do you wish to get well?'" or, as the Passion Translation puts it, "'Do you truly long to be healed?' (John 5:6)." The infinitive verbs translated as "to wish" and "to long" come from the Greek word "thelo" having a connotation and extension of being resolved or determined with intention to do or have something. The man answers with the excuse that, "...'I have no man to put me into the pool [that was believed to have supernatural healing powers; hence, the gathered invalids] when the water is stirred up [by an angel], but while I am coming, another steps down before me' (John 5:7)." A victim mentality, waiting on others to change his circumstance when he was a child of Abraham (most likely) and had the agency and love of Yahweh.
At this point, Havilah had us write down things that were stopping our growth in God and progression in life. I immediately put: mood disorder (Bipolar I) and side-effects of cancer surgery.
When we wrote the inhibiting factors of our lives, she responded after the blank space with: "Look at your response. If you wrote down anything other than taking personal responsibility, you may be struggling with a serious victim mentality" (p. 54). Ouch. She got me (lovingly, of course).
I say I want to be healed, to live with a sound mind and body, but I am apathetic when the thought of another failed attempt at healing comes up. Do I really want to be healed? It's much easier to be the invalid than to do the hard work of healing that, yes, could fail for the 50th time. For seven years (since 2013 when I was 18 years old), I had identified myself as the girl who had cancer or the girl with the mental illness or both, in the right company. I did this under the guise of what I thought was advocacy for awareness and ministering to people out of my pain (mostly on this blog), but I realized that it was just easier to be in pain than to live powerfully.
The study built in time for us to listen for God's voice in the midst of this hard lesson. I heard, "Do you want to be whole?" Being the linguistics-freak that I am, I immediately had to look up the etymology of the word "whole."
Origin: before 900; Middle English hole, hool (adj, and noun), Old English hal (adj,); cognate with Dutch heel, German heil, Old Norse heill; see hale, heal.
Wholeness finds its linguistic roots in healing, and the Bible is not quiet about Jesus' desire and efficacy to heal.
But is wholeness, is healing what I really want? What I "thelo?" It's easy to be the sick girl. It's easy to let others take care of you. But "greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4)."
God didn't call me to the shadow-of-a-life that I'm living right now. He called me to live a bold, Spirit-empowered life. Where I am currently a slave to illness and fear, he desires for there to be wholeness and healing.
There was another space for listening to the voice of God and I felt informed of the small, first steps I was to take to walk out this wholeness-healing life, that, with the Holy Spirit I can definitely take. Every day I must wake up and "thelo" healing, "thelo" wholeness.
Finally, a few quotes from Day Four of the study by Havilah Cunnington:
"Acknowledgment of our condition is the first step of healing."
"God didn't send his son to die on the cross for you so you would live bound to a circumstance or a person."
"God wants to move and act in our lives in such a way that anything that is holding you or I back will be rendered powerless next to the power of Jesus."
"Once we understand that we are not powerless to receive a miracle, WE GET A MIRACLE." p. 59
I am no victim. And neither are you.
I got the study four days late so I quickly caught up on the good content of days one through three, but then I hit day four, entitled, "What Is Stopping Me?" from getting out of the spiritual, mental, physical pit of pain, from living a Spirit-empowered life, etc.. I've read the story of the Pool of Bethesda several times as a YL kid and leader, so I wasn't't expecting anything life-altering to come about. But then Havilah focused on the mentally-victimized, spiritually disempowered man who couldn't walk for 38 years. Jesus saw him (Jesus sees you). He knew how long the man had been in that condition. After approaching the man, he asked, "'Do you wish to get well?'" or, as the Passion Translation puts it, "'Do you truly long to be healed?' (John 5:6)." The infinitive verbs translated as "to wish" and "to long" come from the Greek word "thelo" having a connotation and extension of being resolved or determined with intention to do or have something. The man answers with the excuse that, "...'I have no man to put me into the pool [that was believed to have supernatural healing powers; hence, the gathered invalids] when the water is stirred up [by an angel], but while I am coming, another steps down before me' (John 5:7)." A victim mentality, waiting on others to change his circumstance when he was a child of Abraham (most likely) and had the agency and love of Yahweh.
At this point, Havilah had us write down things that were stopping our growth in God and progression in life. I immediately put: mood disorder (Bipolar I) and side-effects of cancer surgery.
When we wrote the inhibiting factors of our lives, she responded after the blank space with: "Look at your response. If you wrote down anything other than taking personal responsibility, you may be struggling with a serious victim mentality" (p. 54). Ouch. She got me (lovingly, of course).
I say I want to be healed, to live with a sound mind and body, but I am apathetic when the thought of another failed attempt at healing comes up. Do I really want to be healed? It's much easier to be the invalid than to do the hard work of healing that, yes, could fail for the 50th time. For seven years (since 2013 when I was 18 years old), I had identified myself as the girl who had cancer or the girl with the mental illness or both, in the right company. I did this under the guise of what I thought was advocacy for awareness and ministering to people out of my pain (mostly on this blog), but I realized that it was just easier to be in pain than to live powerfully.
The study built in time for us to listen for God's voice in the midst of this hard lesson. I heard, "Do you want to be whole?" Being the linguistics-freak that I am, I immediately had to look up the etymology of the word "whole."
Origin: before 900; Middle English hole, hool (adj, and noun), Old English hal (adj,); cognate with Dutch heel, German heil, Old Norse heill; see hale, heal.
Wholeness finds its linguistic roots in healing, and the Bible is not quiet about Jesus' desire and efficacy to heal.
But is wholeness, is healing what I really want? What I "thelo?" It's easy to be the sick girl. It's easy to let others take care of you. But "greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4)."
God didn't call me to the shadow-of-a-life that I'm living right now. He called me to live a bold, Spirit-empowered life. Where I am currently a slave to illness and fear, he desires for there to be wholeness and healing.
There was another space for listening to the voice of God and I felt informed of the small, first steps I was to take to walk out this wholeness-healing life, that, with the Holy Spirit I can definitely take. Every day I must wake up and "thelo" healing, "thelo" wholeness.
Finally, a few quotes from Day Four of the study by Havilah Cunnington:
"Acknowledgment of our condition is the first step of healing."
"God didn't send his son to die on the cross for you so you would live bound to a circumstance or a person."
"God wants to move and act in our lives in such a way that anything that is holding you or I back will be rendered powerless next to the power of Jesus."
"Once we understand that we are not powerless to receive a miracle, WE GET A MIRACLE." p. 59
I am no victim. And neither are you.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
What An Epidural Taught Me About God
My friend recently bought me a book of 400(!!!) writing prompts; thanks, Alyssa. I started it and was instantly drawn in by the self-discovery that was taking place. I always used my gut-response answers and some of them were different than what I thought I would have said.
One prompt read: "Who is your rock?"
Easy answer: Jesus. But I wanted to think who my earthly rock would be. Surely it would be my dad, since he is my primary caregiver concerning everything Bipolar, but, to my surprise, I wrote, "mom."
Don't get me wrong. My mom is one of the kindest, most loving people you will ever meet. It's just that she's not a part of as much of my day-to-day life as my dad is (although she would be if she could... she lives about an hour away).
I pondered this, curious. Then, an image, a visceral feeling surfaced in me. I was a scared, young 18-year-old girl with NO clue what was to come in the next days, months, years, but the anesthesiologists had to get me ready for surgery by inserting the spinal catheter that would theoretically provide the nerve-block that would allow surgery to happen. (I say theoretically since my main anesthetist told me that sometimes this kind doesn't work, depending on how it goes in... not meaning to scare you, but IT DIDN'T WORK. But that's a story for another time).
I distinctly remember my dad pacing back and forth in the pre-op area; I think he was holding a bottle of water practically squeezing it to death.
I was very confused with several doctors/nurses working on me at the same time.
But there stood my mom like a caryatid: regal, sure, steadfast, calm.
Then, my biggest pre-op fear had to happen: the inserting of the catheter into my spine. I panicked and looked around, hoping for any escape from this fear; "Wouldn't the meds from my hand I.V. work just fine?" I said to the doctor. Then, regal, sure, steadfast, calm, came my mother. They turned me around and my mom gripped both my upper arms, steadying me; I held onto her for dear life. I whimpered to her... "It's okay; I know it's scary, but it's okay." She repeated in the special voice with which only a mother can calm her child's fear. I jumped as I felt the long needle go in and she steadied me still. Then, blessed then, they told me that it was in and I had to lie down as it was time to go to the operating room.
I was recalling this exact story to my mom on the phone tonight when I finally understood the Scripture in Hebrews about Jesus, our High Priest, having to become human and suffer our frailties and temptations in order to be able to minister to us at all, let alone save us.
The reason my mom can be compared (in limited, human terms) to the Rock that is Christ is because, being older than me and a woman of the same demographic as me, she's been through all I'm going through. In that moment that the epidural was inserted, I didn't want my dad to hold me because he had no idea what it's like. I needed someone who'd been there before, and, after having four babies, it was safe to say that my mother had.
On the phone call to my mom, I began to realize a new way that I love Jesus. He didn't just die for me; he suffered for me. Hebrews 5:7-9 (NASB) reads, "In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation..." These verses along with Heb. 4:14-16, having to do with Jesus, the Great High Priest, who sympathizes with our weaknesses and whom we can approach freely in our time of need came to my mind.
I want nothing to do with a Celestial Dictator who has never felt what we feel (hello, Enneagram 4).
My mom and Jesus are rocks because they have already suffered what I am and will suffer and have come back in time with a postcard saying, "It will be okay."
To you, the sufferer, I say: It will be okay.
One prompt read: "Who is your rock?"
Easy answer: Jesus. But I wanted to think who my earthly rock would be. Surely it would be my dad, since he is my primary caregiver concerning everything Bipolar, but, to my surprise, I wrote, "mom."
Don't get me wrong. My mom is one of the kindest, most loving people you will ever meet. It's just that she's not a part of as much of my day-to-day life as my dad is (although she would be if she could... she lives about an hour away).
I pondered this, curious. Then, an image, a visceral feeling surfaced in me. I was a scared, young 18-year-old girl with NO clue what was to come in the next days, months, years, but the anesthesiologists had to get me ready for surgery by inserting the spinal catheter that would theoretically provide the nerve-block that would allow surgery to happen. (I say theoretically since my main anesthetist told me that sometimes this kind doesn't work, depending on how it goes in... not meaning to scare you, but IT DIDN'T WORK. But that's a story for another time).
I distinctly remember my dad pacing back and forth in the pre-op area; I think he was holding a bottle of water practically squeezing it to death.
I was very confused with several doctors/nurses working on me at the same time.
But there stood my mom like a caryatid: regal, sure, steadfast, calm.
Then, my biggest pre-op fear had to happen: the inserting of the catheter into my spine. I panicked and looked around, hoping for any escape from this fear; "Wouldn't the meds from my hand I.V. work just fine?" I said to the doctor. Then, regal, sure, steadfast, calm, came my mother. They turned me around and my mom gripped both my upper arms, steadying me; I held onto her for dear life. I whimpered to her... "It's okay; I know it's scary, but it's okay." She repeated in the special voice with which only a mother can calm her child's fear. I jumped as I felt the long needle go in and she steadied me still. Then, blessed then, they told me that it was in and I had to lie down as it was time to go to the operating room.
I was recalling this exact story to my mom on the phone tonight when I finally understood the Scripture in Hebrews about Jesus, our High Priest, having to become human and suffer our frailties and temptations in order to be able to minister to us at all, let alone save us.
The reason my mom can be compared (in limited, human terms) to the Rock that is Christ is because, being older than me and a woman of the same demographic as me, she's been through all I'm going through. In that moment that the epidural was inserted, I didn't want my dad to hold me because he had no idea what it's like. I needed someone who'd been there before, and, after having four babies, it was safe to say that my mother had.
On the phone call to my mom, I began to realize a new way that I love Jesus. He didn't just die for me; he suffered for me. Hebrews 5:7-9 (NASB) reads, "In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation..." These verses along with Heb. 4:14-16, having to do with Jesus, the Great High Priest, who sympathizes with our weaknesses and whom we can approach freely in our time of need came to my mind.
I want nothing to do with a Celestial Dictator who has never felt what we feel (hello, Enneagram 4).
My mom and Jesus are rocks because they have already suffered what I am and will suffer and have come back in time with a postcard saying, "It will be okay."
To you, the sufferer, I say: It will be okay.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)