Was I in My Grave?

Yesterday, I had an experience that I had never had before. As a result, I beleive the Lord has led me to share the following from 40 years ago.

I opened my eyes and looked up, was I laying down? Was I dead and looking up from my grave? So many thoughts ran through my mind. There were people standing all around me, my Mom and Dad at my feet, my brother Charles to one side and other people I did not know. Wait, what was that. Crickets, bugs…. I must be in my grave there were crickets and bugs jumping all over me, but I really did not feel them. Lord where am I?

Then I heard a familiar voice, my Dad. “Cindy, Cindy, can you hear me?”

Of course I could hear him…what is going on…where am I…why is my Father calling me in this manner. The tears began to flow as all my thoughts and fears gripped me.

Then someone I could not see lifted my head and began asking me questions.

Questions, questions, more questions…… what was going on?

Next thing I knew I was being lifted up and placed on a bed… no not a bed a stretcher…. no not a stretcher… a gurney. One of those rolling beds they use in hospitals. Then I saw flashing red lights and sounds of a siren.

Lord will someone help me? What is going on?

Another familiar voice, my Mom. “Cindy, you have had a seizure.” Seizure wait a minute what is a seizure? I searched my clouded mind. I could not really comprehend what my Mom was saying, just that I must be sick.

But wait a minute, where am I, what day is it, what time is it, who are all these people…..

Mom continued, “the ambulance is here and they are going to take you to the hospital. Your Father and I and Charlie will follow in the car.”

More tears, I really could not speak as my mouth hurt and my tongue did not feel right.

Zip, click. They raised the gurney to full height and were rolling me to the ambulance. There was a policeman who had just come up who was talking to my parents. I could not hear anything and just continued to weep.

Zip, click. They rolled me into the back of the ambulance. The EMT started to take my blood pressure and explain that it appeared I had had a seizure. They were taking me to the emergency room in Franklin.

Franklin, what was I doing in Franklin? I lived in Viriginia Beach.

I asked the attendant what day it was. Oh the pain to speak.

He told me it was Friday about 6pm. Then he went on to say that I should try not to talk as I had chewed my tongue pretty bad……

Chewed my tongue?

With the sound of the siren in the background I could hear the driver telling someone all about what was happening.

12 year old female traveling in a car with parents appeared to have had a seizure, father said she had been uncoincious for quite a while. He told them my blood pressure and told them it appeared I had chewed my tongue pretty bad. There ETA 10 minutes.

My biggest fear……. what I did not know!

They rolled me into the ER and doctors and nurses were all around.

More blood pressure, checked my eyes, checked my tongue, took blood. I remember a nurse leaning down and asking if I was on drugs. NO!!! I answered. Well it was 1968.

I felt so weak, so tired, so cold. Where were my parents?

Then back to questions:

What day was it? I answered the EMT said Friday.

What was the date? Struggling to remember I began to cry again. I did not know the date, I had know idea what the year was. They asked me what I last remembered? After much time spent thinking I remembered I was sitting in the back seat with my brother…that was all.

The doctor was nice and explained that I need not be worried as it was normal after a grand mal seizure to have a temporary loss of short term memory. He said that I had chewed my tongue and that is why I had a hard time speaking. They were going to give me some medicine and send me home with my parents, but I would need to see my doctor on Monday. He excused himself and said he was going to see my parents and that I should just rest.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

Sometime later I opened my eyes, they were removing the IV, my parents and brother were there and they were putting me in a wheel chair. I was going home. Rolling me outside, they put me in the car. I laid down on the back seat with my head in my brothers lap.

Asleep again……

Wake up we’re here. Where? I sat up and glanced outside, we were at the lake. We had a summer place on Lake Gaston and that is where we were. Dad and Charlie helped me into the house and Mom helped me get in bed…… sleep.

For those of you who have never had a seizure it is hard to realize what it does to your body. This seizure had been so bad that I slept solid for almost 48 hours. Each time I awoke I remembered a little more about the time leading up to the seizure. Later I would have my brother and parents to fill me in on the seizure it self.

For the next 14 years I would continue to have uncontrollable grand mal seizures about 4-5 times a year. At 26 after the birth of my third child. They stopped! Just as suddenly as they had started they ended.

To this day I can still feel the deep fear and sadness upon awakening from each seizure. I never knew where I was, how I got there nor anything from sometimes a half day before the seizure.

When I woke up all I knew was…. oh no…not again.

As I said earlier, these began when I was almost thirteen, just going into Junior High and they continued through High School. This is normally a time when youth are their meanest and ugliest to one another.

I would like to say to all my classmates from Plaza Junior High and Kellam High School….you never made me feel like a freak…. as epileptics are often called. I was just another member of the class. Thanks for this memory.

Today I look upon my seizures as but a step in the Lord’s process of molding me into His purpose.  I hope that this story has in someway touched or helped all who have read this.

To God be the Glory…..

Our Great Physician

Confession: this week has been a spiritual battle for me, and I’ve surrendered most of the early skirmishes. I just hate giving in to a week like that when I know good and well the Lord’s Supper is going to be celebrated on Sunday, and I’ve got to deal with it. Accountability is required.

So, reluctantly at first, I start to remind myself that God is good and compassionate and forgiving, and flies to help his sinning children when they turn back. Maybe, just maybe, I can salvage Sunday. Ha, who am I kidding, only God can salvage this.

Enter the rainy day, a gift: one of my favorite times, alone in the car with a lot of errands to accomplish, and one or two good CD’s for company and inspiration. For some reason, fog on the outside seems to clear the fog in my brain. And so my thoughts, which since my heart surgery have been like peeling away the layers of an onion, turn to the many ways the surgery has been like our experience with Jesus, those of us who once ran from him but have now come to love him.

My heart was bad, bad enough to kill me, but I was totally ignorant of it. It began to give me a few warning signs how sick it was, but I was busy with my life and figured I had plenty of time left to do something serious about it.

When the true condition of my heart was revealed to me, I went into my Dr. Mom mode, thinking I still had time to try my own efforts at a cure. Maybe some lifestyle changes? Would taking some pills do the job? To be honest, I was pretty artful about this, religiously put a lot of research and study into it, and dragged out the time frame as long as I could.

As providence would have it, I got stuck with a very blunt doctor. No, two very blunt doctors. “You failed the test.” “It’s only a matter of time before a very bad event happens to you.” At that point I became irate (oh, how it hurts to admit this) and vowed I would not have the recommended cure. I would take my chances with my destiny rather than go into that bottomless pit of misery. Yes, I did indeed say that. Me, the Responsible Mom.

The surgeon was called in, and he would not let me out of the surgery. He wasn’t very talkative, nor did he have a dazzling personality. That didn’t matter. He radiated authority and commanded attention, because he was willing to be out there, doing the hard work to save lives. He knew a radical change was the only fix, and he insisted on it. Finally I had to give up all my own pathetic efforts, and in doing so I had no choice but to stake my whole future on him. I had to put myself totally at his mercy. On the day of surgery there were a lot of other people present, but I was depending on him alone to take me through that dark valley and bring me out with life.

I found he did more than I thought he would…four arteries instead of three. He did a complete fix. I found he was not only competent, but compassionate as well. I didn’t see it at first because I thought he was maybe just a bit…harsh. It wasn’t until after the surgery that I could put the depth of his concern into the picture. He tells me I have a good heart now, one that will give me a second life.

I still bear the marks of the surgery, and always will. Most people don’t see the marks, but they see the change. And it is good.

I will always remember; I will always be grateful. How could I not? He gave me life.

Would I commend this physician to people who, like me, have bad hearts that will kill them?

Would you?

I’m still on this journey; I haven’t totally arrived. I still have twinges and pangs in my heart, reminding me how bad it once was. But it is fundamentally a good, healthy heart. And there is medicine to take for those troublesome pains.

So, when I face a struggle like the one I’ve had this week, I can call on the Physician, who is good and compassionate, and who has promised in his faithfulness to forgive and cleanse.

And I am reminded that celebrating the Lord’s Supper isn’t about whipping ourselves into reluctant obedience, so that we can present a facade of worthiness. It’s about knowing that Jesus is the only one with an answer for our sick hearts, and turning to him sooner rather than later. It’s about considering the one who really did go into a bottomless pit of misery, so that we wouldn’t have to dwell there forever. It’s about remembering his deep compassion for us in dying to give us life. It’s about honestly bringing our hearts which do still give us twinges and pangs of sin, and letting Jesus continue to do his work in them, because he has promised to complete the work he began.

This was written by a very sweet friend Jean. God Bless her for sharing.

When We Are Afflicted…

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not comsumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” Lamentations 3:21-24.

There we were watching and waiting as the doctors began to treat our only little girl. Others were there too, as their children were dying also. Small little lives destined never to grow up.

“In a strange kind of way, we learned how lucky we were…

~ We met people who had but one child; we had three…

~ We met people who did not love each other; we loved each other very much…

~ We had a supportive family and friends; some had none…

~ We believed in God…….

Robin was wonderful, she never asked why this was happening to her. She lived each day as it came, sweet and loving, unquestioning and unselfish.

I made up my mind there would be no tears around Robin, so I asked people who cried to step out of the room. I didn’t want to scare our little girl (she was three years old). Poor George had the most dreadful time he could hardly watch the blood transfusions. He would simply say he had to go to the rest room. We used to laugh and wonder if Robin thought he had the weakest bladder in the world. Not true. He just had the most tender heart.

She slipped into a coma. Her death was very peaceful. One minute she was there, the next moment she was gone. I truly felt her soul leave her body. For one last time I combed her hair, and we held our precious girl. I have never felt the presence of God more strongly than at that moment.

George and I love and value every person more because of Robin. She lives in our hearts, memories and actions.

George Bush and I have been two of the luckiest people in the world, and when all the dust is settled and all the crowds are gone, the things that matter are faith, family and friends. We have been inordinately blessed, and we know that.”

Many of you never knew that George and Barbara Bush had a precious little three year old daughter named Robin who died very quickly from leukemia.  The paragraphs in blue above is a short testimony by Barbara Bush of the beauty from this affliction in their lives.  They faced the unthinkable, the death of a child. Not only did they see her spirit and God’s grace but they were moved by the sadness around them. Not just the sadness of watching a child die…. but the sadness of those less fortunate. Not in any monetary terms but in the richness they had from their God, their love and their friends and family.

Whatever affliction you face today or tomorrow or yesterday…. may you be able to count it all joy as you walk through the valley with The Good Shepherd, your loved ones and your friends.

Health Care? Where is the Hope?

Here is… a 9 page summary of the 1000+ page House bill and 600+ page Senate version of proposed health care legislation. This is terrible for those of you who have seen “Legally Blonde 2″ I think it is time for the phone tree and an all out blitz on Washington. Our voices do count and more importantly our votes do. To any of you who live in a State where you wil be re-electing a Senator or Congressman, you need to flood them with letters/petitions whatever it takes to say, If you support this you will never be re-elcted!!!!

In the Words of Edmund Burke…
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Bad law is the worst form of Tyranny.

http://erlc.com/documents/pdf/20090731-affordable-health-choices-act-exposed.pdf

Sincerest thanks to all of those at the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for putting this together.