Isaiah said, “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.” ~Isaiah 49:4
Job said, “ My life drags by -- day after hopeless day . . . I give up; I am tired of living. Leave me alone. My life makes no sense.” ~Job 7:6,16
“Hope is as essential to your life as air and water.” ~Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life
I am an art teacher and first started noticing something was wrong when my hands and feet hurt all the time. I thought that the reason that I was often tired was because I have a job and four kids, but then I was tired on vacation too. I got worse and worse; I would lose my balance and suddenly get very tired, and it felt like I would throw up if I didn’t lie down.
Blood tests, a CT scan, an MRI . . . family doctor, infectious disease specialist, gynecologist, endocrinologist . . . I continued to work as a very absent-minded tired art teacher. The students probably thought that I was just a very strange art teacher, but really I was a very sick lady.
A friend of mine, to whom I owe my life, told me about a doctor she and her husband were going to for her husband’s lyme disease. I was at the end of my rope and so I said fine, let’s drive across the country -- what do we have to lose? It turned out that the doctor is in my health insurance network.
I was tested for lots of things and it turned out that I had Lyme Disease with some other virus that I got from teaching high schoolers for years. I started on the antibiotic treatment and lots of supplements in April of 2002 and I did not go back to work after spring break. God provided financially throught the sick bank at work and I was able to keep my insurance.
I would lie in bed and say ok... God, take me, I am worth nothing ... He said “No.”
I have continued treatment for over a year now and have improved a lot. I'm thinking more clearly and am regaining my motor skills. I have gone from sleeping 14+ hours a night/day to 9 hours, my vision is no longer blurry, and my muscles and eyes don't twitch anymore.
But there are a lot of ups and downs. I have to constantly turn to Christ because you can not brace yourself for the downs--you just have to cry out to God! He is in the business of restoring souls, and that is what I need regardless of the state of health I happen to be in at the moment.
I think I had to realize that I could turn to God afresh every day and yesterday was past anyway ... I could not remember it any way! It is very important to use what energy I have on relationships with my family ... A three year old can fold their own clothes and we only think paper plate is all they make.... Cereal is sometimes a dinner food. That's ok.
I have learned and am still learning to turn to Christ through the ugliness of Lyme and He always meets me where I am and restores my soul if I have the guts to cry out to Him and not just melt into self pity. Christ has mercifully given me my life back through long-term antibiotic treat ment. I wanted to be better yesterday but God has his timing.
“So we fix our eyes not on what on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”
~II Corithinians 4:18
Deborah is an art teacher and mother to 4, and continues to get stronger each year.
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