A primary avenue that God uses to mold my heart is through my health. Even as an infant, I had unusual health challenges. Once I suddenly stopped breathing. I was only a few weeks old. My dad performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive me. God used that instance to impact my parents’ lives more than my own. Then there were the many, many times I was hospitalized as a child due to complications of the flu. It seemed like I had a flu bug shadowing me & I was susceptible to frequent invasions. Because of my unusual frailty, my parents took me to a pediatrician. Dr. Eric Schaab was his name, and he saved my life many times. His office was all the way on Tillman Road, right next to Atz’ Ice Cream Parlor. My mom witnessed to “Schaabie” (as she called him) every time I had an appointment. She was relentless in her pursuit of his spiritual awakening, always giving him books, magazine articles, tracts, etc. She spoke boldly with him & always asked him what he thought of the different things she had given him to read. He knew that she would ask, so he made sure to read the stuff!
When I was in 2nd grade at Harlan Elementary, I had a particularly poor year with my health. Mrs. Ehle was my teacher, & I really liked her. She was always very patient with me & helped me to catch up with the rest of the class after periods of absence. One thing I never learned, though, was the proper way to write cursive capital W’s & Q’s. I know. How have I made It thus far in life without knowing that? It is truly miraculous. Somehow through my period of frequent illness, Dr. Schaab began to see a pattern of some kind, which prompted him to order some testing to see what was the root cause of my vulnerable health. I hated those tests! They were extremely frightening for an 8 year old. I still have nightmares about some of those tests.
God had prompted Dr. Schaab’s curiosity, & it paid off. The testing revealed that I had a birth defect related to my kidneys. The ureters were not located in the proper spot, which made it difficult for my kidneys to expel urine to my bladder. So in early June, 1976, I spent two weeks as a patient at Lutheran Hospital following surgery to re-implant my ureters. Back then, it was a much bigger ordeal than it would be today. My incision was over 8” long! The surgery was a success & my health greatly improved after that.
When I became a teenager, I was examined for scoliosis along with everyone else in gym class. I was one of the few who were told to seek medical attention because I had a curvy spine. My parents took me to a chiropractor for evaluation & treatment of scoliosis. Since I was young, I wasn’t really bothered by any limitations from scoliosis. But as my body has aged, it has become very evident that I had more spinal abnormalities than just scoliosis.
I was very energetic teenager. I enjoyed sports & spent many summer hours on the softball diamond. In my youth group, we played a lot of volleyball, which I loved even though I wasn’t particularly skilled at it. I liked to play basketball & played on the team in junior high. In an 8th grade game, I stole the ball from the other team, took off dribbling & shot a lay-up that swished in. I heard my coach (Miss B, for those of you who know her from Leo) screaming my name, & not because she was happy. I had just scored two points for the other team! That demoralized me & I gave up team sports then & there.
As I walked through my high school years, I experienced some “female” issues. I experienced very painful periods & struggled with several hormonal problems. When Bob & I got married & wanted to start a family, my “female” issue were a problem. God sent us to Birmingham, Alabama, as church planters for the Missionary Church, & while there I began hormone therapy with a fertility specialist. God created Jessica within me, but towards the end of my pregnancy, she became an unwelcome tenant in my body. I had pre-eclampsia (also known as toxemia), a condition which occurs most often in first pregnancies & is caused by the mother's immune system unleashing a destructive attack on the tissues of the developing child. The womb becomes a hostile environment for the baby.
At 35 weeks gestation, she was not moving in the womb & was basically starving to death inside me. So I had an emergency c-section & was blessed with my tiny baby Jessica Kay. She was only 3# 6oz & was 19” long. Her head was only 11” around! With each of the successive 4 pregnancies, I gave birth the old fashioned way. So my one & only c-section was for my tiniest baby. Just a little backward, I think!
In my early 20’s I began to struggle terribly with headaches. Migraines were a frequent visitor. I felt like I was a bobble head that had it’s head on crooked. The only thing that seemed to help relieve them was chiropractic adjustment. I also began having sinus headaches around the same time. That is something that runs in the family. My mom suffered from chronic sinusitis for many years, even going so far as to have surgery to open her sinuses up more. As years passed, my migraines continued to increase in frequency, as did my sinus headaches. It got to the point that if I had a day without a headache, it was a miracle.
In spite of my constant headaches, I did my best to live as though I was pain free. Bob & I decided to home school our kids shortly after Colson was born. I can’t truthfully say I enjoyed doing it, because I felt that I was inadequately prepared & equipped to effectively teach my children. The curriculum we used was a product of Bill Gothard’s ministry, Advanced Training Institute of America. The thought behind that curriculum was that biblical principles were to be the basis of all learning, so everything, including math & phonics, was supposed to somehow be related to Scripture. Supplementing the ATIA curriculum was anathema! It was a very difficult curriculum to use. In fact, Bob & I really regret using that curriculum to home school our kids. That’s a topic for another time.
On New Year’s Eve, 1996, Bob & I learned that we were expecting again. Three days later, I began to have the worst morning sickness I had ever experienced. I assumed that just like with all of my other pregnancies, morning sickness would be short lived. Boy was I wrong! My doctor tried all kinds of medications & remedies that normally were helpful, but they didn’t do anything for me. Well, that’s not true. They made me more sick! I had many, many adverse reactions to medications used during that time. Things got so bad that I was given a PICC line & received nutrition through a bag. After a few weeks of morning sickness that never went away, I felt a little better, so I went into Fort Wayne with my sister Kristie. It was nice to get out of the house for a little bit! We had dinner at Arby’s & I ordered a chicken sandwich. That was the beginning of my very bad relationship with Arby’s chicken sandwiches.
Kristie noticed how pale I became & she quickly drove me home. I remember getting into the house, but that’s as far as I got. The next thing I knew, I was in the ER at Parkview. That migraine that had come on so suddenly was the worst I have ever had. The ER docs gave me some meds & tried to send me home, but we hardly got down the road before Bob turned around & went back. I was admitted then & my doctor tried various medications to dispel my headache. Nothing worked. He ended up trying medications that were known to be very risky for pregnant women & their unborn child. One of those class C meds really scared me. They gave me a dose of Stadol & I fell asleep. Then I woke up because Bob was standing next to my bed, talking with someone who had come to visit. Although I was awake, I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t move, not even a twitch of my finger. I could not communicate in any way! I was terrified because I heard Bob telling the visitor that he hadn’t seen me sleeping so soundly in weeks & that he was going to leave the room so that I wasn’t disturbed. I prayed that God would somehow tip Bob off that something wasn’t right.
The visitor left, & Bob leaned over to give me a little kiss before he left the room as well. For some reason, he hesitated after delivering my little peck on the cheek. He looked at me, & God allowed him to be troubled. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but he knew something was very wrong. He summoned a nurse who began doing a neurological evaluation. I failed. That got things really moving in my room! They gave me Benadryl & slowly I came out of my catatonic state.
I ended up staying in the hospital for 9 days. I was released to go home on Bob’s 35th birthday! The rest of the pregnancy was much more low-key, but I was very weak & struggled with my overly sensitive stomach for 6 1/2 months of the pregnancy. We were beyond overjoyed when Josiah entered the world. He was healthy, which was a concern for us because of all of the medications that I had used throughout my pregnancy. We assumed that I would quickly revert back to the person I was before I got pregnant. That assumption was very wrong.
Well, this is getting to be a long posting again, so I will stop now & will begin my next posting at this point. But let me reiterate the point I am trying to make with this posting. “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it”, Philippians 1:6 God Almighty, who was & is & is to come, the one TRUE God, the King of kings, HE created me. He started something stirring in my heart from before my birth. He began a good work in me! How awesome! And not only did He start a good thing in me, but HE WILL BE FAITHFUL! Why should the Most High God be faithful to me? I have sinned against Him time & time again. He doesn’t owe me anything, least of all faithfulness. Why in the world is He going to be faithful to me? Because God always finishes what He starts. God not only started something good in my heart from the beginning of my life, but He has promised that He will continue to work in my life until His good work is completed in me!
God has chosen to use my not-so-great health to mold me into the woman He designed me to be. He uses different avenues with each individual; none of us are the same. For me, health stuff seems to be the issue that God has used to develop my character & deepen my faith. I don’t think I’m destined to be famous. I don’t think I will ever be amazingly talented or unusually brilliant. But I do know for a fact that I can be a tool in God’s hands! I can be a tool to bring encouragement to others, a tool to shape the lives of people in my family, a tool that only truly becomes useful when it is in the hand of the Master.
Oh, God! Please keep me usable for your purposes! Keep my heart soft & responsive to You! No matter what it takes, complete the good work You began in my heart.
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