My soon-to-release novel Fallen illustrates the fall of humankind. Sin, sickness, and death came into the world, affecting one and all. My life demonstrates the effect of sin in the world, and so does yours. In sharing this encore post from December 5, 2014, I examine the glorious truth that Jesus is with us in the blackest times. Even these things – these results of the fall, he orchestrates for our good.
Introducing Melinda: Part 10
When I started screaming I woke myself. These dreams are becoming too commonplace.
Chaos everywhere. No order. I tear around trying to organize and get the stuff out the door. Perhaps I need to get away from impending danger. Sometimes there’s looming physical harm. Other times it’s only a missed departure. But someone keeps scattering the order. Then I have to start all over again. I can’t complete the simple task of getting out the door. No one notices my frustration. No one offers to help. My pleas go unanswered. We don’t get out. The bus drives away. The bad guy gets us. Or the plane takes off.
My autoimmune disorder has crept into my subconscious. I am powerless, unable to get any answers. Medical professionals wring their hands. No one heeds my pleas for help. I can no longer do what was once my norm. I am sidelined. I no longer feel valuable or like a contributing member of the team.
The frustration of having an autoimmune disorder that is barely understood because it isn’t a high priority illness for research dollars fills me with a sense of injustice. The National Institutes of Health just declared this a major women’s issue, so maybe help is on the way.
Reading theories of causes and possible treatments is like discovering a Sci-Fi world I never knew existed, a scenario where our government weaponizes XMRV, a human gammaretrovirus. In the 1970s we’re all exposed, and autoimmune disorders, allergies, and odd new illnesses arise.
Can this stuff be believed?
Lord, have mercy!
Michał Koralewski via Compfight
After screaming myself awake yet again, I realized I must seek even more deeply to find my identity in Christ. He knows intimately the details of entrusting himself into the Father’s hands, releasing all control of an unfair and unjust experience.
He was often misunderstood and alone, abandoned by the religious authority structure that should have embraced him, treated unjustly, declared a criminal while innocent, publicly shamed. And he chose to let it happen, indeed to orchestrate it, so he could die to redeem us.
The incarnation, God with us, is all about his identification with us. We possess flesh and blood and all the discomforts, fears, and troubles that go with being human.
So he put on flesh to join us. He walked the path of suffering. He can sympathize with brokenness. He is consumed with love and compassion for us.
Today for the first time, when I awakened and rehashed the details of this particular dream, I poured out my frustrations to Jesus and leaned on his sympathy.
He cares. He knows.
That is progress. Not in finding help or treatment that works, but in learning to rely on the Lord in it.
The Holy Spirit is the one who sanctifies. He’s using even this for good in me. This is what he does with everything the Lord allows me to experience.
Thank you, Lord, for who you are and what you did. No matter what we go through you can relate, sympathize, and comfort.
You’re with me in this blackness.
Amen, Melinda! He is our stability in the midst of whatever we’re facing in this life.
And what would we do without him, Stacey! This intimacy in the blackness is teaching me to rely on him. I have no stability without him.
I hate those kinds of dreams that don’t let you rest when you need rest. Do you have a diagnosis for your illness yet? I’m so sorry you have to go through this because your work is so very important. Lauren Hillenbrand who wrote Seabiscuit and Unbroken has terrible, debilitating chronic fatigue. Two other writer friends, both men, have it as well.
The Lord be very with you during this time. I hope he brings deep healing soon.
Katie, you have no idea how encouraging it is to hear about other writers who struggle with this. It gives me such hope! It can be done!
I write my blog posts a month ahead of time, so when I wrote this, I had no diagnosis, and there seemed to be no answers. I hadn’t recognized how marginalized I felt until the nightmares began waking me with the screaming. Monday I’m writing about the relief of finally having a label when I did get a diagnosis. We’re still testing to make sure I don’t have more than one autoimmune disorder, but the label my doctors have attached at this point is Fibromyalgia – it’s one of the disorders from the Post-Viral Syndrome/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome spectrum. A diagnosis like that has its own frustrations, but I’m learning a lot and researching medications now (not happy with what I find about side effects, may go natural).
This holiday season all of my posts are aimed at those suffering or having a less than “merry” Christmas season. I inaugurated the Christmas blogs with Bankrupt at Christmas, because I write for all kinds of broken people, people in need of God’s mercy for any number of reasons.
I’m going to look forward to your post on Monday. What a good thing to write to minister to people hurting at Christmas. It has been a difficult season for me for a long time, though it’s better now. I too went through an MS scare a few years ago, so I hear you on the uncertainty, the needing a label, the feeling awful. The Docs said that I didn’t have it and I was satisfied with the thorough check up.
I hear you on how a label can help. And there may well be natural ways you can deal with Fibromyalgia.
Writing sure can be done. I have a friend with chronic fatigue who ranches and just published a book.
Like Elaine I have wondered about the effects of radiation. My other friend who had chronic fatigue used to explore the desert around Moab. He laughed at me when I suggested it.
Another thing I thought of was Jennifer Dukes Lee’s book Love Idol. Have you come across it? It’s about this not being enough stuff which seems to come through the images in your dreams. It’s about how we are enough in Jesus–pre-approved. I’ve not read the book but have read her blog. Have those dreams stopped?
Katie, I haven’t seen that book, but it sounds interesting. Those dreams I wrote about today tormented me all summer and early fall. They stopped when I received the diagnosis and supportive care. Interestingly, other dreams took over.
The trigger for my immune system collapse seems to be a series of events (I read that this is a common scenario for autoimmune disorders): In 2011 I fell and tore my hamstring very badly. I also had two auto accidents that year. God miraculously intervened in one, securing our van to the side of the semi that was grinding its way through our auto on my side. All the glass shattered around me and then silence as our van adhered to the semi. Each accident set back my recovery. Most of 2011-2012 involved physical therapy, etc. In 2013 I signed a contract for Refuge, my mother-in-law died a long and painful death in hospice, a child had a major illness, and a very dear relationship deteriorated. I took all of these very hard, and I was still dealing with the 2011 accidents. I wasn’t recovering from the physical damage. By the end of the summer I had Epstein Barr, but it was misdiagnosed at first, so I received no anti-viral support. I never bounced back from that bout of mono. My fatigue became chronic, my pain increased, etc.
Now, here’s the weird thing about the dreams. I’m now dreaming about my mother-in-law. Apparently all the trauma made all the personal issues insurmountable and my body threw in the towel. For a long period in 2013, I had no dreams. It was very strange. There is a really strong mind-and-body connection that we often are able to ignore until the body crashes. So, hopefully, healing can come. No matter what, I’m learning about God’s mercy in trial. And my priorities are all in order now!
Sounds like you’ve had quite a trial. Sounds like a very hard time but I’m glad you’re on the mend and that you were able to publish Refuge. I bet that was a bright spot. I love how God banished Cain in order to let love win.
That was actually the perfect emotional state for the final edits and revisions on that novel! Suffering is essential for our growth AND our writing. 🙂
I guess. My creative process seems to involve tears somewhere along the way, though I’m not sure I buy there needs to be suffering for good work to happen. How did you find Koehler books?
I was approached by their fiction acquisitions editor at the time.
How did he find you? (I found Koehler because I helped a friend format a manuscript for Terry Whalin and the friend told Terry about me, so I sent some pages. They liked the book etc.) Well, I’m glad you found them and are on your way in your writing calling.
Terry and I met via a Christian Writers Guild online event. He asked how he could help me. I said he could take a look at my proposal for Refuge. The rest is history.
What a horrible dream! What a horrible thing to wake yourself up by your own screaming! Were it not for the lesson you have learned IN it, I could not bear to read this. XMRV I do not know about, but I know that the government tested nuclear bombs in Nevada which drifted over the farm in Oklahoma where I lived in the 1940s. The incidence of thryoid cancer is 10 times what it ought to be in that area. Yet, The Lord redeems the fallen-ness of mankind by sending a Savior, Who is Christ The Lord. We are not alone no matter what befalls us. And, this life is not all there is! We live with Him throughout eternity in bodies that do not have autoimmune disorders or missing parts from cancer surgery! Hallelujah! What a Savior!
It’s hard to know what to believe, given so many past examples of the government testing inoculations against chemical warfare, diseases like syphilis, and effects of nuclear weapons on large groups of unsuspecting humans. When I read some of this stuff, it sounds crazy. But so do these past examples. Who knows!
In heaven, none of this will be with us, our bodies won’t wear out, and our Savior took all the suffering upon himself. That is relief! I will be a blessing to have energy again!
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