You Are Never Alone in the Fire

Life is not fair. We all know this. If you have a perfect life with no major tragedy you are in the minority. And even though life is not fair we have a choice. How am I going to view my life? What is my perspective? Because honestly I will tell you straight up, my life has had it's sucky moments...And there will be more sucky moments. So here I am on my 41st birthday thinking about my sucky moments...These moments have defined my life and these sucky moments are now blessings. 

Our pastor this week asked us to write down moments in our life God has brought us through. I often think of the story of Shadrach, Mechach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. Their's is a story of life in sucky moments.  They are bound and thrown into a fire, when the king looks into the fire there are no longer three bound men, there is a fourth. Sometimes we are freed from the fire without the smell of smoke, but there is no doubt I have never been in the fire alone. Looking back on my 41 years fires have raged, each time I have come out unbound, and never alone.

I have decided to share a couple big moments to celebrate what God has brought me through and in looking back lessons which prepared me for future fires. These are the fire/sucky moments that rush into my mind when I begin to smell smoke, to remind myself God is with me. 

The death of my sister at 14. She was my rock. She suffered with Lupus for years with dignity. The lesson I will carry for all my days. Love hard, fight hard.

Just a year after her death my Lupus presented in my Central Nervous System. Literally, I lost my mind. I developed psychosis. There were hallucinations, I couldn't spell my name. I wanted it to end. I attempted suicide then spent four weeks in inpatient psychiatric care. I still suffer from chronic depression, I still check in with a therapist. It wasn't until my daughter was in high school that I would see the benefit, the blessing, the lesson. I could see her slipping, going deeper into herself. I saw the signs only because I had felt this darkness so many times. It is like quicksand. Because of my time in the fire, I could stand beside her in hers. And here we are two years later, watching for hot spots because depression doesn't just get better, preparing for graduation and college where she plans on studying music therapy. 

She is graduating in just over two months. I was told I wouldn't be here, she would not be here, we would not survive. I was pregnant with her, just 12 weeks, the doctors asked Jim into the hall. I could hear the question, "What plans do you have?" What plans? I was dying. They wanted to know if we needed help with hospice, did I want to go home? I choose to go home and wait. I had never felt so much peace. Each week I would see the nurses and doctors, each week no improvement. Then 30 weeks came and the doctors called, we don't know how but you're showing signs of improvement, your baby is thriving. She was born two weeks later. They rushed her off. I didn't see her till the next day. I felt peace. When I became pregnant with our son 18 months later we didn't know what the outcome would be. We were given an ultimatum by the doctor. Abort or don't watch your daughter graduate. She wasn't gentle, she was fearful. She had watched her mother die of Lupus. She knew the stress of each pregnancy and each flare to come will damage my body. We choose life for as many days God will give us. Love hard, fight hard.

These are my big fires, moments that suck the breathe out of me. There will always be fires, our family can smell the smoke right now. But we know we are not alone, God is walking right along side, unbounding us, and in time we will see the lesson, the blessing. Happy birthday to me as I am sitting here at 41 with my family, loving hard, fighting hard.