"Life here could go in any direction at any given moment." To quote myself from my last blog post! And it did go completely off in one direction in one moment!
Almost one month-December 10th-after I wrote that post, I fell, while playing Roller Derby and suffered a serious concussion. I don't remember the fall-I was blacked out for almost 10 minutes although seeming conscious to my teammates. I was put on complete brain rest which was supposed to last 1-2 weeks but ended up lasting over 3 months! The previous summer and fall had been very stressful for me. My daughter had gotten married in September and what with wedding planning and with all of the events leading up to it , I was a mess when they returned from their honeymoon to pick up my granddaughter, Marley. I homeschool so the next order of business was to get the kids into their school work but I just couldn't seem to get them settled into the groove and I was very stressed out by trying to cope with school and organize my house. I asked for prayer in my small group and that seemed to help a lot and I began to feel more in control and capable...but looking back now, I was a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not sure if it's a result of the accident or my stress levels but I don't have much memory from September until December 10th.
Last summer I had asked for prayer from a beautiful, Godly lady from my church who is also a Christian counsellor. She had laid hands on my and told me that I needed to abide in Christ and let Him take care of the burdens I was carrying. I began working toward that and felt like I was truly abiding in Christ, but I had no idea! I had been reading my Bible more and praying and had been studying grace as well as participating in our small group study which was a study on trials, called 'When Life is Hard' by James MacDonald. I don't know why, but that study hit me like a ton of bricks-perhaps it's because I feel sometimes like my life since I became a Christian has been one long, drawn-out trial. That doesn't sound very optimistic, does it? I realize that many of the hard things in my life have been a result of my own choosing-I chose to have pre-marital sex and give birth to a baby when I was 18-that is one trial I would not forsake! I dearly love my daughter. Other trials in my life have been results of not turning to God, making costly decisions, not following the Spirit and trying to serve Him in my own strength. However I embraced the study, did most of the homework and reprocessed some issues that were 20 years old, mainly a miscarriage that occured just after I had gotten saved and married and sadly, affected many, many years of my Christian life. So God worked me through this grieving process that he started almost 1 yr ago, when I heard another Chrisitan woman talking about how her friend had lost twins and had a memorial service for them. My immediate feelings were, Whyever would she make such a big deal about such a trivial thing, but because my own miscarraige had been trivialized, that was the only way I had to deal with it. Eventually, I went on to read her blog posts about her pregancy and loss and her writing touched me in such a deep place that I had nothing to do but go back and re-grieve that loss in my life. And to learn to embrace future trials. You see, God is faithful to complete a great work in you! So that is where I was when I 'fell'.
Three days after my fall I was diagnosed with a severe concussion. I knew as soon as I was diagnosed that God was going to use this for some purpose so I prepared my heart to learn whatever he had for me to learn.When the doctor told me that I needed at least 1 week of complete "brain rest", I cried and my husband laughed. What he meant by brain rest was no T.V., no reading, no computer, (he allowed a few minutes a day) and no physical activity outside of perhaps washing dishes or folding laundry. Understand that this was 2 weeks before Christmas and I have 7 kids! I also spend many hours a day on the computer conducting our construction business, writing and editing photos. My husband knew how hard it would be for me and he actually thought of this as an answer to prayer...well, he had been living with me... It was an answer to prayer. I had been acting like a MomZilla! I was using negative emotion daily to motivate myself and my kids and it was awful! I also motivated myself with stress so our home had become so stress-filled. Strangley I had become so immune to my own attitudes that I thought it was everyone around me who was at fault! Talking about "beholding your face in a glass"! Well, that week was one of the hardest of my life. As well as having severe headaches, I was in a lot of pain physically from the fall because I also suffered a whiplash injury and fell on another girl's skates. I think I also cracked or displaced one of my ribs-it was impossible to sleep for more than a few hours without waking up and there was nothing to do. My mind races at 100 miles per hour under normal circumstances so that was my first order of business; I had to learn to quiet my brain. I spent many hours at night wrapped in a blanket and staring out the window of my office into the snowflakes. Breath in, breath out, became my mantra. I tried to focus on a scripture but my brain was in such a state that I couldn't remember or focus on anything, except one and perhaps God has his reasons for it: "Great peace have they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them." Psalm 119:165 Now I see the reason for it-I just cross referenced it and in most versions it says: "Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them STUMBLE." ESV or "Great peace have lovers of your law; THEY HAVE NO CAUSE FOR FALLING." Bible in Basic English Version
How awesome is that! Although I have meditated on this verse for many years, I had never known its true meaning until this moment. I struggled after my "fall" to keep another verse in my brain such as: Isaiah 26:3 "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." but it would not stick and kept reverting to the other one! Now I know why! God fully intended to hold me up even though I had fallen! And not only had he held me up, he cared for me enough to show me how destructive I had been to myself and my family! How I love how he works in hindsight! Wow! While writing this I had a totally new revelation of how He cares for my in so many ways! Talk about grace!
So, where I was originally going with this before I had that little revelation, was that God was able to use my fall and brain injury to calm my mind, focus on Him and truly learn to abide in Him. It was so hard for me to allow others to do things for me and to not allow myself to feel stressed. Watching my husband cook and deal with the kids was the worst! Not that he wasn't doing a great job, but he wasn't doing it my way! I also learned to accept my rest period as a vacation. I had prayed to God so many times the previous year that I was so tired and I needed rest but I had no idea how that could be accomplished. On previous occasions my husband had been kind enough to send me to California to visit family but I always returned to the same mess, the same stress, the same way of dealing with my life. How else could God use a situation to allow me to rest and to deal with my feelings of stress within my life and on a daily basis? A perfect solution. And not only did He allow me to rest, He was there with me daily. I couldn't read and learned the hard way that my "book a week" habit was not in my best interest right now, so I began to listen to sermons and audio books. I was not a "perfect" patient-in fact, I know I prolonged my recovery by being obstinant and not fully giving in-after all my mother only turned 80 once, so I had to throw her a party, right? And my kids needed the regular Christmas celebration with all the presents, stockings and baked goods, right? Now, looking back, I would definitely forgo many of those things that seemed so important to me then, but as my husband says, "What can you tell a person who just hit their head? NOTHING!" I believe now that my concussion was also a learning experience for my family-just an example to them of how valuable I am as their wife and mother and by not continuing to do many of those things, I became just a little bit more important to them! It is now 4 months in and I'm 90% symptom free. Just writing this blog post brings on symptoms so I still have to be careful and especially work at managing my stress. I'm continuing to walk by faith and try to walk in the Spirit-it's a daily struggle but well worth it! It's exciting to see how God is going to work this all out. I've been referred to a group of physio people at Parkwood for ongoing support with my daily life and coping skills-they've already been a huge help. As for the thing that got me here: Derby-that is on hold, perhaps on a permanent basis. The doctor told me that I could have permanent brain damage if i sustained another hit to the head. That was a real heart wrencher. God knows my sorrow, but I am a new person and grateful for all that I have: A God who loves me, a family whose love and support I know I have, a brain that still functions (somewhat), a church family who prays for me and a body that still functions even though it is getting old and beat up!
This song by Toby Mac was and continues to be a real inspiration to me! Get Back Up Again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAA0ASlh1HU&feature=related
