Rainbows up ahead

On Wednesday April 11, 1990 in North Virginia drivers turned on their headlights and readied their windshield whippers as a storm rolled in. It was one of those seasonal spring storms that arrives in an instant. One moment the sky is light and bright and the next a blanket of ominous dark clouds send sunglasses into retreat. Seconds later the rain comes wrapped in wind gusts. The droplets come down sideways pinging against metal like little stones being thrown from the sky.
It was on this particular Wednesday afternoon, on a particular stretch of road through the Shenandoah Valley, that such a storm rolled in. Little Ford Fiestas slowed down in the right hand lane as massive semis went zooming past on the left. Windshield whippers threw water away from glass in a furry as drivers squinted to see just a few yards ahead. How long would this downpour go on? How long would the storm last?
It didn't take too long for drivers to receive their answer. The storm went as quickly as it came. In an instant the sky opened back up blue and bright. Sunglasses were quickly grabbed from their cases to shield delicate eyes from the radiant light. The storm had been so quick, so short, that not even the pavement gave evidence to the downpour. The road ahead was clear and dry.
Up above, every cloud had departed revealing a magnificent sight. From behind the blanket of gloomy gray, a full rainbow emerged. The brilliant colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet were painted across the perfectly clear canvas of the afternoon sky. The arch of the rainbow was flawless and each color was shining its brightest hue. It was as if the drivers were given a gift for enduring the ride through the storm.

I wasn't there on that Wednesday afternoon to experience that particular storm or see that precious rainbow's reveal. My big reveal, the occasion of my birth, was still eight hours off in the distance but for my Dad who drove through the storm on his way to meet his new daughter that rainbow was a promise.
In the rainbow that painted the sky on the day of my birth God delivered a message that He has been repeating ever since: In this life storms will come but, hold fast, because rainbows will always follow.   
Some storms in my life have lasted mere moments while others have lasted for years. Still God is true to His promise. On the other side of every downpour God has a clear road paved in peace and restoration. Beyond every gloomy, gray and cloudy sky, glorious healing shines. Breaking free from the darkness is the light of new life life beaming in eternal brilliance. 
No matter how fierce the storm I will hold onto the rainbow trusting with full assurance that there are always blue skies up ahead. 

My kind of party

Another weekend, another wedding celebration I'm unable to attend. This is the second family wedding I'll be missing just this month. The second time in just two weeks that I'll be sending a congratulatory card when I'd rather be there face-to-face, offering a warm and enthusiastic hug. But my body is too fragile, too weak and too compromised to even sit through the hour long ceremony let alone dance at the reception.
I remember back to the beginning of my body's seven year long saga. It began right around this time of the year. It was May and that year I went to a wedding and I danced. Oh, how I danced! I danced in heels until my feet were too tired and then I danced barefoot. I stayed until the end of the party and helped shut down the celebration.
That is such a sweet memory but such a distant one, too. If I linger on it for too long I risk letting my heart grow heavy and nostalgic for the way things used to be. The way I used to be. The way I used to look. The energy I used to have. The life I used to enjoy. If I recall for too long and reminisce too deeply about lively parties of my past I'm tempted to throw my own kind of pathetic party.
A pity party.
The trouble with the pity parties is that they never have colorful decorations and bouquets of roses. Pity parties are always woefully devoid of bubbles and no one throws celebratory bird seed. There is no upbeat music, no silly chicken dance and certainly no electric slide. Any cards received are left in the mailbox with messages of sympathy that induce tears of sorrow, not tears of joy. Pity parties end early, often in tears and hopefully without a single picture to recall the event.
Quite frankly, pity parties are lame.
So that is why I am instituting a new rule prohibiting all pity partying. Reminiscing is allowed. Remembering is perfectly acceptable. Sharing sweet memories is even encouraged. But pitying is forbidden. I am no longer allowing myself to bring pity to recollections of parties gone by and I am banning pitying the parties I've missed along way. Instead I am bringing their celebratory party to my pity.
Right here, right now, without a dance floor or an RSVP list I have reason to have a party. While I am at home I am having a party of my own, celebrating the healing that is taking place in my body. I am throwing bird seed in the air and blowing copious amounts of bubble because the cause of my seven year saga has been discovered! I'm playing the electric slide and dancing in my own goofy way because the reinforcements have been called in and they are waging war against the evil disease that has caused my body such pain and agony.
Tonight I am not at a wedding. I wasn't at one last weekend and it may be years before I attend another one. But tonight I'm not at a pity party. Tonight I'm bringing the party to my pity.

Be careful what you...

"Be careful what you wish for..."
Was that famous idiom first offered up as a Chinese Proverb or spoken during a play of Greek Mythology? Regardless of origin, the warning for wishers is sound advice. Be careful if you wish for money and fame... Be careful if you wish for love and marriage. Sure, money can be beneficial and, of course, love can be beautiful, but both come with their own unique set of challenges - thorns among the roses. Wisher beware: the dream that formulates the wish often looks drastically different when the wish comes true.
Learning from the old saying, I've been careful about what I've wished for. In fact, I've stopped wishing and replaced it with desiring and praying. The wishes I used to place on shooting stars I now hand to God in the form of desires spoken in prayers.
Believing that desiring and praying would be safe alternative to wishing, I began carelessly offering prayers of desire to God about seven years ago. The first one went a little something like this, "God, I give you my life, every part of it. I want to be obedient and completely surrendered to you. It is the earnest desire of my heart that I be pleasing in your eyes. Remove from my life anything that would draw me away from you or cause me to stumble. Purify me!" 
It was by surrendering my life to Christ that I was inspired to turn my wishes into"careless" prayers of desire. I carelessly prayed against protecting my own interest, having my own way and dictating my own life. My prayers took the shape of taking no care for what I wanted and the plans I had made for myself. Instead, my prayers became fixated on caring only for the will of God.
Through sin and my own fall I came to understand that I'm not fit to run my own life or even formulate my own wishes. My eyes were opened to the blackness and wickedness of my own heart and my great need to be saved by grace. Through salvation God transformed my heart and made it beat with the desire to be more like Christ.
Little did I know when I made that first "careless" prayer that God would grant me just what I requested. God went to work stripping me of everything that wasn't of Him. Bit by bit, He began to scrape away every happiness and pleasure apart from Himself. He removed every security but Himself, even the most fundamental security of health.
In 2010 when I exchanged my wishes for prayers I could never have anticipated how sharp and plentiful the thorns to come. I wasn't careful to formulate prayers that avoided the thorns or protected me against pain. I simply asked for God's will. If I could go back and rewrite those prayers and change my desires I wouldn't alter them one bit.
The woman I am today is because of those desires, those prayers and the way God has answered them. Because of those careless prayers that flowed from the deepest desires of my heart I have a beautiful, intimate union with Jesus Christ. God has answered my prayers of desire with an ever increasing passion for His goodness. He has enriched my life with more of His peace and love. By transforming my wishes into desires to be offered in prayer, my heart has been set ablaze, burning ever increasingly brighter for the glory of God.
In ways I never anticipated, expected or could have imagined, God is answering my prayers. He is fulfilling the very deepest desire of my heart: To be purified and made perfect in His Son, Jesus Christ... To be made more into the image of my Savior so that I will one day hear that I pleased the Lord as a good and faithful daughter of the King.

Survivinglyme.com

For days I contemplated the decision to deactivate my Facebook account. This isn't my first "so long" to Facebook. I pressed deactivate once or twice before only to return to the social media giant months - sometimes only weeks - later. I'm convinced Facebook has its own gravitational pull. In the spirit of Arnold Schwarzenegger I can practically hear the deactivate button laughing at me. "You'll be back," it says. And it's right. At least it always has been.
This time around I'm not making any false claims about my Facebook deactivation. It may be forever but, then again, I may be back. If I've learned one thing over the years it is to never say never. But for now I am stepping away from Facebook. For the sake of my health and, more importantly, the spirit of my heart, I am on a Facebook hiatus.
On my way to deactivation I was met with a number of "deactivate" buttons and "clicks to confirm." Near the end of the long Facebook goodbye a page full of options required that I select my reason for departure. "I spend too much time on Facebook," was one option. True but not why I was leaving. "I don't feel safe on Facebook." Not being one to act out of fear I couldn't honestly claim that rationale. None of the answers fit quite right. As I read through the deactivation excuses I realized that my reason for leaving the social media world wasn't going to turn up on any list.
For lack of a better option I chose "other" and went on to supply my own rationale in the box below. In my own words I told the Facebook world that I was leaving because looking at the lives of my peers having adventures, meeting life milestones and celebrating their accomplishments reminded me too acutely of the world I had always thought I would be a part of. Growing up I envisioned my future and my life as a twenty-seven year old and it looked like the pictures I was seeing on Facebook - pictures I wasn't in, pictures I had no part in creating.
After observing the lives of others from behind my computer screen for far too long, allowing myself to become far too melancholy, I came to realize that the real danger I was facing was not of wasted time or of accepting friend requests from complete strangers. The real danger was in allowing my heart to become discontent, my spirit envious and my soul dissatisfied. Every time I logged onto Facebook I threatened my peace and serenity. I became restless and even envious.
When I was on Facebook it wasn't a specific person or a specific picture that pained my heart. It was the parading of the worldly life in general that left me lamenting my lonesome lot. It was the very fact that hundreds of friends, family members and near strangers had news to post while I had...what did I have?
It was facing that reality that led me to disconnect with Facebook. I decided to step away from the world I didn't fit into in order to free myself to pursue a different world, a reality I wasn't seeing on Facebook. The Lyme world.
For those who have followed my story on Pippy Love or through Facebook, you know that I have MS. Or at least I thought I did. As it turns out, my case of MS had really been misdiagnosed Lyme Disease all along. Early last month, I finally received the news that the cause of my seven year saga is all thanks to a tick - or another mystery carrier of the devastating disease known as Lyme.
Now I am on the road to recovery. This road is going to be long. I have been warned that it could take two years at best, but I'm all in. I've been sick for seven years and I'd easily give seven more to get well again, so two sounds like a deal.
Embarking on this journey to beat Lyme was a major factor in my decision to disconnect from Facebook. This journey to regain my health was also the major factor in my decision to connect with a new online world, the Lyme world, on my new blog called Surviving Lyme.
Discovering that I have Lyme has pointed my life in a new direction, a new path towards recovery. I know this road will have ups and downs, hills and valleys, but God is faithful. He has brought me this far and I know He is not about to leave me now. With God's help I'm surviving Lyme.
So join me on the journey. It won't be on Facebook, but I'd love for you to share this road to recovery alongside me. See you on Survivinglyme.com!

A letter to a Dear Daughter

Dear Daughter,

I know today you feel hopeless. Illness has hit you like a category five hurricane. This seven year long sickness storm has taken its toll. How could it not?

For years you have held on for dear life as this hurricane named Illness has repeatedly battered against your shores. Its winds and waves have beaten you so hard you are unrecognizable. Your life is nothing like it was before this storm hit. Not even the tenor of your voice has remained the same. With each crashing wave you've lost another part of you. A wave took your weight. A wave took the functioning of your strong heart beat. A wave washed away the strength in your muscles and the thickness in your hair. One wave took your stamina. Another wave took your stability. The physical pain has been crushing but the spiritual agony has been torture.
As each wave has crashed you've been dragged further and further away from the shore of who you once were. With desperation you have tried to hang on to any reachable remnant of "you" the way you were before the storm hit. You've tried to hang onto your passions and fought to keep up your strength but, wave by wave, you've lost your grip. Today you are further out to sea than you have ever been before and there is not even a tree limb in sight to grab hold of.
Dear Daughter, I am here to tell you that it is okay to let go. You have done well. You've held on tightly. You haven't lost your faith and you've maintained your hope. You haven't given up but I want to tell you that it is okay if you do. If the sea looks vast and there is nothing to hold onto, don't panic. If you cannot muster the strength to reach a piece of the old you floating past you in the water, just rest and let it sail away.
Today I give you permission to give up your trying. You have tried long enough and fought hard enough yet the waves keep coming and the hurricane won't let up. Child, today is the day to stop kicking your legs against waters you can't beat. Cease your striving to hold on in the midst of this storm.
It is time to let go.
Let go of your worry that you'll float away. Release your need for strength. Free yourself from scanning the waters in search of stillness off in the distance. Simply rest in the waves and let the hurricane have its way.
You need not be worry about the force of the waves. Just hold your breath and let the waters overtake you. You need not fear the speed of the winds. Just relax and let yourself go where they push you. And dear Daughter, you need not be concerned about when the storm will end. Just know that someday it will. Because it will. I promise you that.

Today is the day to let go and let me get you back to my shore - the shore of who you're meant to be. You're not going back to the shore of who you once were. You're on your way to a life far better than the one the hurricane left behind. I'm taking you there. By these winds I am pushing you there. The waves you're fighting against are carrying you there.

So, please, Dear Daughter, just let go.


Forever and always,
Your Father God

Mountains of mulch

It was early on Saturday morning when I first saw the weary homeowner. He stood alone in front of his stately residence, resting on his shovel to catch his breath. Not even ten o'clock and he was already tired from tedious work of spreading the mountain of mulch spanning the length and width of his double wide driveway.
"I know what you'll be doing this weekend," I called out as Pippy, Molly and I scooted past the house on our morning walk.
The owner laughed and shook his head. "This weekend? If I'm lucky!"
Without much thought I shot back with a word of encouragement. "Keep your head up, it'll go faster than you think!"
I didn't think much about that pile of mulch until later that afternoon when Pippy, Molly and I set out on another walk. Out of curiosity for the progress of the mulch pile I decided to take the same route I had that morning. Sure enough, the home owner was still in his yard, shovel in hand, but this time he wasn't alone. He had called in reinforcements - two to be exact. One hardy helper was covered in dirt, knee deep in a flower bed while another made trips between the yard and the mulch pile with a shovel of his own. When the homeowner saw the dogs and I coming he paused in his driveway and pointed his shovel at the pile. "Looks like we've barely even touched it, doesn't it?"
He was right. The pile still looked gigantic but to maintain my encouraging attitude I told him I could see progress. He didn't seem to buy my optimism and neither did his weary workers.
It wasn't until the next evening that I thought about that man and his mulch. The weekend was nearly over and I wondered if he had "lucked" out by clearing the driveway by sundown on Sunday. I clipped the dogs on their leashes and headed out to get my answer.
As we made our way down the steep descent of the hilly Pittsburgh neighborhood the mulch house should have come into view. It was right at the bend, I was sure of it, but the mulch driveway was no where to be found. I nearly forgot which house had been delivered the mountain of dirt just the day before until I caught the glimpse of the most pristine yard in all the neighborhood.
At the house where the mulch pile once loomed big and dirty in the driveway was a yard of beauty. The mountain had been transformed into a lush lawn boasting immaculate flower beds. The bushes were lovingly tucked into the rich soil. The blooms were bursting in all of their vibrant color against a blanket of freshly cultivated earth.
And the driveway was spotless.
I couldn't help but stop and stare. I was awe struck not so much by the bushes or the flowers but by the transformation. Overnight a mess had turned into a masterpiece. In one weekend a dirt pile had become a garden oasis. With three sets of hands and two shovels a mountain had been leveled and the pavement swept clean so that not even a stray shed of bark remained.
I needed to see that driveway full of dirt become a yard of beauty because I needed to be reminded that God makes masterpieces out of messes.
In my life I have mountains of mulch, gigantic challenges that look to me like sure defeat. I don't see how they will ever be moved. I can't imagine that they will ever be cleared away. The task looks to tedious. My shovel is too small, my arms are too weak and the weekend is too short.
But God's shovel is bigger. His arms are stronger. His weekend is just the right length of time. He can move my mountain. He can clear away the driveway of my life of even the messiest of challenges.
What's more, is that when God is done moving the mountain of mulch He accomplishes a task more profound than making the pavement clear. He makes the yard beautiful, too. He enriches my life with beauty. Through the daunting trials and overwhelming challenges, God creates His most glorious masterpieces and reveals His most awe-inspiring transformations.
In the mulch pile I saw my life as it is today. I have a mess but, shovel-full by shovel-full, God is clearing it away. The work is underway and, although it may not be complete by sundown this Sunday, it will be done just in time for the big reveal. In God's perfect time the yard of my life will be transformed into a garden oasis rich in His goodness, bursting forth for His glory.
Because God is faithful and true to His promises, I know that His work of mountain moving is underway even now. I just need to keep my head up because, faster than I can imagine, this mountain will be gone and all that will remain is the most amazing testimony I could have never planted without all the mulch.

The latest in letting go

Something happened that I didn't tell you about. I didn't write a word about it. I guess, the truth is, I didn't want to give voice to the pain deep inside. By keeping the page of this story blank I thought I was protecting my rejected heart, but I think I thought wrong. Hidden hurt only festers. Open and honest hurt has the opportunity to be healed and made whole. Surrendering pain is good for the soul.
So here it goes.
Just a couple of short weeks ago I was "let go" from my part-time position at the city mission. The opportunity to be a part of the staff there was made available to me last fall. It was like a dream come true to be working in ministry. For years I had hoped for such a job. I never imagined it would come so soon and I certainly never imagined it would end just as quickly. For reasons that I may never fully understand, I was let go and the door of opportunity slammed shut.
The ending of that job, no matter how few hours it was a week or how unofficial my title, was a rejection that felt more like a slap in the face than a wave good bye. For days I replayed my words, actions and duties of the past few months trying to pinpoint where I went wrong. If I were of value and worth to the organization certainly they would have kept me on staff, right?
At the end of my pondering I didn't come to any neat and tidy conclusion. All I came up with was more pain, more mourning the loss of the job I celebrated as my dream come true, more wounds made by the sharp cut of rejection.
The pain of being let go might not have stung so much had it not been made on top of a thousand other cuts. Over the course of the past decade of my life the cuts of rejection and failure have been fast and furious. Relationship rejection. Friendship failure. Lost opportunities. Slashes made at my health. Cuts made to my attempts to finish college and get a degree. Milestones missed.
The pain of letting go and being let go has been so intense, so obvious in my life that I resisted giving voice to its latest source. I didn't want to admit another failure when I've already had so many.
But God wouldn't let me hide my hurt. He never does. In all of the hurt caused by being let go and having to let go, I've had to learn that when a door slams on my dreams I am never left in a dark hallway. God always unlocks and opens another door. Sometimes He simply props open another window. But He never abandons me in the hall with no where to go or nothing to do. He never leaves me suffering dreamless and hopeless.
When the mission called to give me my final word I went and sat in the hall of my own grief. For days I didn't even open my eyes to truly let the sight of the slammed door sink in. By refusing to look at the rejection and the hurt I didn't help myself heal. It took opening my eyes and acknowledging the pain to see that down the hall another door was ajar with the promise of another opportunity, another dream.
By pushing that door open I was introduced to a dream I had let die - the dream of health and physical restoration. In the past I've knocked on hundreds of doors with this dream on the other side. Sometimes the door has been opened if only for a moment. Other times the door has remained firmly locked. This time a door was ajar with that old dream casting out radiant light, bidding me to cross its threshold and take hold of its promise.
And so I did. I have. I am.
Letting go of dreams - and being let go by dreams - has been part of my story but it has never been the end of my story. The ending of one dream, no matter how painful the rejection, has always led me to greater paths, new doors and more glorious dreams.
The latest letting go is no different. It is not a slammed door. It is not a hurt to be hidden. This latest in my letting go series is my open door to go on living.
So here's to the next door, the next dream and the promise of my future on the other side of this threshold.