Gulf Breezes Stir Up Internal Storm

I love the beach, I mean I really love the beach and ocean. To the point that I'm a certified SCUBA diver and have dove in places all over, including diving with sharks off the coast of Belize to places in Mexico and the Cayman Islands.  With the exception of the Caribbean waters the Gulf is my favorite beach area.  We've talked and dreamed for years about moving there.  I mean who doesn't vacation at the beach and think, boy, wouldn't it be great to live here?!  So with the thought that one day I want to move there I go on about my life.

And I love my life! I love where I live, the perfect small town within driving distance of Atlanta and less than 20 miles from the largest shopping mall in the Southeast.  A job that I've had going on 6 years that is family friendly, flexible, and offers me a creative outlet getting to create posters, bulletins, flyers as well as working in the Children and Student departments.  I have great coworkers, a short commute and lots of benefits.  The kids are settled into their schools and doing well.  We moved into a gorgeous cape cod (always my dream style house) about 5 mths ago (go ahead and laugh, yes, I was upset about that move too and now here I am loving this house!) and I've just finished decorating the inside to a warm, inviting and cozy place and just started creating gardens and other landscape work outside.  I volunteer with a Celebrate Recovery group, am working with our local police department on getting a Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association up and running and making new friends at the church we just started going to a couple of months ago.  I also have friends here whom I dearly love.  You know, the kind you know you can call in the middle of the night if you really needed too.  Basically I'm very happy and content with my current life.

When out of the blue my husband is offered a job.  It is a with a good company that he used to work with years ago in our hometown, before we moved up here.  And the branch of the company that is offering him the job is located in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.  Ironically right in between Destin and Panama City Beach, the exact area we said we wanted to eventually live.  While I should be jumping for joy at this chance to live in one of the most gorgeous areas of the country along one of the whitest stretches of sugar sand beaches, with some of the most beautiful blue-green waters, I'm not.  Instead I'm in shock.  Yes, I wanted this, but not now.  But if not now, will we ever have this chance again?  My husband, who thinks I should be ecstatic at this opportunity, is probably in shock at how upset I get.

But this means Ron will be moving on down there in the next couple of weeks.  I'll be left here with the kids to finish the school year, pack, find a new job down there and try to figure out how to save enough money to cover moving expenses and find a place to live there.  Knowing if I can't do it by July or so, then we will be here another year so as not to have to move the kids mid-school year.  Which means Ron and I could be living in separate states for up to 13 months.  So many thoughts, so many things that have to fall into place.  The dream of the beach bum life quickly escalates into a mega internal storm.  So strong that I can't eat and am battling massive migraines.

It dawns on me tonight that my kids are watching me to know how to react.  How I respond will clue them in.  Do I want them anxious or upset or do I want them excited and ready for one of the biggest adventures of their lives so far?  Time to stop, breathe...and pray.  (thanks to a friend who told me in no unnecessary terms to STOP and just breathe, another who reminded me to take things one day at a time and one who came by my work today just to tell me it would all be ok and hold me and let me leak out a few tears on her shoulder - see I told you I had awesome friends here!!) No, I have absolutely no idea how in the world all the details will come together to make this work.  But God knows.  He is the calmer of storms, both real and internal.  "He calms the storm, So that its waves are still." Psalm 107:29 (NKJV).

So ahoy, matey! It's time to raise the sails and use the blowing winds to guide our family to where we need to go, instead of letting them blow and toss me about.

Daughter, Be Encouraged! Your Faith Has Made You Well.

The Lord has been teaching me a lot lately, about myself and about healing.  So I decided to write out part of my story.

 

During the winter of 2007 I was diagnosed with S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and then in the summer of 2007 I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1.  I believe I had this prior to being actually diagnosed but had masked the extreme highs and lows by self-medicating.  That had seemed to work for a while but eventually I quit doing that.  Some bizarre actions and thoughts that summer caused me to finally seek medical help.  At that point I was put on medication for bipolar.  Almost all bipolar medications have a lot of side effects.  This one was no different with one side effect causing my blood sugar levels to go up.  After a year of still dealing with some symptoms as well as the side effects I felt I could control it myself.  

This worked well until the fall of 2010.  All during late summer and early fall my symptoms gradually got worse and worse.  My husband was working out of town and I decided to try some diet pills and lose some weight while he was gone.  After being on them I went a month on hardly any sleep and then went a whole week with just a couple hours of sleep and very little food.  The lack of sleep and food was enough to push my already bizarre symptoms over the edge.  I found myself being admitted to the hospital anxious, delusional, paranoid, with a low body temperature, with suicidal ideations, shaking and in a full manic episode.  After a couple of weeks they had me stabilized enough to return to work and my family.

This was the beginning of when I finally began to accept the diagnosis and began following my doctor’s orders.  This included having several doctors, a therapist and many months of experimenting to find the right mix of medication.  None of them seemed to completely work so I was finally put on medication for schizophrenia, which finally brought me much relief.  Again though, I had to deal with side effects which included not being able to regulate my body temperature, especially in the heat, and my white blood cell count dropping low, resulting in sickness like the shingles and had to have my liver and kidneys tested regularly for damage from the medication.  I was also given medications for insomnia and a couple for anxiety and panic attacks.  All the doctor visits, co-pays and prescriptions added up quickly.  At the beginning of the summer of 2011 my husband lost his job and we were under quite a bit of financial strain.  I tend to be somewhat of a control freak and now I felt I didn’t have control of anything.  There were many changes which eventually included several job changes, school transfers for the kids and moving into a new home.  All of the uncertainty of that summer/fall combined with a desire to lose some more weight brought on some disordered thinking about my eating.  Shortly after he lost his job I began purging and restricting.  Though I thought this put me in control of something it actually began to control me and caused problems with my health as well as disrupting the way my medication was supposed to work.  Also around this time I was told that my doctor believed I had BPD (Borderline PersonalityDisorder) which is another “incurable” mental disorder.

Toward the end of January 2012, my husband wanted to visit Lifeway Church, as it was just a couple of miles away from where we had moved to.  I wasn’t sure about it but saw on their website that they believed in healing.  I was so tired of the struggle to maintain stability and to hide my eating problems that the thought of being healed greatly intrigued me and my heart and mind were open to it.

I asked some questions and was given the 10-Day Healing andWellness study by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.  It was very different from the beliefs about sickness that I had grown up believing.  But I quickly and wholeheartedly accepted it as truth. Before even starting the study I believed God was telling me that I would be healed and soon, so I quit taking my main medications and started tapering off the anti-anxiety medications.  I knew I had a couple of weeks before any intense symptoms would return.  So with an open heart and the clock ticking I jumped right into the study.  Getting up early every day to read the lessons, journal, watch the DVD teachings and highlight verses in my Bible on healing.  God gave me several very specific verses to stand on.

First was Proverbs 4:22 (NLT), “For they (God’s Words) bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.”  Then He gave me specific verses for my specific issues. 2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV) says, “For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”  From this verse I knew that a sound mind is promised to me. Isaiah 26:3 (KJV) says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”  Though many verses speak about anxiety, this one is the one that stood out the most to me.  Proverbs 3:24 (NKJV) says, “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.” This is the verse I claimed for insomnia.  I just loved it, every night I tell my children “sweet dreams” and to realize that God tells me that and has promised me sweet sleep reminded me that I’m His child and made me feel loved and special.  And the last verse that I felt spoke to me was when Jesus healed the women who had the issue of blood and had spent her money and time with doctors who could not heal her and when she touched His robe she was healed and Jesus said to her, “Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.” Matthew 9:22 (NLT)

About halfway through the series I asked my husband to agree in prayer with me to claim my healing.  Late one night after the kids went to bed we read many of the verses, claimed them, prayed for my healing, praised God for that healing and then celebrated communion together.

A couple of weeks ago I went for a check-up and my doctor was so happy with everything that he gave me a hug! My fatigue was gone, severe headaches gone, electrolytes good, my blood pressure is in what is considered the “athletic range” and am overall feeling great and for the first time in a very long time the “brain fog” that I constantly battled is gone!

The changes have been mental, physical and spiritual.  It has now been well over a month and I know the medication is out of my system and that God has healed my mind.  I also have not purged or restricted my food the past month, I ran my personal best time in a 5K road race and there have been many inward, spiritual changes as well.  Now if I find myself waking up in the middle of the night I immediately start thinking on a Scripture verse, often times ones I don’t even remember memorizing, instead of waking up with worry. I’ve found myself listening to more Christian music, reading more Christian books and my attitude is changing. One of my bosses at work told me the other week that I seemed to have a lot more energy lately and another lady came into our office this week and told me that I seemed to be so full of joy, I gave her a hug and she said I had made her day!

Only once in the past couple of weeks did I feel like any symptoms were trying to come back.  I started feeling very disconnected which started to make the anxiety come back.  Taking some of the knowledge that I have learned, I knew Satan was just trying to trip me up and I refused to back down but hung on to my faith and the Scriptures I had chosen to stand on.  Just as I had to take several medications each day I know that I need to stay in God’s Word as my new “medicine.”  How much more stable can you be than by building your foundation on the Rock, on the unchanging Word of God!

God has given me His joy and peace and renewed my love for life.  I’m so grateful and thankful that I feel like the guy who was healed in Acts 3:8 who went “… walking, and leaping, and praising God.”