" it's ok baby. It's ok baby...."
Jesus. In the love of a Mother. Just like that. Always like that.
Shattering glass. Popping metal. Screeching echo, all tunnel. Then that jerk stop.
" Mommy. My back! My back! I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs."
My Mama told me something in her died with those words. A Mother's love knows many agonies. I honor her brave. For that hard neither of us ever forgot.
That's the beginning of my health story. See... we didn't have insurance, so they sent us home. After thirty minutes in a brace, my toes and legs came back. There were medics that day. Medics that chose not to hassle with no insurance...and it changed my life.
Age 22. Chiropractor. 13 years in to this world of migraines. His question stopping me in my tracks...
" when did you break your back?"
Huh?
I. Broke. My. Back. One vertebrae crushed and shattered...fusing down to half its normal size. I walked around with a broken back. Shards of bone next to a vulnerable spinal cord. But Jesus said no. Yes to an accident that changed everything, but no to paralysis.
The chiropractor began explaining to me that that spot being shattered left my spine incapable of stability. It couldn't hold itself straight. So it curved. Like an S... This is my migraine Story.
So for almost 25 years now I have had many debilitating days. Many Agony nights. And countless challenges to believe God. To keep hope. And to stay tender and preserved from anger and all the "why's". I have been Ugly. Angry. Broken. And Growing. Always this growing.
Growing to believe He allows things for good. Growing to love Him even when hard things don't change. Growing to know that I will be healed. One day.
So I pray. A lot.
I cannot tell you how many roads desperation leads you down. Pills, treatments, theories, facts, doctors, scans, and endless questions unanswered. There is a reason they are now calling this Migraine Disease. I scoffed the first time I heard that when I was only two years in... They were just headaches after all. Right? No. No. I am comfortable with the disease term. It's accurate. Deeply accurate.
So why this story today? Simple really.
Minerals.
Sometimes amidst our drowning in hard facts and endless searching, God takes us back to the bare essential.
All those avenues of searching. Year after year after year. Some have brought some help, but never solid permanent hope. Sometimes living with the hunger is as bad as the disease.
Help me. See me. Someone tell me it really will be ok. Tell me my children's memories of their Mama won't be all wound. Tell me my husband's heart will heal. Tell me I am worth all this trouble, all these bills. Tell me that I am a blessing somehow? Tell me there is an answer. That there is Hope.
I have intimate, bone deep talks with God. I walk out my pain in tears with Jesus. I was the angry girl who felt He turned His back when I would agonize in the dark. But He has been kind enough to stay. To stay and teach me again and again...ever so gently.
" I Am the Way. The Truth. The Life."
When it hurts to be awake, Jesus words matter. A lot.
Over time and much soul work alone in the dark, I changed. I let go of anger and said hello to Jesus inside the agony moments. I asked Him to stay close to me. I told Him I still loved Him. Even here, amidst all my horror. I asked Him to help me through. I told Him I would believe, that I know my healing will come.
I am healing in my soul. My soul spine will straighten as prelude to my bone redemption. A day I am quietly confident will come.
I share this because I have had a bad year. My migraines have come closer together, with a longer duration, and I have had an incredibly hard time stabilizing between episodes. And in my nightly kneeling before my Heavenly Friend, I have asked for help. The kind that begs hope and aid if I am to survive.
He simply said, " Minerals."
I am deficient. And our bodies cannot function without them. I will spare you the science in how the lack has crippled me...
I found the more I took this week, the more I have felt a change. A deep inside, physical grab.
Dirt friends. Dirt!
The life, that is aiding my ache, is found in dirt. And even as snow and water filter down the side of a mountain, Jesus let's these minerals stay in the droplets. And when I drink them, my very sinews find pieces of life itself. So I began thinking about that irony.
Remember in the garden. All those thousands ago? Man. Created in the image of God. You and me...started from God's very breath...God air, blown soft...into dirt.
Dirt.
So forgive my smiling fingers as I write. But Jesus irony tends to have this affect on my "in love" heart. You see, He was taking me back to the basics. Again. Taking me back to where I started. In the dirt. With Love wind blown into Adam skin...into My life. And now when I am tired and full of ache and question, I am given that whisper again.
"Come to Me. You who are weary and Heavy laiden. I will give you rest."
But sometimes we get so lost in the search. The questions. The hunger... That we forget the Healer. We forget to talk to the One who formed our very being... And He, in this epic intimate kindness, takes us down. Way down. All the way down to the dust at His feet.
So I kneel and so I see. Jesus always opens the eyes of the humbled down. Being close to the dirt is the beginning. He has been raising us up from the dirt since that first day. He has brought life from our dust since Eden edge.
I can't help but think how there is always this need for returning. We get caught up in the lofty details of our questions, hard facts, and empty longings. And Jesus, because He loves, brings us back again. To the basics. To the mineral true about this life. We started with Him, we are only sustained by Him, so we should seek Him first. From the deepest core of us. This call coming from our very makeup. Made from dirt low and Heaven High... When I get home to Him, I want to ask to see this moment replayed. In a Holy hush, full intimate... We. Became.
" Do not look anxiously about you, for I Am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10
I have spent years anxiously looking about. This is a hard habit to break. We get scared. Waiting on an unseen God isn't easy. We think the new pill, new relationship, new job, or new distraction will change things... But we always end up hungry. Jesus loves us so much, He won't allow any imitations. He wants us to have the real thing. Him.
So there is this today. My Jesus gives me things that help. And in them I have known His love. Kind doctors, pills for pain, excercise that helps, and minerals that change my ability to stabilize... But only He can heal me. Fill me. Give me hope. And every now and again He loves me enough to remind me again. Go back to the basics.
I used to hate this story. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to be sick. But I have a different perspective now. Jesus will use this. My health story is intimate to Him. My migraines and all these lessons learned in storm, are holy in His hand. And I respect that. Because I respect my Savior.
Whatever your hard road is, go back to the basics. Don't anxiously look about you anymore. Muscle and bone need minerals to function the way they are designed. And when they don't get fed, they freak out and lose their ability to perform. Our Souls are the same way. Designed to yearn, need, and savor our Maker. When we return to Jesus over and over, our souls find health because our spirit gets fed. Basic Holy. And it shouldn't shock us that our bodies can follow. Holy Health is Jesus first, Jesus as hope, Jesus as the reason, and Jesus as the way.
Jesus is my mineral. He is my beginning and my end. He is hope health and high calling. He gives my worst days...worth.
So go back to the basics. Till its just you...And Him. Till you can hear the story told again and again. All through scripture...Heaven meeting earth...God always coming. For you.
