Hello

Hello, my friends.

I know there are bunches and bunches of people on your prayer list(s).

I know that my family is on your list.

Sometimes, okay, well, ALL the time, it is 'hard' for me to ask for prayer, and often for help.

Interestingly enough, our family is hanging in there.  Better, really.  All the way around.  No 'news' in any economic or financial area, other than, hey, we still live at our address?  :P

We are spending quality time together, actually a lot of it, as we don't have means or reasons to spend it away or apart.

Today, I need prayer, though.  And you know, if I'm admitting it, or asking for it, well, yeah, I need it.

It's not a new prayer.

It's the continual, gradual, progressive destruction of my body by my body.

You know, I thought I was challenged with Crohn's.  And the anxiety, panic, social concerns, bowel control issues, drug reactions, etc. that came with it.  Yep, that was a handful.

Boy have I been hit in the head with a 2x4 (again).

This rheumatoid arthritis nonsense has thrown me a curveball like none other.  And I have always prided myself on my batting average....

2 1/2 to 3 weeks after a treatment, my fingers/hands/wrists/toes/feet/ankles/knees arbitrarily LOCK UP.  So I do my best to tend to the joints that don't work on ANY GIVEN DAY.  And then the next day, those joints are completely FINE (yes, this is frustration, no it is NOT screaming), but a whole other set of joints arbitrarily LOCK UP.  Walking is, hmmmm, difficult, if not impossible, on some days.  Today is one of those days.  No, I have not been up 'all' night, however, I am up 'already' at 612am.  Today, I cannot walk (YET, anyway....if I work at it really hard, and by that, I mean, if I perform physical therapy on myself for hours and hours (yeah, it REALLY REALLY hurts, but sometimes it works) I might be able to put weight on at least my left foot, hopefully by this afternoon. 

Funny.  Today the worst pain is my right wrist, and my right ankle/foot.  It is easier to rub my right foot with my left hand.  So I lucked out today.

You may ask, hmmmm, what would you like me to pray for?  That's funny too.  You know, you've walked beside me for most of this 11 year, 11 million mile journey.  I don't think I've ever asked God for a miracle cure, except for when the lives of my babies or my husband were at stake.  I've never asked him to 'cure' me.  I've always asked for strength, peace, strength, patience, strength..... I've asked him to help me with this blasted disability nonsense, yet then I received a second diagnosis if not more devastating, then equally as  devastating as the first.  Maybe I'm 'asking' for the wrong prayer.  Maybe, since my doctor, the one who once motivated me to hang in there, the one who said he dedicated his life to this battle that he only fights from the sidelines, maybe since HE has, for all intents and purposes 'given up', maybe that is my cue to finally ask for the miracles and the cures. 

Because right now, RIGHT NOW, well...

• I can't brush my daughter's hair.

• I couldn't run to my children's rooms if they were in danger or hurt and NEEDED me to...in fact, I probably couldn't walk, but I might be able to scoot.

• I somehow managed to arrive at the toilet a little while ago, just before it was 'too' late.  Had it been 'too' late, I wouldn't have been able to clean up the mess.  Talk about humility.  It really is bad enough to literally poop on yourself and/or the floor, but to have to ask for help to clean it up?  Yeah, that's sexy, I'm sure.

• I'm not exactly sure how I arrived to the bathroom.  It was a one- half-Elephant Man walk, one-fourth drunken Weeble Wobble dance move, one-fourth 'I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up'.  At 3 in the morning.  Actually, let's just call it ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PATHETIC.  Yes.  That it was.

• I don't know how I am going to keep my 'school's out for the summer' children happy, active, safe, playful, engaging, fed, satisfied, challenged, entertained....let alone keeping their claustrophobia (it's rainy season) to a low grade cabin fever TODAY, instead of an all out 'to the death' match of tempers.

So yeah.  I need prayer today.  For all that stuff.  But I'm going to start setting my prayer bar even higher.  I'm going to start praying for the miracles - for a complete cure of all my symptoms.  For a cure so complete that I can be the primary, if not solitary bread winner for this family.  For a cure that will raise me from my bed, from the floor, from the toilet, from the pit of living despair.  For a cure that will enable me to run, swim, dance, chase, walk, and EMBRACE my children like mothers are supposed to do.

I am going to pray these prayers because at the very least, I owe it to my children to.....do as I have always asked them to do, no matter how high the mountain, how difficult the obstacle, how impossible the dream.

I am going to..........

T R Y

Will you help me to T R Y?

Thank you for fighting along with me, side by side.

I wouldn't still be here, asking for yet more prayer without you.

Humbly,

Heather