I’m a (mostly) healthy chef. You can find me cooking for private events, teaching in-home cooking classes, and in my kitchen coming up with new recipes. My best inspiration comes from traveling, as I explore a new culture through its food. Traveling allows me to experience the beauty and awesomeness of God’s creation – breathtaking vistas, spirited people, intricate creatures, and yes…indigenous bounties of fruits, vegetables, and seafood. And I can’t just keep all I see and do and eat and cook to myself…so come on an adventure with me!
Have you ever thought about what it was like for God to become man? Pondered what it felt like for the Divine—who existed before time itself, content in dark, swirling depths, illuminated by his own radiance—to take on flesh? For the Spirit, moving as freely as the wind, a whisper, to suddenly be forced to breathe. The One who crafted the world with the ease of a child playing with finger paint; dotting the canvas with rivers and streams, mighty oceans and diverse continents. Who imagined into existence the intricacies of every living creature, flower and landscape; no two snowflakes, stars, strands of hair or grains of sand alike.
For that untamed, unbridled and vivacious energy—to suddenly—be conformed into the shape of man whom He so carefully created. Abruptly reliant on elements of His own design—on gravity and oxygen—the inventor bowing to the confines of his creation. To porcelain bones and aching joints, hunger pangs, sickness and disease, emotions bigger than our fragility can sometimes bear, and the constant ache to be set free.
Even with our Divine reflection, we are bound by this flesh and have never known otherwise. Yet scarce a minute goes by that I don’t feel the tug-of-war of my humanity. A spirit longing to be released from a body that is brilliant, yes, but also beautifully broken. I’ve often clung to the comfort that Jesus walked this earth thus understands my pain; yet in the same breath I’ve had those thoughts, “But Jesus never experienced…” insert malady. But Jesus never had his skull fused to his neck, tailbone removed, nerves pulled from his spine, discs that budge and joints that go pop.
No, Jesus probably didn’t experience the exact set of symptoms we struggle with, but He understands our experience in one profound way that encompasses any and everything we will ever endure. Fully God yet fully man; Jesus was constantly suspended in the tension of a Spirit that knows unbounded freedom, and of humanity that only knows constraint. Every moment of His existence exemplified the truth that “…the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.” Romans 8:22 CSB
Jesus knows the pain of being trapped in a body you feel at odds with or that you think you don’t belong in. The agony of legs that don’t hold you up, a back that won’t bend, an immune system attacking itself, a mind that struggles to let in the light, an identity that doesn’t fit the norm or struggles with acceptance.
Whatever you are facing today, I’d encourage you today to lean into this truth: Jesus understands. There is absolutely nothing you can endure that would cause Jesus to leave your side in solidarity. And He loves you so much that He chose the path of surrender, so He could walk beside you no matter what.
One of the first principles of economics I eagerly learned as a college student (many years ago) is that everything comes with a trade-off. Christmas undoubtedly seems to amplify the year’s “firsts” and “lasts,” wins and losses. I’m en route to Massachusetts where I’ll meet my first great nephew and celebrate his very first Christmas! And yet I’m choking back tears thinking of driving up to my childhood home, greeted by the wooden cross and manger my dad constructed shortly before his last Christmas. Grief is the cost of love. Longing, the cost of daring to hope. Winning and losing, the results of joining in on the game.
And this is exactly what Jesus chose for us. To demonstrate the enormity of his love, he endured the sting of grief. To fulfill the longings of our hearts, he acquiesced to rejection and ridicule. To attain victory, he relinquished his power and status, and by all appearances, looked like he had failed at his mission. But we celebrate Christmas in the shadow of the cross—the symbol of both suffering and salvation. As my dad used his hammer to drive those nails into the wood of the crucifix and the cradle, he had no idea that in a matter of months, he would meet the very One who was willingly born in a stable, and allowed nails to be driven through his tender flesh. The One who chose us.
Jesus allowed himself to weep at the death of his friend Lazarus, knowing that soon after he would celebrate raising him back to life; showing us that we too are permitted to mourn all of the heartache this world holds while we celebrate the miracles all around us. So, as Christmas approaches, remember that the King of the Universe chose to step into our joy and our pain. Not asking us to cloak our wounds by focusing on blessings, but instead, just as he modeled, to embrace the dichotomy. The One who made us and chose us, became God with us, to show that grief and sorrow can coexist with joy, celebration, baby giggles and hysterical laughter. So let yourself be with it all, as you receive the embrace of our Savior’s outstretched arms.
It’s the second Sunday in Advent, and I’ve had carols playing nonstop. Until these words stopped me in my tracks:
“Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices…”
It’s so easy to view the Christmas story like a Nativity scene, with perfectly poised characters who play their roles for the season, then get tucked away in a box until next December.
Except Jesus wasn’t just a cute cooing baby, swaddled and swooned over. His birth was the fulfillment of countless prophecies, given over centuries as stand-in hope to a dark and desperate world, longing for a Light to illuminate their identity. Emanuel—God made flesh—was born a tangible incarnation of the One whose imagine I am made in, and the only One who gives me an unshakeable reason for existing. My living Hope. Speranza.
There are times when I forget the significance of Christmas; times when I’ve packed Jesus into a box with the ornaments and stored Him away. At first, life goes on unchanged, but slowly the spiraling thoughts creep in: Fear over my health and my future, feelings of unworthiness and failure, the need to prove my status, capability and purpose, and a quest to control all of the unknown. I snap into problem-solving mode; trying to carry my burdens with weary, fragile limbs, like a Christmas tree sagging under the weight of too much tinsel and trim. And in this proving and striving, my worth has been buried under a pile of Christmas boxes.
“O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining…For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”
Just like the Wise Men were drawn to the Star of Bethlehem—the Light of life—I continually get to make the choice to keep my gaze locked on the Son, my true North. And in doing so, I watch, as my weary branches are gently liberated; once again able to reach toward the crowning Star.
This Christmas season and always, let’s not forget that, “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world… Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—” John 1:9, 12
For far too long, I let my identity and worth be found in my accomplishments, my looks and in other peoples’ opinion of me. But all of these things can be stripped away in an instant. When everything in my life seemed lost, One thing remained—the only One who mattered. The only One who gives my life its worth. The greatest Gift ever given, and that I can ever receive.
My community of Tampa Bay woke up Saturday morning to flashbacks of last year when thousands of families lost their homes; many escaping the rising waters of Helene in the middle of the night. Thankfully, my house weathered the hurricane with only a few scratches, but I awoke acutely thinking of my own scars. Exactly two years ago, I underwent fusion of my skull base to C2. It was a massive surgery that I had tried to avoid for five years, and it came with many risks— both intra-operatively and with regard to my ability to live a “normal” life after. But I made the decision to place my healing into the hands of the One who created me as a reflection of Himself. Into the hands of the One who “knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13) and the One who designed each detail of my being.
And I watched everything change. I decided to stop living in fear, and instead lock eyes with the One who has:
“Plans to prosper me, and not to harm me, to give me a hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).
And by dwelling on God’s many promises over my life, I saw this verse become truth in my life:
“You will keep in perfect peace, all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you” (Isaiah 26:3).
I wrote a post the day before my fusion going into detail about God’s peace, and how through the trial of that surgery I came to understand it in a life-changing way.
But right now, another facet of that journey is on my mind. Last year on September 27th, to mark the anniversary of my fusion, I finished writing my book— or so I thought! But after stepping away and getting feedback from my writing coach, it needed a lot more work. Two months ago I submitted the completed manuscript to my publisher, and I am currently deep in the throes of book editing! God’s fingerprints are all over my story, and on every detail. I am in awe to announce that my memoir will be published in April 2026 by Forefront Books:
Speranza: How Pain Became the Path to Hope
I still get choked up when I look at the word “Speranza” tattooed on my wrist. It’s the Italian word for “hope” and during my darkest days of Lyme disease, when I was solely trying to make it to the next sunrise, I started every morning drinking coffee and reading scripture verses about hope. I got that word tattooed where I would see it with every sip. Never did I think I would be publishing my story with “Speranza” as the title! But isn’t that just like God— to take our utter darkness and transform it to beauty, while bringing glory to Him!
With teary eyes I am also chuckling right now, because God loves to delight His children. The woman editing my manuscript is an absolute gem and making my story the best version of itself. Her name is Hope. Speranza! My book draws content from journals I kept while working in Italian kitchens, traveling around Southeast Asia, and then fighting for each breath. In one entry I mention God’s reckless love, and she asked me, for her own edification, what that meant.
We live in a world that advocates for corrective justice that in many ways makes God’s love look reckless. I think the most profound example of this love is when Jesus forgives those persecuting him while he is nailed to a cross, paying the penalty for their sins. The perfect Lamb.
During his life, Jesus gave many examples— often through parables— of the Father’s reckless love. The Good Shepherd leaves the 99 sheep to find the one that is lost and to bring it back into the fold. That doesn’t sound like a smart business model.
Jesus instructs us to not only forgive those who harm us, but to do good to them. To turn the other cheek. To walk another mile with them. Isn’t that rewarding bad behavior?
The loving Father runs with open arms to embrace the prodigal son, throws him an extravagant banquet at his return, and restores his place in his family and business, after the son had squandered all of his inheritance. That doesn’t seem like wise parenting.
Yes, God is a God of justice, and does sometimes punish or help course-correct out of parental duty. But above all else, his nature is that of love, and nothing I ever do can separate me from it.
By human standards, so many facets of God’s love is reckless. But I am living proof that reckless love equals life-saving and life-changing love.
I was that prodigal son, but God never gave up on me. I hated God for many years as an angry, rebellious teen and young adult, and looked for ways to hurt Him— because I was so intensely hurting. I listened to music that mocked Jesus’s death, rolled joints from pages I tore out of a Bible, and got so deep into drug use that I almost overdosed. But what did God do in turn? He kept pouring out examples of His reckless love until it swept me away in its current, washed me clean, and safely carried me to solid ground.
I spent the two-year anniversary of my fusion editing the part in my manuscript about how I marched into fusion surgery with absolute resolve that God had abundance waiting on the other side of my leap of faith, and then how again, my world seemed to crumble. But this is what I have realized— I was relying on my expectation of healing, and my strength to achieve the outcome I was hoping for— even though God’s ways are always better. Psalms 147:10-11 was part of my devotional on this anniversary morning, and so fitting. I spent the day delighting in my Father who loves to heal, and praising Him for His unending faithfulness and His reckless love!!
“He takes no pleasure in the strength of a horse or in human might. No, the Lord’s delight is in those who fear him, those who put their hope in his unfailing love.”
That evening, as I walked the beach, I began getting frustrated at the rip-currents of pain that are still nearly constant in my head and neck. But in the same breath, I began thanking God for the abundance I have in my life. Suddenly— like the giant waves I was watching crash upon the shore— it hit me. I’ve been so focused on the fact that physically, I haven’t had the 180 degree healing I was so confidant was awaiting, that I missed it, entirely. God did indeed bring abundance when I stepped out in faith and had the fusion, and my life has completely changed in the two years since. And it was BECAUSE my physical symptoms didn’t go away, that I’ve healed in deeper ways than I knew I even needed. God used two more intense surgeries, and so much pain, to get ahold of my heart and show me the most profound realization of all— which you’ll have to read my book to discover!
But I will tell you this. As I have opened myself up to the healing God has for me, and continued to step out in faith, God has surrounded me by people who have lifted me up, encouraged me, inspired me, helped me grow, and shown me I don’t need to do everything alone. On top of that, I am now in the process of publishing my story— one that I know I have endured because it will help many others find beauty and purpose amidst their pain. And I have a whole squad cheering me on!!
Abundance doesn’t even begin to describe what I am living in!!
Last week, walking into my neurosurgeon’s office in D.C. as I have many times the past several years, I noticed a brightly colored hummingbird lying breathless on the sidewalk. As I gasped at its beauty and mourned this little loss, I felt God meeting me in that place.
I have come leaps and bounds in my healing, and am so much improved from where I was, but far from symptom-free. Since having the hardware removed from my skull and neck, along with the C2 and C3 nerves, I have numbness in large swaths of my head and amplified feeling in other areas. Muscle spasms and phantom nerve pain cause frequent headaches, and I’ve been struggling with the reality that this altered sensation and heightened pain may be my new norm. These concerns were on my list to discuss with my neurosurgeon as I walked into his office.
But looking at that little bird, I could feel my Father saying to me…“not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without me knowing it…and how much more do I care about you…my beloved. I know every one of your nerve fibers and the number of hairs on your head. I know your longings and pain…and your pain pains me too.”
I can’t tell you how many times God has made his presence known to me in a tangible way like this little bird.
My surgeon and I reviewed my thoracic MRI – now six months post-op, and while there’s still a herniation causing pain, it’s no longer crushing my spinal cord and far less severe than it was before surgery. My surgeon prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill everyone in my operating room, and to guide his hands, and his restraint in not removing too much of the disc and potentially clipping my spinal cord or thoracic artery is what preserved my ability to use my arms and legs. His first words when I woke up from surgery was that it was by God’s grace I wasn’t paralyzed, and I praise God every day for that!
I still have a ways to go until I’m where I one day hope to be, and there may be more surgery in my future, but for now, 11 surgeries is enough! For the first time in five years, I left my neurosurgeon’s office not imminently needing any more scans, procedures, surgery or even scheduled follow-ups!!
Right now, flying at 36,000 feet, I’m en route to California…and for the first time in eight years it’s for a purpose other than a doctor’s appointment! I’m flying into San Jose, a place that represents both crippling pain and immense beauty borne from it. For many years I traveled here every other month getting IV treatments for neurological lyme disease, and hundreds of injections for widespread joint instability and neuropathic pain. But God met me in that anguish and sent so many signs of his presence; one being that my nurses became some of my most cherished friends, and I get to spend this weekend with them! Every time I would board my flight for San Jose, eyes blurred from pain and a jumbled brain, I’d have my earbuds in playing the songs that kept my eyes focused upwards, claiming His healing and victory. There were so many times I wanted to give into despair, and give up altogether…but God kept filling me with His hope that healing was coming. And did it ever! But in ways I never expected.
Which brings me to more exciting news…over the past year I’ve been writing a book about this journey I’ve been on, and I just submitted the manuscript to my publisher! This book is my testimony. My testimony of a God who has never failed me. A God who loved me when I had nothing but anger and disdain towards him. A God who redeemed my life and washed the most despicable parts of me with his precious blood. A patient God. A God who saw me trepidly walking towards him and came running with open arms to embrace me. A God who gave me an identity in himself. A God who has nothing but unconditional love for me. A God who has carried me through debilitating pain, crippling fear and the anguish of heartache. A God who loves to heal. A God who simply asks that I draw near.
In the book I share difficult events from early in my life that lay the foundation and give context, and anecdotes from Italy, catering days, eating tarantulas in Cambodia and plenty of bad dates – my party tricks. But the real story unfolds during the pain, the hard, the messy. When it was sink or swim and I reached out to God, He used the hardest moments in my life to be the most profound gifts and greatest teachers. As I worked endlessly to heal my physical body, I uncovered misbeliefs about my identity, my purpose, my worth, and God’s love and my own which were deeply hindering me from healing and finding wholeness.
For more than two decades my identity has been marked by pain…and many times that consuming agony became my identity. But at the cross, Jesus took my pain onto Himself, and through the most profound demonstration of love, enabled me to be made whole in Him…which means my identity of brokenness has been replaced by an identity of beloved-ness. Resting in His unbounded love for me has embolden me to step into this new identity…even though I feel like I’m still trying it on for size and haven’t worked out all the kinks!
I used to think I had to have everything perfectly lined up in order to step into my next…but I’ve finally learned that thinking will have me waiting to move for my entire life! And so even though I don’t feel 100% well or ready, I am taking a leap. Someone much wiser than me said, “God equips those He calls.” In publishing this book I am stepping into a new chapter of my life….no pun intended! And it’s of utmost importance that I remember where my strength comes from, remain rooted in His truths, and grow with others who have those same intentions. On Monday I’ll fly from San Jose to SoCal, joining likeminded women from all over the U.S. at the kickoff Summit of Propel Cohorts, let by Christine Cain and Tara Beth Leach, then over the next five months we will learn from and with each other as we explore God’s calling and purpose for our lives.
I am in awe of God…who has brought me this far. My journey in no way, shape, or form has looked the way I thought it would. A life of chronic pain was the last thing I expected to get when I graduated from high school and having a stroke at 36 years old was the last thing I expected, period. Never mind having any reason to be grateful for it.
But in every challenge I’ve had a choice…draw near to God or pull away from Him, and without fail, when I have chosen to draw near, God has shown up and shown Himself in profound ways, that I am beyond excited to share with you!!
Whatever you are facing today, you are never too broken to be made whole!
“Not a sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your heads are numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” Matthew 10:30-31
There are no words to begin to express my gratitude for God’s grace and mercy, and for the way that he has heard and answered prayers lifted to heaven from all corners of the world over me and my medical team! Thank you my faithful friends for interceding to our mighty and loving God, whose hand was so clearly on every detail these past few weeks.
Two weeks ago I arrived at the hospital in Maryland alone for a cerebral and spinal angiogram, and found out that I already knew my nurse, Ara! A PICC line I had inserted before one of my surgeries wouldn’t stop bleeding, and when I returned to the hospital later that day Ara had bandaged it up as she told me that what I was experiencing was extremely rare. Words I’ve heard far too many times! When I arrived for my angiogram she remembered me and I instantly had a friend – I wasn’t alone. The doctor was so kind and thorough in his explanations, and had finally spoken with my surgeon about my case the night before. I only needed the arteries in my thoracic spine mapped out, not my entire spine, and my brain to check on an aneurism that had been found during my last cerebral angiogram. What was going to be a 4-5 hour procedure was now less than 2 hours!
The doctor still wanted to put me under general anesthesia, as they could stop my breathing as needed to take the images, however when the anesthesia team didn’t show up, the doctor told me I looked like someone who could stay still, and asked if I was willing to stay awake. I knew from experience how unpleasant this procedure was going to be, but I just had the hardware removed from my neck 6 weeks prior, and was having another major surgery in 3 days. Having anesthesia twice in the same week was of great concern, and avoiding it was going to help my overall recovery significantly. I told the doctor I was really good at following orders and he could count on me not to move.
Once in the OR I was strapped to a table and then Ara asked what music I wanted to listen to and I said, “Hillsong” and as the music started to play, one of the other nurses started singing along. A catheter was placed into the right femoral artery in my groin, and once it had carefully snaked its way to my brain the doctor repeated “don’t breathe, don’t move, don’t swallow” as he injected what felt like hot electric lava and then took an x-ray of it. With my eyes closed, I could somehow see what looked like lighting striking a dark night’s sky. Part way through the procedure I had a reaction to the medicine I’d been given through my IV; my whole body was chattering uncontrollably and my heart rate spiked so high I thought I was going to pass out, but I had to lay completely still. I started repeating over and over again, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose mind stays fixed on you” through the whole rest of the procedure, as the catheter moved down to my spine and injected the hot dye into each thoracic artery. My heart rate lowered, after 3 hours laying flat the collagen plug they put in my artery held, and I was able to go back to my air bnb to recover and rest for surgery in a few days. And get this – when I left the hospital that afternoon, it was in the midst of yet another blizzard in DC!
2 years ago before my first cervical fusion, God gave me the passage of scripture about when the Israelites were fleeing Egypt’s armies and came right up against the Red Sea – and by all looks of it – were stuck. But God, in his loving provision “made a way through the sea, a pathway no one knew was there!!” The herniated disc I was having removed in my neck was stretching my spinal cord, and there was a chance that with it repaired, I’d have relief from enough symptoms that I wouldn’t need the major fusion of my skull to cervical spine. While that surgery did help, it wasn’t the Hail Mary we’d hoped for. But I never forgot the promise that verse held…that even when our back is pressed up against a wall, and our situation looks impossible, God can see a way out that no one knows is there! I went into the week of the angiogram and surgery expecting our God of the impossible to make a way, and being able to stay awake during the procedure – although I would not recommended it – was the first of many fulfillments of this!
My sweet nephew Tadju and his wife Katie flew to DC the night before surgery; their flight was delayed and they didn’t get to my air bnb until close to midnight. But Tadju cheerily drove me to the hospital at 5 am the next morning. Thankfully the anesthesia team did show up this time, and I found out that my assisting surgeon was Dr. Rosenbaum, my surgeons partner at his neurosurgical group. Dr. Rosenbaum told me that between them they bring 70 years of experience! He asked what surgery I was having done and I said a right T6/7 costotransversectomy approach for a discectomy, intradural repair of disc and duroplasty. His eyes got wide and he said he’s never had someone recite a procedure so perfectly – I’ve always been the overachiever, ha!
In addition to my list of allergies and other measures I know by now need to be taken, I had to tell every new team that came in to talk to me that I was only 6 weeks out from hardware removal and had a tender and prominent MINX plug in my right femoral artery. Before being wheeled away to the OR, my surgeon Dr. Henderson prayed that God would hold me in the palm of his hand, restore my health, and fill all of us in that operating room with his Holy Spirit.
As I made my way back to consciousness, I realized the breathing tube was still in and my eyes were taped shut. I heard a voice tell me to take a deep breath as the long tube was removed. I began to cough and felt the searing pain in my ribcage. I heard Dr. Rosenbaum’s voice tell me that there was no cerebrospinal fluid leak after all, that the catheter was coming out and I’d be able to get up within a few hours. There was a flurry of activity around me; I was repeatedly asked to move my feet and squeeze my hands. Once in my recovery room, Dr. Henderson came in and as he began to talk, I have never seen the expression that came over his face. His eyes were wide; filled with a mix of fear, shock, disbelief and awe, and his brow furrowed. He said the disc was so deeply herniated into my spinal cord that it was only by God’s grace I wasn’t paralyzed. I will never forget that moment. After that I don’t think I stopped moving my feet and wiggling toes for several hours, as I laid there overwhelmed by God’s grace and hand of healing on my life, and praising my loving and merciful God.
I have to admit, in the same breath I had never felt so beat up before. As the grogginess wore off I started taking inventory of my body, and noticed over a dozen needle pricks and bruises on my arms and legs from the neuromonitoring, and a few from blown veins. My scalp hurt from where it had been clamped in place and my lips were swollen from the breathing tube. My jaw, neck and head were extremely sore, as were my legs and groin, and my ribcage hurt when I coughed and when I breathed. Within a few hours I managed to get up and walk around, and noticed dark red bruises on my eyelids. But I’ve never been so grateful for the ability to walk, and spent the afternoon periodically doing laps around the PACU! That evening, as I was being wheeled to an MRI, my sweet nurse Ara came to visit me, again showing me that I wasn’t alone.
Early the next morning Dr. Henderson came to check in on me and review my imagining. As he started explaining my surgery, that same look washed over his face. In his nearly 40 years as a surgeon, mine was the worst herniation he had ever seen, and one of the most challenging surgeries. He removed 9 cm of my right rib at T7 and the portion of my spine it attaches to, making a hole in order to access my spinal canal. Intra-operatively he gave me steroids to help protect my spinal cord as the disc was deeply wound around it. The herniation alone was so severe it could have paralyzed me, and then removing it I was also at great risk. To further complicate things, the major thoracic artery that was located during the spinal angiogram came into my spine at that very same level on the left side. If that artery had been clipped, I would have been paralyzed from my neck to my waist. He showed me on my MRI where there was still a small amount of disc material remaining – it didn’t pose a threat being left there, but was too close to the artery to safely be removed. I told Dr. Henderson what I had been learning about the ways that God calls us into chaos so that he can show even more of himself there, and as a big smile spread across his face, he said again that it was only by God’s grace that I came through so perfectly. His prayer that he and the entire surgical team would be filled with God’s spirit had been met in abundance – God was guiding his hand, giving him wisdom and restraint.
At my post-op appointment I asked Dr. Henderson to walk me through surgery again, and he said that my disc was the material of a tooth instead of the jelly-like substance it’s supposed to be, because it had been herniated for so long. Had it been left, it would have pierced my dura like we thought it already had. The neuromonitoring during surgery showed I had no spinal cord signal in my whole right leg, and other neurological deficits showed spinal cord damage. The force of the herniation was tethering my spinal cord – it was completely stuck and unable to move around in my spinal canal. This has been exacerbating the pain in my neck and lower body, and will take about a year to heal. But it will heal, and in light of that, I am going to wait until then to decided on whether or not to proceed with the last surgery I’m slated for, to remove the adhesions on my lower spinal cord.
My God who has made a way before, can most certainly part that sea again!
For the first week after surgery, every time I stood up I had immediate orthostatic symptoms. But rather than being frustrated at my body, for the first time I have listened to my symptoms as the only way my body has of speaking to me. Or more accurately – what it’s asking of me. Surgery is a huge trauma to the body on so many levels, and by listening to what my body needs, it signals that the danger is over and I am safe to heal. It has been a really painful recovery – when I stand up, it feels like my insides are trying to make their way out of that gaping hole now in my back. And my ribcage – well, it feels like I had a rib ripped out, because I did. The pain medication was making me extremely nauseated, so I haven’t been taking anything for pain. I could take another medication for nausea, and then another to combat the symptoms of that medication…but instead I have been listening to my body’s request, and laying down a lot and letting my body rest. This is something I am really not good at!! I am so used to pushing through pain, at whatever cost. And a few days that old habit has won as I’ve forced myself out for a walk, only to barely make it back home to lay down. It’s going to be a long recovery, and I have restrictions on lifting, bending and twisting for the next 6 weeks, but I am seeing small improvement each week. Tomorrow I fly back home and Spritz and I are very excited to be back in the sunshine!
A few days ago I woke up singing this song…
“Now I’m alive to tell the story of how I’ve overcome, by your goodness and mercy, and the power of the blood. I’m so glad that my freedom, wasn’t based on what I’ve done. But your goodness and mercy, and the power of the blood”
In the midst of so much pain, I have been constantly overwhelmed by how blessed I am – even on my very hardest days, I have so much! I have the resources to have this surgery and to stay in a cozy air Bnb in DC with Spritz by my side. I have a surgeon who knows that it’s God’s grace that works through him and sustains me, and my kingdom family from all over the world praying for me! God keeps showing his love for me through the people he’s placed in my life to pray for me, encourage me and check in on me. It’s because of God’s love for me – a love so deep that he willingly went to the cross for me – that I could face these most challenging weeks with the assurance that he was right there beside me. In fact, because of God’s perfect love that casts out fear – I didn’t tiptoe into an impossible week, I went in boldly, in eager expectation for the ways that God was going to make a way – a way that no one knew was there. I am walking proof that God did just that!
It’s pretty easy to trust God when we can see the path ahead, and to have peace about a situation when everything’s going smoothly. But what about when it’s not? I used to think that God’s peace over a situation meant that the path would seamlessly unfold before me – no bumps, no hurdles, no roadblocks. Or in my recent experience – no blizzards.
On New Year’s Eve I had surgery to remove the hardware in my skull and neck put there during my occipitocervical fusion 15 months prior, and to remove the C2 and C3 nerves. Shored up on the prayers of so many people, including my surgeon who prayed that he and everyone in the operating room would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that God would heal me, I came through that surgery perfectly. My post-op appointment was a week later, and I woke up that morning to an unprecedented blizzard in DC. It was January 6th, and all available snow plows were ensuring that the members of Congress could safely get to the Capitol. The rest of the city was left floundering, including my Tesla Uber whose system didn’t know how to handle the snow, and we drove on unplowed roads for half an hour on the highway, barely able to navigate through the heavy snow, with the windows down! This would had been rough for me on a good day – but I’d woken up with my nervous system going haywire and was having trouble regulating my heart rate and breathing; and had searing pain behind the bandage covering the 8 inch incision on my skull.
I had met with my neurosurgeon in DC the day before the election in November, and we had determined I was going to need three more spine surgeries over the next nine months – the first on my neck on NYE, then moving down to my thoracic spine in April, end ending with my lumbar spine. The imaging of my thoracic disc was over a year old, so the day before surgery I got a new MRI that I brought to my snowy post-op appointment. With one look at my imaging, my surgeon said the disc had gotten much worse and had herniated through the protective dura surrounding my spinal cord, causing a cerebrospinal fluid leak, and was tethering my spinal cord to the back side of my spine. Surgery could not wait three months after all. I asked what precautions I needed to take and what symptoms I should watch out for, and he answered not to bend my spine, and to watch out for sudden paralysis – no big deal. He walked me through the different approaches he could take to access my disc and decided on a costotransversectomy approach – i.e. he will go at an angle through my ribs, hopefully not needing to separate them, removing the piece of bone where my spine meets my ribs to access the anterior side of my disc, and will them remove the herniated portion, de-tether my spinal cord, repair the hole in the dura, and do so without paralyzing me. He also informed me that I needed a spinal angiogram before surgery to map out the arteries in my thoracic spine so that he doesn’t inadvertently puncture one. He dictated in my visit notes that my condition was life-threatening, as I came close to passing out in his office.
The following hours and days were a flurry of frantic calls and emails lining up surgery, travel and caregivers; all while I was struggling to recover from my surgery just a week prior. That week my pastor preached on the promises of God, and that because he always keeps his promises, we can claim them as done, even before we see any of them come to be! I started thanking God for all the ways that he is going to use these events in my life for my good and his glory. Having a mindset of gratitude and praise actually changes our neural pathways – it’s impossible to experience anxiety and gratitude at the same time!
As I have done so many times, I prayed that God would fill me with his peace leading up to yet another (my eleventh) surgery, as a sign that this is indeed his will, and that path started stretching out smoothly in front of me. Around that time I read a devotional about how God so often calls us into chaos so that he can meet us there to show us even more of himself. I started thinking about all the times I prayed for peace over a situation, and did have peace – yet it was in the midst of chaos. On Christmas Eve I woke up to hives covering my body because the hardware in my skull was heightening allergic reactions, and I had to go on prednisone. It cleared up the hives but also lowered my immune system – not ideal one week away from surgery. Yet I could see God in that boat on that choppy sea, saying “I’m right here with you, I just want you to rely on me and not on that smooth sea.”
A few days after reading about God calling us into chaos, I had a consult with the doctor who will be performing my spinal angiogram, and learned that it is a major procedure. It’s done under general anesthesia, and can take up to five hours as the catheter makes its way through the left and right side of all 32 segments of my spine. While they’re in there, the doctor will also monitor the small aneurysm in my brain that was found a few years ago during a cerebral arteriogram. And because of my weakened connective tissue, I have a higher risk of arterial puncture. The angiogram will be done just three days before surgery on my thoracic spine.
I got off the phone with the doctor and once again felt like I was in the middle of a blizzard, windows down, snow pelting my face. But here’s the thing – for lack of a more fitting metaphor – God is in the drivers seat of that Tesla, navigating those snowy, unplowed roads. I gave Jesus my steering wheel a long time ago – although I too often try to take it back! Have I had moments of fear and panic? Of course that has crept in! But it hasn’t taken root, because I keep choosing to thank God for the ways he’s going to come through on his promises to use this ALL for my good. I’m choosing to praise him as the Promise Keeper, because I know that chaos is just his way of deepening my dependence on him, and him alone.
“Some trust in horses, and some trust in chariots, but I trust in the name of the Lord my God.” Psalm 20:7
God alone is my healer. He holds me in the palm of his hand, and every one of my days was written in his love story about me, before one of them ever came to be.
Every one of God’s character traits reveals a promise. God is love, therefore I get to experience his love- through all the people he has provided to help me through this journey, and I can anchor myself with the promise that everything that happens in my life is out of his perfect love for me. It’s pretty fitting that this next surgery is on Valentine’s Day!
So many of you have been so faithful in praying for me during a dizzying amount of surgeries and procedures these past several years, and God has been beyond faithful! Please pray once again. On Tuesday February 11, with DC slated for another snow storm, I have my spinal angiogram. Please pray that the doctor would be able to find the thoracic artery quickly, that my aneurism hasn’t grown, and that there would be no complications of arterial tears or from any other aspect of this procedure. Then surgery is on Friday February 14. Please pray for wisdom for my surgeon as he navigates a very difficult terrain accessing the front side of my spinal cord in the center of my chest. That he will be able to repair my spinal cord and dura with no paralysis or any other complications. Please pray that God would use this surgery to heal me – once and for all. Please pray for my recovery – as my skull and neck are still far from healed, my body is still struggling to bounce back from surgery just six weeks ago, and will be compounded by two more. The weather next week in DC is forecasted to be pretty stormy – quite the fitting prediction. But this I know…
“God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28
“So this is Christmas, and what have you done, another year over, and a new one just begun…” (John Lennon)
And just like that, Christmas is here again… this year went by frighteningly fast! The festive trees, twinkling lights, carols and good cheer make this season pretty magical, but with the familiar sights and sounds I can’t help but compare this year to last, and others years past. Last December I was three months out from major surgery fusing my skull base and neck, and experiencing a truly miraculous recovery. Then as quickly as my progress was moving along, it seemed to come to a jolting halt. I’ve had worsening pain over the 12 screws, rods, and hunk of metal in my skull. At times it swells to the size of an egg and feels like the screws are trying to make their way right out of my head! I’ve also had increasing pain down my entire spine and legs, along with many other symptoms. After several more trips to DC for MRIs and appointments with my neurosurgeon, last month I left his office with his recommendation of three more spine surgeries over the next nine months. The first is scheduled for New Year’s Eve…I guess I’ll be ending the year with quite a bang. This will be my 10th surgery; removing the hardware from my skull and neck. Three months after that – my 40th birthday present – will be surgery to repair a herniated disc in my thoracic spine that has adhered to my spinal cord and possibly herniated through it. This is causing lots of fun symptoms including affecting my heart rate as the affected nerves feed into my heart. The third surgery would be to clean up scar tissue that has formed in my lumbar spine where I had the base of my spinal cord removed 3 years ago. The good news though, is that after consulting with my uber knowledgeable PT and the neurosurgeon who performed that surgery, there’s a chance that releasing the tethering in my thoracic spine will provide enough relief that I don’t need the third surgery. I will wait and see.
As I’ve navigated three major spine surgeries over the past three years, God has poured out his strength into my life, enabling me to be stronger than I ever thought I could be, and demonstrated in very real ways all of the good he was bringing amidst my pain. Just one of so many examples – the year I spent convalescing at my parents’ house was the last year of my dad’s life. But having to continuously fight for my health, to keep showing up as resolute and courageous, didn’t leave any room to process the toll this has taken on me. The news of needing three more surgeries left me feeling broken and beyond repair. A lemon that keeps going back into the shop for more work until eventually the mechanic suggests it’s time to trade it in for a properly functioning model. Will these surgeries and this pain ever end? Or will it continue to be a perpetuating cycle until the day my engine calls it quits for good?
I spent several weeks wrestling with the spiraling thought of, what’s the point? But in the midst of my angst, I was reminded of several truths. I am broken, because this world is broken. Nothing is as God intended when he created Adam and Eve in that perfect garden. But God sees my broken body, and hates my pain as much as I do, and he feels my agony just as acutely, because he experienced it tenfold. God didn’t desert our world when it was fractured by sin, but instead he sent his perfect, blameless son to be born in a lowly stable. God reached down into this brokenness to make beauty emerge from the ashes. Jesus walked this earth and experienced every physical, spiritual and emotional battle I will ever face, so that through my tears of affliction, I can look up to him and see my reflection in his tear-stained face. I can acknowledge the pain yet see the beauty in the midst of it. It’s ok to be weak; to grapple with so much brokenness. In fact God assures me that…
“My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Lately I have felt wrapped in the loving arms of my Creator – through the people he has brought into my life. Friends who have lovingly come along side me; to offer a listening ear, much needed hug and shoulder to cry on, and a few who are even traveling to DC with me to be there during my surgery and recovery. These times of crying out to God have proven to be healing in so many ways as I’ve come to see the way that sorrow and pain can coexist with healing, purpose, joy and peace.
Your peace has been my guiding light, my star of Bethlehem…
I’ve written about peace more than anything else, as it has been a truly life-changing and life-saving word. I’ve sought God’s wisdom and guidance through every step of this journey, and through prayer and moments of stillness in his presence, God’s peace has been my guiding light, my star of Bethlehem. I used to think of peace as a lack of anxiety and a sense of calmness, rest and ease. But a few years ago I learned through an advent devotional that the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, means completeness or wholeness. What a revelation this was to me on so many levels! Thinking of my health struggles…of wrestling with a body that so often feels broken into pieces, but the way God steps in over and over again by giving me peace…wholeness! No matter how broken I feel physically, or in spirit, Christ came to earth to be my Prince of Peace…offering me wholeness through a relationship with Him. And through this brokenness, I can cling to this promise I know to be true…
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:2, 4-5 NIV
It’s in these seasons of adversity that I have a choice to make…bury my pain, refuse to admit how hard it’s been and pretend that I am strong enough on my own. Or I can sit with my brokenness; yet not allow my spirit to be crushed, because of Jesus who gives me the strength to go on and not give up. My Jesus, who sees me, empathizes with me, weeps with me, wraps me in his loving embrace, and invites me into a peace…a wholeness…a completeness that only he can give.
Christmas is bittersweet. I love the festive cheer, shopping for just the perfect gift, showering blessings on those who need it and celebrating with those I love. Yet each year is a reminder of hopes and dreams I haven’t attained, a body I’d love to trade in for an upgraded model, and of so many loved ones I long to see again. But this Christmas season I can choose JOY above anything else as I celebrate the true meaning of this most wonderful time of the year. No matter how broken my body or spirit may feel, I can stand in the presence of my Prince of Peace with WHOLENESS, knowing that his plans for me are abundance, he is healing and restoring me in his perfect timing and perfect way, he is working everything for my good, he gives me joy independent from any circumstance, and that one day, when I see Jesus face to face, every part of me will be made whole for all eternity!
When I was a kid, the things I looked forward to most each year (besides Christmas, obviously) were a. Decorating my birthday cupcakes to bring into my class at school b. Decorating my Dad’s birthday cake…always chocolate! And c. Helping my mom make a vat of strawberry shortcake for our Father’s Day cookouts, amongst many other seasonal desserts. June is strawberry season in Massachusetts and they are so juicy, deeply red and sweet, my fingers would be stained for the rest of the day.
In-between these celebrations I made cakes and brownies in my Easy Bake Oven and decorated them lavishly with whatever I could find in my mom’s pantry. I should have known then that my future would be in the culinary field!! My Dad loved our homemade treats, cards and notes more than any gift we ever bought him. In fact, he would open a gift and then stick the little gift tag back onto whatever the gift was and leave it there forever (unless it had to go through the wash!) So all his bottles of aftershave and shaving cream were adorned with our little notes to him.
All my best memories with my Dad as a kid were the things we did outdoors together. Trout fishing, where he taught me to filet the little fish and hang them up by their gills on a stick, cook them in a pan and then pop the cheeks out to eat…the most tender little morsels! Camping and canoe trips where I learned to cook over a fire, find the level ground to pitch a tent…or how to make it level. And most importantly, how to pee in the woods! Gathering kindling wood for summer cookouts at the lake where he’d cook kielbasa and dozens of burgers & hot dogs off his Weber charcoal grill – never dreaming of using lighter fluid to start the fire. And countless Saturday mornings spent in his pickup truck driving around his asphalt plant or rock quarry, climbing up rock piles and heavy equipment and then once I was a bit older…but not of driving age…operating the asphalt roller on a few paving jobs! And then, kicking and screaming, being put through my Dad’s own Driver’s Ed obstacle courses in a pickup truck before I was allowed to get my license.
One of the many amazing things about life is that we never know how all of our seemingly unconnected experiences will prove to be extremely useful later on. The bulk of my culinary career has been in catering, and I will never forget the day when I realized that I would need to operate huge trucks of all shapes and sizes…box trucks, refrigerator trucks, ones with hydronic tailgates and Sprinter vans (that are so top-heavy, they are like a sail going over the windy Tampa bridges!) All while also navigating the narrow cobblestone streets, alleys and driveways of Boston and Cambridge, and the busy highways and miles long bridges of Tampa Bay. I remember calling my Dad the first time I ever drove one of those trucks on a catering job in Boston (once it was safely parked back at our kitchen) and we had a good laugh!! For almost every wedding I catered in greater Boston we would make a field kitchen…setting up pop-up tents in a literal field, cooking over charcoal fires on cast iron skillets and hauling 5 gallon buckets of water for a makeshift sink. And then creating really exceptional plates of seasonal food for hundreds of expectant guests. No trout cheeks here…but I’d always think back to my childhood experiences in the woods and felt most exhilarated cooking in these places.
When I told my dad that I had decided I was going to pursue a career as chef, he was not thrilled. He asked why I would want to flip burgers for a living when I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in economics & finance?! I indignantly told him I would not be flipping burgers! And then funny thing…my first job out of culinary school was at a catering company in Tampa, and my first event was a banquet for about 500 guests where we had set up different food stations in the ballroom. When our chef assigned me the slider station, and I spent the night flipping little burgers on a flat top and frying sweet potato fries, all I could do was laugh! (And maybe cringe…I did not go home and call my dad after that job was finished!)
My life experiences also shaped who I became as a chef. A semester abroad in Italy while in business school opened my eyes to a whole new world of flavors and passion about food. I returned to Massachusetts and taught myself to cook using the bounty from some of the same local farms I grew up eating the seasonal produce from. And then through my health struggles and those of my Dad, I learned about the power of the food we eat, that it’s so much more than calories…it’s information to every cell and truly is our most powerful medicine. My dad did come around to my life as a chef, and when I was a cooking instructor at Sur la Table he attended one of my knife skills classes! After that on the regular he would send me photos of salads he had made, showing off his stellar knife skills! And after every big job I would cook for clients, I’d send him photos of my creations and he would blow them up on his iPad, zooming in so he could see all the details.
Some things never change, no matter how old you get. We celebrated my dad’s 80th birthday exactly 3 weeks before he passed away. My mom had the idea to decorate his cake to look like his asphalt plant and rock yard. I ordered the supplies on Amazon while sitting in his hospital room, not knowing if he would be discharged in time for his party that we had been planning long before we even knew he was sick. He did make it home the day before. I covered the chocolate cake with turbinado sugar to look like sand, and added toy trucks and pylon cone candles. We even had the Westover AFB planes flying overhead! Decorating that cake for my dad…albeit so bittersweet…is now one of my favorite memories.
My dad in large part shaped me into the person I am today. I got my stubbornness, grit, tenacity and can-do attitude from him. Our relationship was also quite messy, like so many are, and there are wounds that I am still working on healing and letting go. But I got to witness my Dad come to a place of surrender before his God, to watch as God softened his rough edges and wrap my Dads imperfections in His nail-pierced arms…just like God’s done for me. I am so grateful that I had a father who showed me endless, unconditional love, who gave me a glimpse of just how much my Heavenly Father loves me, and who showed me how to love God and how to love others.
I had the privilege of writing my Dad’s obituary, and on this Father’s Day I’m sharing it here as a way of honoring my Dad’s life and legacy. I know this day is bittersweet for a lot of you, and whatever your situation is, know how much you are loved by your Heavenly Father today!
Tadj Ondrick, 5/9/42 – 5/28/22
Theodore “Tadj” Ondrick of Chicopee passed away in his home on Saturday, May 28, 3 weeks after celebrating his 80th birthday surrounded by his loving family of 19. Tadj was born on May 9, 1942 and spent his early childhood living on his grandmothers “poor” farm in Chicopee with his dad, mom, sister and several farm hands who worked to pay their rent. When he started kindergarten he only spoke Polish and Czechoslovakian and was sent home until he learned English, which he quickly did! After World War II his father started a construction company and as a young teen Tadj spent weekends and summers working in his dads business. His family built a home of their own on East Street with recycled lumber and bricks which he and his sister cleaned by hand after school before playing with friends. His upbringing formed his unparalleled work ethic which continued for his entire life. Tadj attended Chicopee High School, graduated from Monson Academy and then Wentworth Institute of Technology in 1960 with a degree in Civil Engineering. He founded Chicopee Soil Boring and Testing Labs, which he later sold to Allied Engineering and Testing, and during that time he met his wife, Pamela, at the Holyoke Saint Patrick’s Parade ball; her father being parade marshal that year. Tadj had his pilots license and their first date was a very turbulent flight to Marthas Vineyard in his Cessna. She was his co-pilot on that first date…and throughout their 50 years together. Pam was also active in the business in differing capacities.
Tadj was a visionary. He bought his father’s business, Ted Ondrick Company, which at the time provided construction services to the local community. Tadj expanded the business to offering construction materials from sand and gravel pits and his granite quarry, and an asphalt plant that aided in the growth of local businesses, towns, and cities. He was a pioneer in the recycling industry, developing first-of-their-kind processes to recycle, rather than landfill contaminated soils, concrete and asphalt. He designed, built and implemented portable rock crushing systems which are still being used by other like companies to this day. He grew to provide services throughout the Northeastern U.S. and Canada. He was a member of the first Board of Directors of the Construction Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA) and was instrumental in building that organization as the go-to place for information about the recycling of materials generated during construction and demolition. In 2014 he was chosen for induction into the CDRA Hall of Fame. Tadj sold the business in 2014 to his older sons, Todd and Adam, who continue to operate Ondrick Materials and Recycling, and who have further expanded operations to Ondrick Natural Earth, supplying hard scape supplies to the community. His younger son, Alexei, is the national commercial sales director for a company in the asphalt field, and his daughters, Amanda and Ashley are both business owners in the hospitality industry.
Through the years Tadj loved to fly and attained his commercial and instrument ratings. He passed on his passion for aviation to his oldest son and grandson. He was a man of adventure and had many close encounters including waking up in a tent with a moose footprint right next to his head, and going through class four rapids in a canoe, abandoning ship right before going over a waterfall. In his younger years he was a member of the Strokers hot rod club, earning national titles in drag racing. He was a fierce competitor in lacrosse and hockey. He enjoyed trout stream fishing, deep woods canoe trips, mushroom hunting, snow and water skiing and traveling…all of which he especially loved doing with his family. Later in life he took up photography and computerized photo editing…which he always said was proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks!
Tadj was always looking to meet the needs of his community and donated resources to designing and building projects throughout Chicopee, at local churches, camps and at Pioneer Valley Christian Academy, where his 5 children and then several grandchildren attended. He scholarshiped countless students, donated to bolstering the schools learning disability programs, and contributed to all of the athletic facilities, known as the “Ondrick Athletic Fields.” He was an active member of First Central Bible Church where he served on the finance board, and where through discipleship and loving friends he came to know the true meaning of living a Christ-centered life.
Tadj delighted his family, whom he dearly loved, with his sense of humor. Even in his last months while hospitalized and then at home on hospice he kept them laughing, and also in amazement at his strength and ability to rally for precious moments. He left a legacy of faith, of generosity, of determination, of grit, of hard work, of laughter, and of love for his family and his friends. Tadj always said, “I do not fear death because the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior.”
So many of you have been following my health journey for sometime now…you’ve covered me with encouragement, support and prayer and celebrated my wins and victories with me. And I want to thank you so much!! It’s an honor to get to share my story and to hopefully be an encouragement as well…because we are all in this together! We all have struggles, heartache and pain, and while we don’t always get to see the “why” in our hard places, I’ve found that finding purpose in the midst of it is how we can keep putting one foot in front of the other with a smile on our face and true joy in our soul.
I recently started following an artist on Instagram and the first line in her bio says “All my victories belong to God” which I am totally stealing! The purpose I’ve found in the midst of even the deepest pain is that I can shine just by showing the strength that God pours into my life. And all it takes is the smallest bit of light to make darkness disappear. If sharing my story – the highs and the lows – can be that little bit of light for someone else…it makes it all worth it.
My victories are his victories!
And every time I get to create beautiful spreads of food it is a reflection of Gods faithfulness in my life…because I am standing on two feet…let alone cooking professionally…only because of his grace over my life, his strength that gets me through even the very hardest days and the healing he’s done and is doing in this body of mine that so often feels so broken, yet in him is whole. So how could I not give him the victory!!
Today marks 7 months since I had my skull base fused to C2, and I have a story that I hope will encourage you…especially those of you who fight for each step forward, often just to take two steps back. This surgery was by far the biggest, riskiest and potentially most life-altering of all the 9 surgeries I’ve had. But I’ve written about how when I finally had to make the terrifying decision to have that surgery, God replaced my fear with unexplainable peace. And my record healing afterwards, how quickly I was back on my feet cooking and that I was even still able to move my neck enough to cook without difficulty…was all truly miraculous! A few months after surgery I started to have times that I felt better and more like my old self than I had in many, many years, and I started opening myself back up to possibility again…and I let myself start to dream again. Which may not seem like a big deal…but for me it was huge.
7 years ago I got Lyme disease which caused a rapid breakdown of my already weak connective tissue and brought on severe and debilitating pain and neurological issues. The sicker I got, the more of my life, activities, dreams, goals and aspirations I had to let go of – piece by piece – until for a long time my existence was just putting one foot in front of the other each day. At first those days were extremely difficult and dark. But bit by bit, I started to see all the good things that God was bringing about, how much beauty was woven through the pain and how much I still had to be grateful for, even on the very worst of days. Focusing on the good and all I had to be grateful for each day changed everything, as did celebrating even the smallest wins.
Part of the peace I had over this surgery was because I believe with every part of me that God wants us to have abundant lives, but that we can’t get there by sitting on the sidelines. We have to take steps…or sometimes leaps of faith, and I believed this surgery was a jump off the deep end that God was going to use to help give me my health and life back.
A few months ago the progress I’d been making came to a halt and the pain over the hunk of metal and 12 screws in my neck started progressively getting worse, as did a bunch of other symptoms, and it really knocked the wind out of me. Every day I’d reach a point where I wanted to give up. It was a physical battle for sure, but a spiritual one even more. I was losing hope and I was wrestling with why this was happening. I also didn’t understand why it suddenly seamed like I had lost my ability to cope with pain, especially when after 20 years of constant pain this wasn’t nearly as bad as it’s been. It finally occurred to me why it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. The relatively good days that had led me to start dreaming again of all the possibilities ahead of me, set me up for crushing disappointment when the pain returned. When I realized this my first thought was what a huge mistake it had been to dream again. I’ve found so much joy and contentment in the small things…why’d I have to go chasing rainbows!! I thought the answer was just going back to practicing gratitude for what each day holds and contentment for where I am. And those are both important things to do! But not all the things.
Recently one morning over a cup of coffee I read this verse from Lamentations…and quite fitting as my own laments were swirling in my mind…
“Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!’”
Lamentations 3:21-24
Any time a verse starts with yet, but, however or the like, you know it’s going to be good! There is so much packed into those few lines and it spoke to my soul so deeply. Daring to hope is essentially what it is to dream of possibilities. And this is a good thing! But I realized that I was basing those dreams for my future on my own strength and ability instead of the strength God fills me with each new day. One of the biggest truths I’ve found through these years of battling with my health is that in his mercy God ALWAYS gives me the strength I need for the day, replacing my weakness with his strength, my grit with his grace. But I have to come to him, surrendering what I think is the best plan, and give him the reigns instead. I’ve seen WAY too much of Gods love, goodness and faithfulness not to trust that he knows what’s best for me. And what a beautiful exchange it is…my pain, my grief, my longings, my discouragement, my fear…for Gods outstretched hands offering strength, peace, joy, hope, abundance!
I spent the past week in California working with a really amazing doctor who is incredibly knowledgeable about the conditions I’m dealing with and so compassionate in her approach to care. It’s a marathon not a sprint, but I have a really promising treatment plan to start on and renewed hope that layer by layer we will get there! I got to walk on the beach every morning and evening and the intense wind made for some huge waves and great surf. As a teenager I thought my true calling was to live the surfer life on a beach in California, and I jumped at every chance I had to go surfing! But like many things, I thought my surfing days were long gone. Those beach walks were awesome in the truest sense of that word. There is something truly awe-inspiring about standing in the sand right in front of huge breaking waves…the thunderous crash, the sea spray hitting your skin and the pull of the ocean as it recedes. Being in awe has the profound ability to pull us out of being inwardly focused and into something bigger than ourself. And standing there facing those waves made me so in awe of God…a God who even the wind and waves obey!
As I took those walks, I slowly found myself picturing being out in those waves, bracing the cold water, ducking through the break, paddling out to the calm and then riding them back in. And I realized that I was letting myself dream again. And I was ok with that! Because this time my dreams weren’t dependent on my own ability to live them out. The highs and lows in my life don’t at all change who God is or his ability to make anything happen! Trust and surrender changes everything.
On my way out to California, what should have taken 7 hours ended up taking 37 hours, with a cancelled flight, rebooked flight, delayed flight and unexpected overnight. But instead of it being a disaster, I befriended two of the nicest people in the American Airlines assistance line while waiting to get a hotel voucher, we stuck together through a late night taxi ride to a hotel in the next state and then back to the airport the next day only for more delays…and we laughed the whole time! One of them owns a surf shop in Dana Point and offered to give me a paddle board to take out if I came to her shop. Friday I had a free day before heading back home and decided to take her up on her offer. I had my usual pain, yes, but I also had a spring in my step and renewed hope in my heart. Before setting out, I said one of my favorite verses from Ephesians as a prayer…
“Now unto him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask, think or imagine, to him be glory in the earth, and glory in my life.”
Ephesians 3:20
And then I set out.
When I met Carrie at the shop she said that I could take a paddle board but someone would need to drive me down to the beach in their van, or a soft top surfboard would fit onto my rental car. And as I didn’t want to be an inconvenience…I said I’d take the surfboard…and then was immediately both exhilarated and terrified! Just getting the surfboard strapped onto my car was a whole process and I didn’t know if I’d be able to get it off and back on all by myself down at the beach. But there was no turning back! I kept thinking of this quote by J.P. Morgan that I have written on my office wall…
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”
J.P. Morgan
The wetsuit fit like a glove, I managed to get the surfboard down off the car and then I went and did just what I had stood on the beach all those days dreaming of. Plunging into the cold, through the breaking waves, padding out to the calm, and then riding back in. And there is nothing like that feeling of catching a wave and riding it! I was very cautious and careful, and as it had been 16 years since I’d been on a surfboard I had zero expectations. My only goal was to listen to my body, not push too hard and not do anything to hurt myself! I mainly stayed on my belly and road the waves cobra style. One time I got into a low squat…so not breaking any records here…but I got my sea legs back! I’ll be thinking of this day for a long time and it planted another seed of hope for more fulfilled dreams to come. And more than anything, it again left me in awe – in awe of how far God has brought me and in awe of just how faithful he is.
I wrote this when I got back on my yoga mat a few weeks after my last cervical fusion… “Every day we have a choice – we can let yesterdays struggles, limitations and pain define us and determine the actions we take, or we can choose to start anew, noticing the way our body is speaking to us and what it’s asking for, listening to the thoughts swirling in our mind and what needs to be set free or reigned in. We can choose to focus on the good, focus not on our limitations but on what we CAN do. Limitations will always be there – on my mat and in my day to day life. But I’m choosing to embrace each day for what it holds, knowing God will give me the strength I need for THAT day.”
When I opened up my Instagram the next morning there was a photo of ocean waves and this quote by Maria Shriver…
“We must continue to jump into the water, make waves, and create ripples of hope and change. Nothing gets accomplished by standing on the shore and watching from a distance.”
Maria Shriver
I mean c’mon!! Yes…absolutely…we need to practice gratitude for ALL there is to be grateful for each day. To find beauty and contentment in the smallest of things and to be joyful in living out our purpose. And YET we need to dare to hope. No matter what you are facing today there is a reason to hope! Absolutely nothing is impossible with God and he is holding out his hands, ready to ride life’s waves with you and fill you with the strength you need for this day!
“Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord
I’ve got so much to be grateful for
I’ve got breath in this body
And hope in these scars
If I counted my blessings they’d rival the stars
I’ll praise you forevermore even if I never get one more
I was reading the passage about Peter’s denial with the backdrop of the triumphant entry on Palm Sunday, followed soon after by the crucifixion. I was struck by the highs and lows in this story. When we step into something we believe is Gods will and calling and everything goes right…it’s easy to praise and claim victory. But what about when things go downhill, don’t go as planned, or there keeps on being one hurdle after the next? My first thought is always…
“But God, I thought I was walking in your plan for me? Why is this happening?”
Imagine what was going through the minds of the disciples during this span of time we now call Holy Week. They left everything to follow Jesus because they believed without a doubt (except for Thomas) that he was the promised Messiah they had been waiting for…along with generations of ancestors before them. And they had to keep this life-altering news a secret for much of their ministry with their Rabbi. But now there was no holding back! Jesus was finally getting the praise he deserved, finally being exulted as King, the Son of God, the long awaited Messiah who would save his people from their oppression! I’m sure the disciples finally felt validation; that their sacrifices were about to pay off and it was only going to get better. Then, before all the palm branches had even been cleared from the streets, everything started to unravel. Exultation turned to dissent, shouts of praise turned to shouts for crucifixtion, starry-eyed belief turned to blurred rage and hatred, hopes and dreamed were trampled. We know the events that came next…assault after assault, betrayal after betrayal…but we also know the story doesn’t end there. Both the highs and the lows are part of Gods story, and an absolutely vital part in His plans for us…and His plan for redemption! What an excruciating sacrifice Jesus made so that we can look to the cross and know without a doubt there is absolutely nothing he cannot turn around and use for our good and his glory.
How grateful I am for that promise through my own highs and lows, and the past few weeks all the more. Last Friday I took an early morning flight to LA and spent an idyllic day in Venice. I had moments where my body felt ok and I made the most of every minute! I went into my favorite health food store and geeked out over all the new products, ate at an iconic farm to table restaurant and watched an amazing sunset over Santa Monica. I felt the most like myself I had felt in a long time. The next morning I went to the famous Santa Monica Farmers Market then headed down the coast to Laguna Beach. But my glimmer of feeling well was gone…I had pain in my whole spine and a crushing headache. On top of the physical pain, my heart hurt a whole lot. This is where my Dad had come for his cancer treatments, and even after almost 2 years my first thought was that I wanted to call him and chat💔
As much as I have tried to focus on all the symptoms that have improved since my last surgery and how far I have come, the truth is that the past few months I have had more and more days of crushing pain in my spine, headaches and a host of other symptoms…and I haven’t known why. Historically if I can’t figure out why something’s going on in my body I pretend it’s not there…which isn’t something I’d advise doing😆 It takes strength to keep on fighting day after day, and lately it has felt like my reserves are on empty. But one thing I have experienced more times that I can recount is that God sees us in our weakness and loves to show off his strength. The last 2 years of having 3 major spine surgeries, several outpatient procedures, caring for and then losing my dad and launching and then closing an integrative health clinic, I put treating my chronic health conditions onto the back burner. But it doesn’t mean that the symptoms also decided to take a hiatus. I went to California to start working with a true gem of a doctor who understands the complexities of what I am dealing with…chronic Lyme, MCAS, EDS, immune & autonomic dysfunction and how interconnected they all are. I told her that the surgeries I had were necessary, but enough of the surgeries already!! No more! I left feeling seen, validated, and with renewed hope and strength for the journey ahead.
I then flew to DC for 2 days of doctors appointments. My neurosurgeon said that a lot of my pain pattern fits the symptoms of TMJ dysfunction, even though the day before my TMJ doctor said he thought my pain was coming from my cervical spine🙈 My surgeon confirmed that the acute areas of pain in my neck that have been getting worse are focused over the 4 areas where the hardware is but I’m going to give that more time before even entertaining the idea of surgery to remove the hardware. My surgeon is also concerned that I’ve developed instability at the level above my lower fusion, as a lot of my radiating pain, dizziness and nausea has returned, so I’m getting a new dynamic c-spine MRI to see what’s going on there. And then another symptom that’s been persistent and really difficult is the pounding headache I get when I sit down. We went over some other symptoms, the fact that my low back pain has significantly worsened and the very low-lying conus of my spinal cord, and my surgeon has ordered another lumbar MRI to see if my spinal cord has re-tethered. That would mean another surgery to fix that. I left my appointment very grateful for my surgeons wisdom and compassion, for possible answers to my symptoms and that I’d had the strength to get through all we had to discuss. Then the reality of all we discussed set in. I knew when I started down this road of cervical fusions that it was likely I’d need even more in the future, but never thought it would be this soon…and this many!
My plan for the rest of my day in D.C. had been to go look at the cherry trees in full bloom, but my pain was too severe and I was so tired. I strolled around Georgetown instead, then took a scenic drive back to my air bnb while blasting all of the most encouraging praise songs on my playlist…one that has been refined by fire. I write because I need to remember. I save songs because they are a reminder. And driving through the DMV there were so many familiar sights that made me remember. Remember the times I left there in a wheelchair, the times I left there with miraculous healing. Left with crippling fear, left with unexplainable peace.
On the Sunday before I left for this trip my pastor preached on this very topic…how it is our responsibility to remember! That the miracles of the Lord are living realities and testimonies and how meditating on them restores their wonder and ability to shape our current thinking and action. And through our remembering, God always then renews us! Yes!! Two things he said really stuck in my mind because of how I’ve seen them in my own life…
“Once we see Gods hand in a situation it causes us to give thanks for things we never thought we’d give thanks for.”
“Gods ability to use broken things enables us to give thanks for broken things!”
Bill Johnson
The next morning I started the day as I always do…coffee and Jesus! My devotional was about when Jesus calms the stormy seas. The disciples freak out that they’re going to drown, while Jesus is peacefully asleep in the boat. They had just witnessed him feeding the 5,000 and yet they failed to remember his power and provision. This verse jumped out at me…“‘Who is this man?’ they asked each other. ‘When he gives a command, even the wind and waves obey him!’“ Luke 8:25
And I wrote this in my journal…
“I am so tired and weary but yet I have a sense of calm like that sea. This same Jesus who when he gives a command, even the wind and the waves obey him…cares about the details of my life. By that measure alone how could I not trust him with my future! And then when I remember all he has done, his faithfulness in EVERY season…how could I not trust him all the more!!”
I resolved right then and there that I would not be shaken. None of this news changes anything! God is right here by my side, like he’s been every step of the way and there is nothing he can’t use for good in my life. This is yet another opportunity to see even more of his love, his faithfulness, his provision, his strength and his hope.
Heading to the airport I had a little time to spare and stopped in Alexandria for a quick lunch in an unfamiliar area. Getting back in my car I was a little disappointed I hadn’t seen more cherry blossoms. I started humming this song ‘Worship You There’ and driving and all of a sudden, there in front of me was the Washington Monument and this beautiful little grove of cherry trees in full bloom! With tears in my eyes I parked my car and jumped out to look at them, and I could feel Gods presence so strongly in that moment, saying
“I see you my daughter, I see your pain and I see your resolve. I’m right here…take my guiding hand, you’re yoked with me. Keep choosing to remember, and I’ll keep reminding you I am right here!”🙌🤍🌸
“I’ve made up my mind
Even on my worst of days
No matter what I’m feeling
I’ll praise you anyway
My heart gets distracted
Pulled a million ways
But constant in my chaos
Is you will never change
So on the mountains where my joy is
Risin’ like the sun
In the valleys where there’s silence
And my dreams come undone
You’re still God you’ll lead me on
Through victories and despair
It doesn’t matter where you take me
I will worship you there
I will set my eyes
On everything you are
You’re forever faithful
Even when life falls apart
‘Cause You’re the God who writes my story
And looking back I find
You’re doing something perfect
In my best and worst of times
So on the mountains where my joy is
Risin’ like the sun
In the valleys where there’s silence
And my dreams come undone
You’re still God you’ll lead me on
Through victories and despair
It doesn’t matter where you take me
I will worship you there
You are good, good
When I’m whole and when I break
You are good, good
In the blessing and the pain
You are good, good
When You give and take away
You are good always
By the rivers where I’m resting
As healing waters flow
In the desert where I’m dying, ’cause I feel so alone
I had my 3 month post-op appointment with my surgeon this past week in DC, and as part of that, I got a CT scan done a few weeks ago to see the progress of the fusion. It can take up to 6 months for bone to fuse, and I have a bone stimulator that I was going to start using as soon as the tenderness over the surgical site lessened a bit more. My surgeon was thrilled with my progress and couldn’t believe how quickly I had gone back to work, working out and “normal” life, let alone the improvement I have already seen! We then reviewed my CT scan and my surgeon said that the bone is completely fused already, above and below the hardware, both at my skull base and my neck. That it can’t get any better than it is! He asked again how long it had been since surgery…that CT was done at 10 weeks out…and he was utterly amazed! There is nothing our God cannot do!! Whatever you are facing today, put it in the loving hands of our God who loves to heal. And whatever fear you are facing, know that Jesus who came to be our Prince of Peace is eagerly waiting for you turn that fear over to him. There is abundant life waiting on the other side of whatever fear is holding you back from!
2 years ago at this time I was recovering from another big surgery that also came with big risks of complications and the possibility of much healing, and I wrote these words about peace. One of the names of God is the Alpha and the Omega…the Beginning and the End. And who He is…in the middle of it all…is a God who never changes. He is as trustworthy, as faithful, as good, as loving, as merciful, as gracious, as compassionate and as near to us as He has always been, and will always be. Emmanuel…God with us…because of Jesus born in a manger.
From 2 years ago…
It was a big step of faith having this surgery, but I am believing for our BIG God to use it to heal me in BIG ways! I’ve been reading some passages on faith; Hebrews 11 is one of those mega motivational faith passages, and Paul says that, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” He then goes on to describe biblical accounts of the superhero’s of Christian faith and says that, “Their weakness was turned to strength”! Then I was looking at the story of Mary, who walked by faith in fulfilling Gods calling on her life, and whose cousin Elizabeth exclaimed about her, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Luke 1:45 NIV
I’ve sought God’s wisdom and guidance through every step of this journey, and through prayer and moments of stillness in God’s presence, He’s led me in which way to go, and then given me peace about each decision. When I’ve thought about what it means to have peace, I’ve conjured a lack of anxiety and a sense of calmness, rest and ease. But only recently did I learn through an advent devotional that the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, means completeness or wholeness. What a revelation this was to me on so many levels! Thinking of my health struggles…of wrestling with a body that so often feels broken into pieces, but the way God steps in over and over again by giving me peace…wholeness! No matter how broken we feel physically, or in spirit, Christ came to earth to be our Prince of Peace…offering us wholeness through a relationship with Him. Jesus was born our Prince of Peace because our broken world is separated from God through sin, but that baby in a manger, wrapped in lamb’s clothes, came so that he could die on a cross, the perfect lamb without a single blemish, to be the ultimate sacrifice for us. Jesus’ birth and death made it possible for us to be complete in God’s sight…whole, not lacking a single thing!
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:2, 4-5 NIV
Isn’t this the crux of the human struggle…that there is a gaping void in our lives that we try and fill with so many “good” things, avoiding struggle and discomfort as much as possible. Yet it’s in those seasons of adversity that we have a choice to make…keep filling the void with more and more ‘fluff” that is fleeting and will never truly satisfy, or to believe that Jesus is our only Savior, to have faith that He can and will use everything for our good in our life, to keep seeking God’s wisdom through prayer and stillness…and then to watch for an outpouring of PEACE…COMPLETENESS…that will come overflowing into our lives.
This Christmas season I am celebrating and praising my Prince of Peace in a whole new way…because no matter how broken my body may feel, I can stand in His presence with WHOLENESS of spirit, knowing that His plans for me are perfect, He is healing and restoring me in His perfect timing and perfect way, He is working everything for my good, He gives me joy independent from any circumstance, and that one day, when I see Him face to face, every part of me will be made whole for all eternity!
“But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
My mom has always said the older you get, the quicker time passes. Well, now I’m left to face two harsh realities…that I’m getting old, and that my mom is right! This past year has held really challenging days and weeks that felt like they might never end, but as a whole it has gone by quicker than I ever remember. A few years ago I started journaling in the morning during my quiet time with God, and now I can’t imagine my life otherwise. If you think about it, much of the Bible is divinely inspired journaling – take the Psalms for example. David is spewing his thoughts and emotions, laments and praise into poetry and song, and all generations since have been able to find solidarity in his words. The man after Gods own heart often wrestled with deep pain, grief, hurt, betrayal, loss, frustration…the list goes on. Yet no matter where David was in a chasm of emotion, he had experienced too much of God to do anything other than keep God on His throne and magnify Him as the King of Kings. I wonder if David had any idea of the weight his words would hold for generations to come…and either way, I think he needed to write them down because HE needed to remember.
That’s what I’ve found…amnesia has a way of showing up at all different inopportune times. In the hard places I too often ask, “God where are you?” and on the mountain tops I can be so quick to say, “look at how well I climbed that treacherous slope!” I journal because I need to remember. When I start slipping down a chasm or taking the credit, the words I wrote are tangible evidence of Gods presence right in the middle of my circumstances. I’ve found it valuable to extend this practice beyond words. The Israelites used to stack stones in the dessert as pillars of Gods faithfulness for future generations to see. Now, I did grown up around a lot of rocks and have some ebenezers on my front porch. But there are other ways to mark moments. And yes, I’m getting to an update!
The end of September when I flew from Tampa to DC two days before major surgery fusing my skull base to C2, I arrived at the airport with a lot of baggage…pounding headache, searing pain in my neck and upper body, the room was spinning, my vision was blurred, I could barely think straight to check my bag and I was on the verge of throwing up. All of my energy was deliberate – one foot in front of the other. But when I got onto the escalator to go up to my gate, as I had countless times over many years feeling this same way, I said to myself…
“Mark this moment! It is the last time you will feel like this!”
My BFF from high school recently got married – it’s been 20 years since we graduated (see, getting old!) and I flew up to Connecticut for her wedding. I have tears in my eyes as I write that as I rode the escalator up to my gate – just nine weeks after my surgery – everything was different!! On my way to the airport I chatted with my Uber driver instead of focusing my energy on not throwing up in his car, I engaged with the Southwest attendant while checking my bag and getting tags for Spritz to fly with me, and I walked over to the escalator on solid ground…the room wasn’t spinning! If I’d had some stones, I would have stacked them right then and there.
At the wedding I sat with a precious friend who was my high school home room advisor. Those were really difficult years as I wrestled with my faith, my identity and my worth. I based everything on what I saw around me and I didn’t like most of it, so I decided I couldn’t possibly like God. But this teacher always listened and loved me instead of judging me. She gave me space to walk my own path, yet always prayed and believed my path would lead to one of coming to know and love God. She’s been following my journey through what I’ve written these past years and we rejoiced together in what God has done!! The morning after the wedding, this was part of my Scripture reading…
But God can’t point back to things in our life no one has known about! Sharing our struggles is just as important as sharing our victories. Sharing our stories bolsters the faith of those around us and our victories become a beacon of hope and a testament to Gods mercy and grace. When we go and tell, it’s an encouragement to those who have prayed for us, walked beside us and shared our longing for answered prayers. Side note – that last verse is another favorite and I wrote a post about it here…https://amostlyhealthyblog.com/2023/10/07/perfect-healing/
On the flight home from the wedding I read through my journal from this past year. Several times a prompt or devotional had taken me to Psalm 107 – a Psalm that God has used repeatedly in my life. The first time I remember reading it, I was in my surgeons waiting room, heading into an appointment where we would decide on whether or not to proceed with my first cervical fusion. I knew going that route would mean needing multiple more surgeries unless God intervened, and the risk of major complications. The words of this Psalm gave me such deep peace and assurance of Gods amazing grace. The Psalm starts out…
And then instead of David merely saying that God is gracious and all powerful, he gives example after example of these extreme circumstances that seem almost impossible for anyone to come back from – of those who were led astray by temptations, worldly pursuits and seductive pleasure that proved fleeting and destructive. Yet God steps in and doesn’t just deliver them, doesn’t just brush the dirt off, put on a few bandages, pat them on the back and send on them their way. But the opposite! He completely heals them, blesses them, establishes them in new lands, sets them up to prosper, provides feasts for them, families for them and homes for them. It’s such a vivid description of grace – absolutely undeserved blessing and favor – and of giving God the praise He alone deserves because of that amazing grace!
My surgeon prayed over me before my massive fusion that God would heal me, and I woke up from surgery with these words going through my mind… “God has healed me, He is healing me and He will heal me!” I’ve written about how I heard from God about a year and a half ago that it would be Him who healed me. I wrestled with what that meant, but came to see that it means trusting my perfect healing to God, knowing He is the ultimate healer, and surgeons and surgeries are just the tools He can use when we surrender to Him. There is no explanation for how well I have been doing since my surgery except that God has answered the prayers of so many people over me, and once again proven faithful to come through on His word to heal me! My pastors sermon today was about words from God, and he said…
“Gods words reveal His will”
Bill Johnson
Woah! But I shouldn’t be surprised because when we stay rooted in God, He always finds ways to affirm what He is speaking into our life.
Healing is never linear. At best it should be like a bull stock market…an upward trajectory, but peaks and valleys along the axis. Before surgery I’d been having severe breathing issues, especially at night when the shifting vertebrae in my spine were cutting off my airway, and that resolved immediately! The improved oxygenation along with better CSF flow has meant that I wake up much cleared headed than I ever remember. For weeks after surgery I’d often wake up at night panicked that I couldn’t breathe, and have tell myself that it wasn’t the case. Our brains are extremely powerful and it takes about three months to establish new neural pathways. My body that God created is amazingly resilient, but has a lot of re-learning to do. My muscles are trying to figure out how to function and fire now that my neck is fused, and it can take up to two years for the nerves that were damaged to regrow. I am still in pain much of the time, the muscle spasms and swelling cause frequent headaches, and I have had times when all my symptoms are back in full force.
BUT I have also had some times when I feel pretty great, and I haven’t been able to say those words in a very long time. Yesterday I spent the day making Christmas goodies for clients, friends and family. It was always one of the activities I looked forward to most at Christmas, but one I haven’t done in many years. Every day was such a painful challenge that I had to conserve my energy for only what was necessary. But yesterday I had a solid 6 hours that I felt like my old self! I blasted Christmas music and danced and sang in my kitchen as I created, and man did it feel good!! And given that I am still pretty early on in my recovery, it is extremely encouraging to already see improvement! Just like stacking those stones or remembering that moment on the escalator, when we focus on our victories, when we train our brain to say, “I feel great right now” even if it’s fleeting, we are creating a little trail of breadcrumbs to go back to and know that feeling great is possible. It helps create and cement those new neural pathways so that one such moment turns into a few more, which suddenly turns into a whole day, a week, a month, a lifetime. God put this Psalm on my heart recently and it couldn’t be more perfect…
As this year is coming to a close I’d encourage you to find ways to mark moments in your life that can stand as pillars for future generations. They don’t need to be eloquent words or perfectly positioned stones. It can be as simple as sharing something with a friend over a cup of coffee or posting a few sentences on Facebook. But we are called to tell about the wonderful deeds of our God, and there is someone out there who needs your story! God chose the lowliest of the lows to be the first to know that Jesus, our Savior, had taken on flesh and come into our world. Angels told nearby shepherds about Christs birth, and…
Discharged from the hospital 2 weeks ago today after skull base to C2 fusion and rocked a yoga flow! Yesterday the pain was almost unbearable, as was an unrelenting headache, fatigue and foggy brain. I rested a lot, prayed a lot, took a long hot shower and curled up with heat packs. Went to the grocery store which felt like a monumental task, cooked a simple, nourishing dinner which I struggled to eat because swallowing is still so difficult, and got to bed early, anticipating many more days like this ahead.
When my neurosurgeon took my sutures out on Tuesday, he told me to expect a rocky several months of headaches, pain, dizziness, vertigo, brain fog & fatigue. The same symptoms I’ve lived with every day for the past 5 years – but now there as my body heals and adjusts to a new norm of an atlas & axis that no longer rotate, but also no longer sublux – there now as symptoms of healing rather than of destruction. He also cleared me to do yoga after I went through poses with him in detail making sure they were not harmful in any way (yes, I did yoga in my neurosurgeons office!)
Today I woke up feeing so much better! Less pain, no headache, more energy and a clear mind. I spent a long time reflecting on where I’ve been – this health journey of mine that has seemed endless, but Gods persisting faithfulness through every season, and my hope for better days ahead. And then I pulled myself up off the couch and got on my mat, streaming a Friday flow.
Every day we have a choice – we can let yesterdays struggles, limitations and pain define us and determine the actions we take, or we can choose to start anew, noticing the way our body is speaking to us and what it’s asking for, listening to the thoughts swirling in our mind and what needs to be set free or reigned in. We can choose to focus on the good, focus not on our limitations but on what we CAN do.
Doing yoga felt weird, uncomfortable, amazing and right all at the same time. My muscles are weak and tight and my neck doesn’t turn anymore. My “flow” was more like a “flop” from pose to pose. Asanas that once came easily felt strained and difficult. But at the same time there was so much I could still do and there is so much growth I can work towards. Limitations will always be there – on my mat and in my day to day life. But I’m choosing to embrace each day for what it holds, knowing God will give me the strength I need for THAT day, knowing full well there will be many days when the hardest choice I make is to rest, and that does not make me worth any less…in fact that IS the power move.
“One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14 AMP
Trying to enjoy savasana with Spritz on the loose!
Thank you all so very much for your outpouring of prayer, support, encouragement and love🤍 My mom and I both have felt covered in prayer and carried by Gods strength and his abiding peace. And my surgery went perfectly🙌 I was awake enough right away to talk to my surgeon, as I wanted to know all the details about what he found. During surgery he ran a test of brain stem function, and I have significant brain stem damage from years of instability at my craniocervical junction compressing my brainstem and cranial nerves. But he is hopeful that with time it will heal, and I am trusting in Gods perfect healing!! The findings of brainstem damage actually validates all of my symptoms and the need for this surgery…so even that bolsters my hope for the many, many ways God will use this surgery to heal me perfectly!
I woke up from surgery with a catheter and a drain coming from my incision. I asked when I could get the catheter out, and the nurse told me it was there until I was able to get up, so within 2 hours post-op I had gotten out of bed and walked around. My surgeon came back later to check on me and said that I got the award for the fastest patient to ever get up after this surgery! All I could do was laugh…both because I knew whose strength allowed me to do that, and also because I’ve never won an award for anything athletic in my life😆 Once the local anesthetic wore off, the pain was pretty excruciating even with meds, but I was expecting that, and am used to being in a lot of pain…and the relief I felt that surgery was over, and the gratefulness I felt that God had mercifully gotten me through, outweighed everything else I was feeling!
The morning after surgery I had a cervical CT scan and my surgeon said everything looked perfect. And because I was up and walking laps around the hospital floor, I was discharged a day early! Before leaving I had my bandages changed and got a look at my incision, which has me thinking that for Halloween I’ll be Frankenstein and just walk around backwards…what do think?!🙀
For the first week after surgery I could only be upright for about 5 minutes at a time before searing pain and dizziness set in, and my neck muscles went into spasm. But I’m gaining endurance pretty quickly, and now 11 days out I’ve gone on a few little outings, and have done a little cooking! And speaking of, my surgeon was able to set my neck in place at a slight downward angle, which will make it that much easier to cook! Full recovery will take anywhere from 3-12 months, but I know that God will give me the strength I need for each day.
And each day I am healing little by little and seeing smalls wins, which doesn’t mean I don’t get impatient at times. But I’m also learning to cherish these days of slowing down, not looking at a to do list and instead doing what my body needs moment to moment. Being more present…yet I also can’t help but think ahead to what the next season may bring; what I might be able to do with this new spine of mine. It got me thinking about a poem I wrote in a similar season of convalescing, after reading this verse and questions started spiraling in my mind….
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10 NLT
My poem, titled PLAY
What works did you plan for me long ago?
Oh how I long to walk in Your will
Holding Your hand
Or better yet…
With You carrying me
Rocking in your arms
My eyes locking onto your loving gaze as you tickle my belly and I erupt in laughter
High upon your shoulders
I feel you ducking under door frames so I don’t bump my head
The giggles of a piggyback ride
My braided hair flopping in sync with each of your steps
Skipping down the sidewalk
Your firm grasp making sure our feet don’t get tangled and trip
Peace. It’s an often overlooked word in the busy, chaotic, hamster-wheel lives we so often find ourselves in. But it is a life changing word, a word that Jesus came to embody as our Prince of Peace, and one that He gave up His life for so that we could experience. It helps usher in so many more traits of the Holy Spirit – joy being one, and where we find the abundant life God has waiting for us when we reject fear because we have sought peace.
Right now, left up to my own spiraling thoughts and meager strength, I would be paralyzed with fear. After exhausting all other options for the past 5 years, including more cervical injections than I can count, this Wednesday I will have surgery to fuse my skull base to C2, which will mean I’ll never be able to move my neck again. I’ll have 8 screws drilled into the base of my skull to secure a piece of hardware that will replace those cervical discs, and then cadaver bone grafted over the C1 and C2 vertebrae, drilled into place with 4 more screws.
I have a condition called craniocervical instability (CCI) which means that the ligaments that hold my skull onto my neck are damaged, so when I move my head, my skull shifts off of my spine. This excessive movement compresses my brainstem and cranial nerves and caused an ischemic stroke two and a half years ago. The symptoms are at times debilitating and include headaches, neck & eye pain, head pressure, vision issues, dizziness, nausea, inability to regulate my heart rate, breathing & temperature, chronic fatigue, tinnitus, brain fog & often trouble speaking. This surgery has always been a last resort, but ever since having the stroke I’ve known that I had to do whatever it took to stabilize my craniocervical junction. However fear was still holding me back from taking this leap of faith…and as I’ve come to see…the abundance I believe God has waiting for me!
Two years ago I went to DC for the first time to start working with an incredibly knowledgeable neurosurgical group who specialize in CCI. In March I had cervical fusion to fix a lower disc that was stretching my spinal cord, and our hopes were that it might alleviate my symptoms enough to call it a day there. That surgery fixed what it was supposed to but not what we hoped for. Then in June I had a lumbar puncture to alleviate high intracranial pressure, that again we hoped would be enough symptom relief…but it wasn’t. In July my surgeon and I made the decision to move ahead with this fusion, after my imaging has been progressively worse, but I still wasn’t sure it was the right move. And so I started praying for peace. Every day I asked God to either fill me with peace, or fill me with the complete opposite of it. I started meditating on Isaiah 26:3, and it took on a whole new power and meaning.
This verse promises not temporary calm, but says God will KEEP us surrounded by an unwavering peace when we lock eyes with HIM, rather than looking at the mountain in front of us. And that is exactly what He has done for me through the countdown these past two months. Literally every day, often many times throughout the day, God has affirmed this decision. And then having that peace blanketing my mind has freed me to see handprints of Gods love, promises and victory in so many, many ways. Last Sunday our sermon was about saying “yes” to the calling God has for us, and Pastor Bill Johnson said, “by keeping ourselves from the conflict we were born for, we actually keep ourselves from the strength we were designed for.” And how sometimes our “yes” leads us to a battlefield. God leads us there because he wants to give us strength. Each of us are designed to walk in the victory Jesus paid for, but to walk in victory, we must be willing to enter the battle. As we submit to His calling on our lives, He will equip, nourish, and strengthen us, and above all, give us supernatural grace to see it to completion!
I have watched myself slip away these past 5 years, as month after month of symptoms have chipped away at my resolve, drained my strength, made it harder and harder to engage with people and activities, and caused me to burry my passion and zest for life beneath the weight of my condition. I do the bare minimum to get by…but that’s enough, right? In my own strength I’d keep back peddling, clinging to what I am still able to do. But is that really living? These past months as I’ve read His Word, I have been claiming the promises that God wants to give us new life, fullness of life, abundant life, victorious life! To break yolks of oppression from our necks (that one really got me!) and instead receive a yolk shared with Him. And that through the journey He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless; perfect love that drives out fear; abundant grace that covers the mess we make; His abiding Spirit who intercedes for us when we’re too weak to pray; joy even in the face of life’s hardships; and PERFECT, unwavering, peace.
Will I have hard, painful days ahead? Yes. Will this surgery present new challenges that I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life? Yes. But do I have to rely on my own expectations for the healing that will take place, and for everything that I will gain? Not in the slightest! And do I have to rely on my own strength to fight this battle? Not even a little. On the contrary, God is eagerly waiting to show up even more than I’ve ever seen before! Eager to show off his muscles, eager to delight His child with the abundance He has in store! My other prayers these past months have been for just that – that God would use this surgery to not only restore me better than ever before, but that God would be praised and glorified in doing so. And also glorified through my struggles. And an amazing thing has happened – I have come to see through this daily fight for faith, this daily choice to lock eyes with God, that I can already claim victory and abundance because of the ways He has used this to stretch my faith, grow my roots deep into the soil, blanket me with His peace, and give me joy in the face of suffering.
One morning a few weeks back I was having my coffee and time with God, and one of the verses I read was 2 Timothy 1:7, “for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”
I realized that I had become reliant on yesterdays peace, and wrote in my journal that day, “fear is subtle…it creeps in. It’s not a deluge, instead it’s like a very gentle rain. One droplet of doubt here, another one there, slowly building until the ground is suddenly saturated, and you’re no longer on solid footing. I’ve seen it creeping in this week, I’ve started second guessing my need for this surgery and my ability to work and cook after it. But my loving Father knows that, and because I came to Him this morning FIRST – to fill me up, He did just that. Encouraging me with promises to cast out fear, reminding me of His faithfulness, encouraging me by having me look back on parts of my story, and promising me that there’s no brokenness he can’t restore, nothing He won’t redeem.”
This past week was one of the busiest I’ve had in a while, and pushed me to my limits while also being incredibly rewarding. It started off on Sunday by my cooking dinner for 50 people at a horse farm in Ocala, and ended on Thursday evening with the grand opening of my integrative health clinic which I also made all of the food for. They were amazing events and every day I thanked God for His provision and for the strength to carry on. As I was doing some of the final food prep on Thursday, I started trying to chop without looking down. I was only moving my eyes and it was painful and I almost lost a finger. I started to panic, thinking that I’d never cook again. But then almost immediately I felt God near, and I cried out to Him that I knew He wouldn’t bring me this far just to abandon me. That I was claiming is promises of hope and a future. And that whatever happened after surgery, I knew was part of His perfect plan for me. A sudden sense of calm washed over me, and I went back to cooking. And then a little voice said to me, “hinge at your waist” and when I did that, I could chop just fine without moving my neck down! I have found that God wants us to seek Him first in these times of helplessness we so often face – and then he delights in showing off his strength, and rewards us for turning to Him. The rest of that day I kept quoting Psalm 34:4-8, “I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces. In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles. For the angel of the Lord is a guard; he surrounds and defends all who fear him. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!”
Monday morning as I was making my coffee (coffee is tangible proof that God loves us😆) getting ready to head to the airport for DC, I stood in my kitchen utterly amazed that I wasn’t crippled by fear by what could go wrong during this surgery, and what it will mean for my future. I truly had Gods peace that “passes understanding” in that my mind can’t understand how I can have this perfect peace! But then I was quickly reminded how it’s possible…as I started a new devotional with my Peer Servants group and this was the opening:
Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!
And these verses followed…
“The Lord is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things! The strong right arm of the Lord is raised in triumph. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things! Psalms 118:14-17, 24 NLT
And my mom just minutes after, texted me that she woke up singing songs of victory! And I have to give a shout-out to my Mom, who has been an example to me of seeking God above all else, listening to the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit, and moving in Gods strength and leading, not my own. And who has been by my side through every single surgery…this will be number nine, and far too many procedures to count. Her selfless love, steadfast prayer, and abiding hope are pictures of Christ to me.
That day, my sweet, prayer warrior friend Leslie prayed Psalm 20 over me..
“May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion… May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
And if you read my last post…I talked about how over a year ago God had said very clearly that it would be Him who heals me, and given me that last verse as assurance. My surgeon has prayed over me before every surgery, and before my last procedure he prayed that I’d be filled with Gods Spirit, that God would guide his hands and that God would heal me. My surgeon knows that his skill, his knowledge, his ability to heal is only because of his God working through him. And that it will be God who heals me!
Surgery is at 7:30 tomorrow morning. It’s four hours long, and my surgeon will work with his colleague for the entirety of it. They will use about five different measurements and fluoroscopic guidance to position my head at just the perfect angle before locking it into place, remove the cervical discs, install the hardware and cadaver bone, and then harvest stem cells from my hip and inject them into the surgical site. I was really excited to learn this last part, as stem cells have the amazingly unique ability to become whatever type of cell the body needs, giving an upgrade to the healing process. Please join me and so many others in prayer this week, for the hands of my surgeons, for no complications, for perfect results and for healing in more ways than I can even begin to imagine!!
I know that this is going to be a season filled with a lot of pain, but I also know that there is nothing that I can’t overcome with God‘s strength. And I am thanking Him for His costly gift of Christ’s life, death and resurrection that enable me to have this peace, this joy and this hope of earthly victory, and assurance of an eternal reward and perfectly restored body one day for all of eternity!
My last post was about the ways I’ve witnessed over this past year how God can bring life and hope and redemption to even our most broken situations. And thank you for rejoicing in those victories with me! Now I am asking you, my army who’s been there with me through this journey, to please PRAY.
Around the time I wrote that update, I started again having symptoms of intracranial hypertension (too much cerebrospinal fluid). The symptoms were severe, scary, and escalating quickly. I had an appointment with my neurosurgeon for my 3 month cervical fusion check-up, we discussed my symptoms, and as this has been an ongoing issue decided to do a diagnostic/therapeutic lumbar puncture to check my opening pressure and drain cerebrospinal fluid to give me temporary relief. Based on that we’d then put in a lumbar shunt to continuously drain excess CSF. I flew from DC to Massachusetts where my Mom was watching Spritz, we prayed over it and then I scheduled the lumbar puncture in one weeks time, miraculously lined up the necessary pre-op appointments and flew home to St Pete the next day for a quick work week and turn around.
Thursday Spritz and I got to the airport at 10am for an 11:30 flight. We sat on the plane for 2 hours due to hydraulic issues and then weather, and then were kicked off and told we had to wait for a new flight path that would avoid the storms but would add flight time…because our plane couldn’t fly over water! (Our state is a freaking peninsula!) During our wait a plane right next to us took off for DC that could in fact fly over water, but I wasn’t allowed on it because my bag was sitting on the plane right next to that one. We re-boarded our plane only to have the same hydraulic issues reappear. After another hour on the plane the flight was cancelled. I quickly booked the flight out that evening from my phone, and had I waited in line for the ticket agent it would have been sold out. We got on the evening flight, to again have hydraulic issues, then weather issues. All but southbound flights were cancelled. At 10:30pm after sitting on the plane for 3 hours our flight was cancelled and rescheduled for 9:30 am Friday morning. I had to be at the hospital in Maryland at 9 am but by hell or high water I was determined to make it! I booked a 5am flight to Baltimore, checked into the airport hotel for 4 hours and watched the sunrise at 40,000 feet the next morning. We took an Uber from the airport to the hospital and made it there at 8:30 am. Meanwhile my mom, my partner through every single step of this wild ride, had arrived in DC on time the afternoon before. She met me at the hospital, took Spritz (who had been a champ during our 12 hour day on planes, trains and automobiles) back to our air bnb, and then made it back to the hospital for my scheduled procedure time. So crisis averted, back in business!
A lot was riding on this procedure…a lot of symptoms I was having overlap with my other neck issues, and if this gave me relief that could mean prolonging my need for the next big fusion. It would also mean a huge increase in my quality of life. To be honest, I fought fear all week leading up to it. I kept thinking, “what if this is another dead end or doesn’t give me the clarity I need?” And kept having to go back to the promises I know…that perfect love casts out fear. That God has plans to prosper me and not to harm me, to give me hope and a future! And in my devotional was this verse, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” John 16:13
Last summer in a similar emergent situation of escalating intracranial hypertension symptoms, I did a similar one week turnaround from DC to Baltimore after my surgeon found some concerning masses at the base of my skull and wanted to rule out arteriovenous malformation or jugular compression as a cause of my intracranial hypertension. I had a diagnostic cerebral arteriogram and angiogram, where they ran catheters through the veins and arteries in my legs up to my brain and injected contrast dye while taking x-rays of the veins and arteries in my brain, head and neck. This time looking for a blockage in my internal jugular vein as the culprit, and a stent would be the solution. Very similarly this route would have vastly simplified future treatments and had potential to improve a vast amount of symptoms. That study showed no blockage, but severe veinous congestion in my head, and the ramification of that is still unclear. I remember waking up that next morning feeing really beat up (the procedure felt like hot electric shocks) and really defeated, and was crying out to God as to why. Why had I gone through that for nothing, why couldn’t even one step of treating my conditions be easy or clear? And I sat there having one big pitty party in my hotel room. But then I turned up my praise music and got into his Word and read the verses that I can trust that when His “ways” are not my “ways,” this is only because they are “higher than my ways” (Isaiah 54:9) and then from Psalm 20 that, “some trust in chariots and some trust in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
In that moment God so loudly said to me “it will be Me who heals you!” And then a friend texted me encouragement to always remember that I’m in the hands of the Great Physician! I wrote in my journal that morning, “There is only one Healer, and I call him Father! Once again God is surrounding me with signs of His presence. He’s ministering to me right where I am…in my angst, in my frustration, in my fear, in my pain. He’s saying ‘I’m right here. Take my hand, see my scars, and trust me.’” I have gone back to what I heard God say to me so many times…and I believe it, and at times have even claimed it as done…but have also really wondered what that actually means? Do I just stop pursuing any medical treatment? How will God himself heal me?
So back to last week…leading up to the lumbar puncture…amidst the other fears I had, the funny thing is I had no fear about the actual procedure. And at the hospital that day I realized why. My surgeon has prayed over me before every surgery, and that day he prayed that I’d be filled with Gods Spirit, that God would guide his hands and that God would heal me. My surgeon knows that his skill, his knowledge, his ability to heal is only because of his God working through him. And that it will be God who heals me!
My surgeon drained 20 ml of CSF from my lumbar spine and then took blood from an artery in my wrist and injected the area around the opening of the dura to prevent a CSF leak. Everything went great (aside from a blown IV, 4 misses and some very bruised arms and hands). I woke up feeling improvement of many symptoms and was so relieved and hopeful. I had pain and tightness in my legs and sacrum but that was just from the added pressure on the nerves. My opening pressure was 18, 15 is normal is 20 is clinically high, so the plan was to monitor symptoms, which were up and down all weekend and hard to gauge. I felt like I was back in the same place of uncertainty as after my arteriogram in Baltimore, but God kept giving me comfort from his Word. One morning as my thoughts were spiraling, I started quoting Psalm 139 and then it was also part of my devotional that day…which I’ve found happens quite often when we take time to listen to that quiet, gently voice of the Spirit. “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”
I was back home Monday and back to work on Tuesday and feeling pretty great. Wednesday, all hell broke loose. I woke up with a return of a severe headache, legs that felt like all the muscles had been torn, and extreme pain in the area where my tailbone used to be (I had two surgeries to remove my tailbone after an injury but have had pain there for 20 years because the culprit was actually the tethering of my spinal cord that I had surgery on 2 years ago.) My surgeon assured me that nothing was wrong from the procedure, and that the pain was from the added pressure on nerves that were already highly traumatized and sensitive, but we were both exasperated. The pain continued to get worse, and by Friday I was in the most intense pain I’ve ever been in…even more than after any of the 8 surgeries I’ve had! I talked to my surgeon again on Saturday, he prescribed me a drug used to treat nerve pain and seizures, and a med for nerve pain. The medications didn’t interact well with each other or with me, I was having unbearable side effects with minimal relief and I had to go off of them completely. Monday I made the very difficult decision to cancel my clients for the week, and moved my scheduled flight to Massachusetts from Thursday to Tuesday. I didn’t know how I was going to keep making it through each day, through meetings at the clinic, and how I was going to pack, let alone get on a plane, but I know that God is strongest in our weakest, and I kept thanking Him for yet another opportunity to show his love and His faithfulness to me. And He kept speaking back through his word…“and I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6
Tuesday morning came, I had barely slept due to pain and I was dizzy, had a pounding headache and was sick to my stomach due to residual side effects of the medications. I was teetering on cancelling my flight, but gave it a few minutes. My verse of the day was “wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous, yes wait patiently for the Lord!” Then I put on praise music and started singing along, and almost immediately I felt a little bit better. And so I kept singing…while I showered, while I packed, while I waited. And my God, my healer, showed up like he always does. Because when we worship, we put God in His rightful place as God, bowing to His sovereignty and declaring our trust in His goodness and love. It doesn’t always mean that our situation will change, but our mindset alway will. And I have seen time and time again that in those moments of surrender, God speaks, and God moves, and God brings breakthrough.
The songs on my playlist that morning…
“This is how I fight my battles…it may look like I’m surrounded but I’m surrounded by you”
“I’m gonna see a victory, for the battle belongs to the Lord”
“Because he lives, I can face tomorrow”
“All my life You have been faithful, and all my life You have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God”
“But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story, the Voice of Truth says, “Do not be afraid!” And the Voice of Truth says, “This is for My glory” Out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth”
And that last one is what I’ve been claiming all along…that God will use this trial for my good, and for His glory.
I made it to my moms in Chicopee, with wheelchair assistance at the airports and several shed tears from how bad the pain was. That night was the worst yet…I now know why women scream during contractions and if I never have kids, I think I can still say I’ve been through labor pains. I have come to my breaking point. Today as I write this, I am in shear agony. Moving in any way causes stabbing pains and I can only take a few steps without going into spasms. It’s impossible to find any comfortable position. My surgeon thinks that my intracranial pressure is high again, and that is further irritating the sacral nerves. I’m going on a trial run of a medication that will lower my CSF pressure, and if that helps then he will put in a lumbar shunt. And thus why I have asked you to pray. I am weak, I am weary, and in my own strength I can’t take this pain any longer. But my God shines in our weakness…and I know that with every fiber of my being. Please pray for renewed strength, relief of pain, for a clear path forward, and for God to heal me.
Two years ago on Memorial Day weekend, I had an ischemic stroke from brainstem compression due to instability at my craniocervical junction. My dad flew to my house, helped me finish one last job for a client, and then flew me and Spritz up to Massachusetts for what was to become the most challenging 6 months of my health, culminating in surgery to remove the base of my spinal cord and alleviate extremely high intracranial pressure. My dad was there for me through all the difficulties of that time and kept a smile on my face on even the hardest of days. 4 months after surgery I was finally back on my feet, and the day before I was to fly home, my dad went into kidney failure. His cancer had metastasized to his whole spine and he was given weeks to months to live. Last year on Memorial Day weekend he took his last breaths, and I was able to be there right by his side.
We had celebrated his 80th birthday 3 weeks before that, and my mom had the idea to make him a birthday cake that looked like his rock yard and asphalt plant.
I covered the whole cake with coarse brown sugar to look like sand, and when we carried it out to my dad, singing “Happy Birthday” followed by “May the Good Lord Bless You” my dad started to cry and so did every single one of us, his whole family gathered around him. And my dad said…”what a God, that he would take care of me like this, even in my last days. He knows every hair on my head, and the number of each grain of sand.” And then he went on to talk about an analogy of death that had always stuck with him, that it was going to be like getting onto a boat in the fog, waving goodbye to all those you love on one shore, then going into the thick fog and emerging on the other shore with all those you’d loved who had gone before you waving hello, welcoming you with open arms. I know without a doubt that when my daddy left this earth a year ago, he was greeted by the loving embrace of his Heavenly Father…the one who created him, called him by name, and had prepared his eternal home, because my dad has trusted in Him as Lord of his life.
When I finally returned home last June, in many ways it felt like I was picking up pieces of a broken life. But God had given me a priceless gift…and that was in having had that year with my dad. A year that was both the most difficult year of my life and the biggest blessing. And so as I began again…navigating next steps with my health, big career decisions and seeking Gods will over my next…the fact that God is faithful, God is good, God is love, God does restore, God does redeem, and God does have a plan…was unwavering in my mind. And that gave me the confidence to keep stepping out in faith. This year started with my becoming co-owner of an integrative health clinic in St. Pete where I’ll get to use what I’ve learned through my own heath struggles to help others and spread a message of hope. In March I had fusion at C5-6 and while I still have a lot of pain and may need more fusions in the future, that surgery has helped tremendously. And just last weekend, my best friend and I catered a gala for 150 people out in LA – the largest event either of us have ever done on our own as private chefs. Just writing this I am in awe…in awe at how far I have come, in awe at the strength God gives even at our weakest, in awe at how awesome is our God! No matter how broken your life may feel right now, know that God promises beauty out of ashes. I am living proof!!
This weekend is extremely bittersweet as I miss my dad tremendously, yet I know that he’s in perfection, with our awe-inspiring God. And my Dad would be the first one to praise God with me for the wonderful things He has done!!!
One year ago we found out that my dads cancer had metastasized and we only had a few months left with him. My birthday was a few days later, and I spent the first half of the day in tears, knowing next year at this time he wouldn’t be in my life anymore. My dad called me that morning and barely had a voice, but sang happy birthday to me anyways – I can still hear him singing those words like it was yesterday. I miss him every day, and am choking back tears as I write this. But in the midst of such grief, I also have deep, unshakable joy. This year for the first time ever, my birthday falls on Easter, and it couldn’t be more fitting. “Because of the joy awaiting Him he endured the cross, disregarding it’s shame” Hebrews 12:2
We were the joy awaiting Christ Jesus…eternity with us, his beloved children, was enough reward that he endured the most excruciating, humiliating, undeserved, soul-separating death imaginable. The cross was the cost of His love, and the cost of eternal love. That we get to spend eternity with our Savior, and all those we love who also profess Christ Jesus as their Lord.
This is how, and this is why, joy can co-exist with loss and grief. This is why we can call this Friday “good,” because death didn’t have the final say. Gods insurmountable love saw it fit for Jesus to die for our sins, so that love has the final say for all eternity! Cross = Love🤍
When I wrote the post below about peace a year ago, I still had a dad and never though that it would be my last Christmas with him. He passed away Memorial Day weekend which was exactly one year from when he flew down to my house in Florida during a very scary time with my health and brought me and Spritz (but not in the suitcase!) up to Massachusetts where I’d spend the year seeing doctors, searching for answers, having surgery and convalescing, with my parents right by my side every step of the way. But coming off of a year of barely seeing my family due to Covid, God had already imprinted on my heart that every day is a gift, not to be taken for granted. And that He is Sovereign, had a plan amidst the pain, and that fruit was coming! Which doesn’t mean there weren’t very dark days that sometimes turned into weeks and times of hopelessness, fear, doubt, frustration and despair. But there were also many moments of laughter, of joy, of making memories and spending precious time together.
My dad drove me to all my doctors appointments and everywhere we went he had a story of having had a crushing or paving job in the various cities we passed. He’d tell me stories of the characters he met, the way he’d retrofit each job; coming up with new designs and solutions, and the obstacles he overcame. His ingenuity and the long hours he worked often meant he finished ahead of schedule. I learned even more about not only the incredible work ethic my dad had and how much he sacrificed for our family, but also how genuinely interested he was in the people he worked with. Decades later he could recall details about their lives as he animatedly spoke about them.
That’s one word that always comes to mind when I think of my dad…animated! And in the year I spent living back under his roof, I got to witness just how animated my dad was about his Lord…his faith in a Savior who was real to him, whom he trusted with his life and his family’s life, and turned to as his source of wisdom and peace. There’s one distinct instance that keeps coming into my mind…I had just gotten off a telehealth call with my neurosurgeon and I went and told my parents about it and the big decisions about my health I had to make. My dad intently listened, and then asked to pray, and he said that he liked to picture us looking up at God through a small hole in the ceiling, while God looks down on us seeing the full picture, the entirety of our story. And thanked God that because he sees all and knows all, we can trust him with our all. How I thank God for these precious memories… for these moments that I got to see my Dads heart for his Lord, and his love for me.
3 weeks before my dad passed away he asked his oncologist to be allowed to come home from the hospital on hospice…he said that there’s nothing like 20 kids giving him a hug, and that he was going from heaven to heaven. And that peace was a vivid reality that my dad lived with right up until the end of his life here. On one of his last days he looked up at the sky and said to me, ‘the colors, the colors are so amazing!” And I think he was beginning to see the splendor of heaven that was awaiting! It was pouring rain all day on the Saturday that he took his last breaths, and then, soon after he passed, the skies cleared and sunbeams shown through the trees as the sun set. My dad in heaven, rejoicing for all eternity!
We sing carols about baby Jesus our Prince of Peace, but it’s not just a name…it is His very being. Jesus is Peace! And because of that, our circumstances can never change who He is and what He offers to us. And we can have joy, we can have hope, and we can have peace, even in the midst of the most overwhelming grief, sorrow, loss and pain.
I am beyond grateful for that year I had with my dad, and shortly before he passed away I got to tell him that I would go through all that pain all over again for the time I got to spend with him. I am so grateful that God in his loving faithfulness allowed me to see the way He was working that whole year for my good. And while it doesn’t make my heartache any less, it sure bolsters my confidence in the way that God can redeem any and every situation that we let Him!
Post on Peace from 1 year ago…
Four weeks since my tethered cord release surgery! My surgeon cut through the muscle down to my spine, removed the piece of bone covering my spinal cord, then cut into my spinal canal and removed the very bottom portion of my spinal cord, called the filum. My surgeon told me that when she cut into my dural sac, my cerebral spinal fluid came shooting out, a sign that I have had very high intracranial pressure, which was contributing to my constant and pounding headaches for the past 3 years. The filum that she removed was thick and brittle; it had not been functioning, and was keeping my whole spinal cord trapped and unable to move within the spinal canal. With that removed my spine will be better at regulating pressure now, amongst many other things! I had to lay completely flat for the first 24 hours post-op to help my spinal fluid recalibrate, then spent another 3 days recovering in the hospital before going back to my parents for the long haul…6 weeks of no bending, lifting or twisting.
It has been a challenging month, but God is faithful, and IS our strength when we are weak. While still in the hospital I had a severe mast cell reaction to the antibiotics they gave me, then when I got home had an allergic reaction to the surgical tape covering my incision which morphed into a systemic rash covering my whole back side. The medication they gave me made the issues with my heart rate much worse and didn’t do anything to clear up the rash, and I ended up on a 6 day prednisone taper…which actually stabilized my heart rate better than it had been in a few years…so God used even that for good! After the first week I started getting bad rebound headaches as the CSF pressure came back up, in addition to tension headaches from my cervical instability. But each week I’m moving more without as much pain…yesterday I was able to bend down far enough to wash my face at the bathroom sink…small wins!
It was a big step of faith having this surgery, but I am believing for our BIG God to use it to heal me in BIG ways! I’ve been reading some passages on faith; Hebrews 11 is one of those mega motivational faith passages, and Paul says that, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” Then he goes on to describe biblical accounts of the superhero’s of Christian faith and says that, “Their weakness was turned to strength”! Then I was looking at the story of Mary, who walked by faith in fulfilling Gods calling on her life, and whose cousin Elizabeth exclaimed about her, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Luke 1:45 NIV
I’ve sought God’s wisdom and guidance through every step of this journey, and through prayer and moments of stillness in God’s presence, He’s led me in which way to go, and then given me peace about each decision. He led me to a surgeon who I’d later find out is one of the best surgeons in the world for tethered cord, and whose whole team was highly skilled in operating on patients with EDS and it’s comorbidities. I don’t have much symptom relief yet…it could take months for my spine to start functioning properly and for all the pieces to be restored, and since my tethered spinal cord went undiagnosed for 36 years, there’s damage that might have been too advanced to be reversed. But nothing is impossible with God! He gave me His peace over all of this, and I am waiting in eager expectation for all that He will do.
When I’ve thought about what it means to have peace, I’ve conjured a lack of anxiety and a sense of calmness, rest and ease. But only recently did I learn through an advent devotional that the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, means completeness or wholeness. What a revelation this was to me on so many levels! Thinking of my health struggles…of wrestling with a body that so often feels broken into pieces, but the way God steps in and over and over again by giving me peace…wholeness! No matter how broken we feel physically, or in spirit, Christ came to earth to be our Prince of Peace…offering us wholeness through a relationship with Him. Jesus was born our Prince of Peace because our broken world is separated from God through sin, but that baby in a manger, wrapped in lamb’s clothes, came so that he could die on a cross, the perfect lamb without a single blemish, to be the ultimate sacrifice for us. Jesus’ birth and death made it possible for us to be complete in God’s sight…whole, not lacking a single thing!
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:2, 4-5 NIV
Isn’t this the crux of the human struggle…that there is a gaping void in our lives that we try and fill with so many “good” things, avoiding struggle and discomfort as much as possible. Yet it’s in those seasons of adversity that we have a choice to make…keep filling the void with more and more ‘fluff” that is fleeting and will never truly satisfy, or to believe that Jesus is our only Savior, to have faith that He can and will use everything for our good in our life, to keep seeking God’s wisdom through prayer and stillness…and then to watch for an outpouring of PEACE…COMPLETENESS…that will come overflowing into our lives.
This Christmas season I am celebrating and praising my Prince of Peace in a whole new way…because no matter how broken my body may feel, I can stand in His presence with WHOLENESS of spirit, knowing that His plans for me are perfect, He is healing and restoring me in His perfect timing and perfect way, He is working everything for my good, He gives me joy independent from any circumstance, and that one day, when I see Him face to face, every part of me will be made whole for all eternity!
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