Show Your Mercy New

I have been so incredibly ungrateful.  Over the past several months, God has proven himself more faithful than I could ever hope to imagine.  And yet...it's like once He's done what I need Him to do, I practically just forget that He ever existed.  So now there's only one thing that I can do: simply ask, knowing what His answer has been and will always be, "Lord, have mercy."

From this past March till the beginning of June, I was suffering from debilitating and seemingly inexplicable pain.  Most of the time I could barely walk, and when I could it was only with the aid of huge amounts of narcotics and nerve relaxants.  An entire neuro-surgical team at Johns Hopkins Hospital couldn't find anything wrong with me, and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that I may be searching for the rest of my life for answers and never find them, and that I may have to remain in a constant mental and emotional flux due to the extreme amounts of medications needed to simply hold my pain to a manageable level.

And then my old doctor from back in Chicago had an idea: he thought that maybe my spinal fluid level was elevated and that with a lumbar puncture this level could be tested and then reduced.  In theory, this could completely alleviate my pain.

You'd think that this potential solution would excite me and give me hope.  Instead, it filled me with a dread and fear worse than anything I can remember.  You see, having to have a spinal tap again was one of my greatest fears in life.  When I was eleven and initially going through the ringer of medical tests before my doctors discovered that I have Chiari Malformation, I had several MRIs, and on one of them the doctors saw a blurry spot.  This could simply mean that I moved ever so slightly during the taking of that image or it could mean something much worse (i.e. a tumor or some other irregularity in my spinal column).  My doctor recommended a spinal tap, and my parents consented.

The actual procedure itself, while uncomfortable and quite annoying, wasn't that bad (probably mostly due to the fact that I had no real clue what they were doing, and thus my nerves couldn't set in).  The worst part was afterwards.  First, I had to lay flat on my back for upwards of six hours.  For an eleven year old kid, this seemed like torture.  I couldn't get up to eat or go to the bathroom or even just to stretch.  I had to remain relatively still and could only switch positions from my back to my side (or vise versa) every so often.  The reason for all of this was to make sure that my spine had time to form a clot over the hole which the spinal tap put in it.

While I vaguely remember this six plus hour process as being beyond annoying, that's not really what sticks out in my mind.  What I remember most vividly, what still makes me cringe at the very thought was the one thing that laying on my back for over six hours was supposed to prevent: spinal headaches (and all the wonderful things that come with it).

At some point while lying on my back in the hospital room, the doctors came back in with the results of the spinal tap: everything was fine and the initial assumption was assumed correct (I probably moved ever so slightly during the MRI process).  After about five and a half hours of lying flat on my back, I actually ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half and was thus flat on my back for at least seven hours.  After I woke up, the doctors sent me home essentially because they had run out of ideas to explain my pain and I was reasonably well medicated.

The next couple days were filled with a pain that I can just barely begin to explain.  My head literally felt like it was going to explode.  My room had to be blackened as much as possible and my family could only speak to me in whispers.  Every time I had to raise my head above my heart, these symptoms multiplied tenfold and I would begin to throw up violently and uncontrollably.  I barely let myself eat or drink.  This lasted for about a day and a half when my parents knew that I simply couldn't go on like this.  They took me back to the hospital where the doctors drew some blood out of my arm to essentially force a clot to form over the hole in my spinal cord where my spinal fluid was leaking.

These memories are some of the worst in my life.  On a scale of one to ten, the pain that I felt was easily skyrocketing past a twelve.  So knowing that I might have to go through it again terrified me.  But at the same, I knew that I couldn't keep living like that.  I couldn't spend the rest of my life feeling high out of my mind on narcotics while still only barely able to walk.

So when I went home in June, I scheduled an appointment with my old doctor in Chicago.  We scheduled the lumbar puncture for the day after my LSAT, which actually meant that I couldn't focus on my potentially paralyzing fear, so that was good (although the stress of studying for the LSAT wasn't necessarily a fun alternative).

The actual procedure turned out to be not that bad.  They put me under anesthesia, so I remember very little. After I had been in recovery for about an hour, the nurse started talking to me about sitting up.  This is when my fear really set in.  It took me probably another hour or so to get up the courage to just tilt the bed forward a little.  Over the next several hours and even days, I was incredibly anxious at even the slightest pressure or pain in my head.

But the headaches never came.

I have yet to really sit down and process what all this means.  Since I had that lumbar puncture and they drained a huge portion of my spinal fluid, I have yet to feel like I cannot walk down the hall.  To be perfectly honest, the hardest thing since then has been both getting off of my narcotics and building back up my endurance after having been forced to remain relatively sedentary for several months.  For the past week or so, I have been pretty much off of my narcotics (for the first time in months) and my endurance is coming back.

You'd think that I'd be shouting about the amazing provision of God from every rooftop I can.  And yet...

And then at the end of last month, it became quite evident that my maternal grandfather's leukemia had progressed rapidly and he would only have a couple more days to live.  I've only begun to process everything that happened in the days before and after my grandpa's death, but there's one thing that I know for sure: the one thing that I asked God for was some form of reassurance that my Grandpa was truly a man of faith.  You see, everyone had been saying that we knew he was going to a better place and that he was just "graduating" into heaven and other such platitudes.  But the thing is that for my entire life my grandfather has always just been a man that I see at most a few times a year.  I loved him dearly and will always remember his love and sense of humour incredibly fondly.  But unlike my paternal grandfather of whom practically my every memory is of him telling stories about how God has worked in his life or professing his incredible faith, my memories of my maternal grandfather are all about him playing games and telling jokes to me and and my brothers.  The day that my grandfather died, when I knew that he only had a few hours left, I lay on a park bench just crying because while every one else had such confidence about where my Grandpa was going, I felt like I couldn't know.  While I know that no one but God can ever know for sure, there can at least be a reasonable degree of confidence if you know the person's heart.  I cried because I never really knew my Grandpa, at least not on a spiritual level.

A few hours later I got the call from my Dad that my grandpa had passed and the story that he told me took my breath away:  throughout that whole day, my grandfather had been almost entirely out of it, never fully having a lucid moment.  Furthermore, he rarely had his eyes opened, and when he did they were foggy and unfocused.  But in the moments before his death, my grandfather opened his eyes, clear as ever, tried his hardest to sit up, hum, and sing along to his favourite hymn: "How Great Thou Art".  After he sang through the whole song once, my mother and aunt told their daddy to go home.  And he breathed his last.

My grandfather died with a song in his heart and worship on his lips.  And I know that, at least in part, my grandfather died in that incredible, God-filled way in answer to my prayer.  My grandfather's death was God's amazing way of giving me peace.

Yet I haven't admitted that to anyone.  Until now that is.  And I really can't seem to figure out why.  I don't know why I feel like I can't admit how much God has done for me.  I'm still in this place where, if my Christian friends are talking on the metro about how God is working in their lives, I still look around, worried that some people within earshot might hear what we're talking about and think that we're crazy.  I don't entirely know why I'm like this, but I do know that it needs to change.  I need to be bolder and I need to be so much more willing to just be honest about who I am and what I believe.

So I claim God's mercy, because I know that it truly is new every morning.  So tomorrow I will begin a new day, and maybe tomorrow I will be just a little bit bolder and I little bit less shy about everything that I am and everything that God is, and how incredibly amazing He has been in my life.  Maybe I'll actually be able to use this testimony and this voice and these words to impact someone's life, someone else who is desperately crying out for some reassure, crying out for answers, crying out for some peace.

I might actually be good at this...

I know I said a couple weeks ago that I'd write a post updating you all on what has happened with my medical situation, and I really have been trying to...for the past two weeks...  And it's just become this long, rambling, and fairly incoherent post with no actual point.  I'd be happy to give actual details to anyone who really wants to know, just Facebook me or email me or whatever.  But suffice it to say that I went back to my old doctor at the University of Chicago and he had a solution...a solution that scared the shit out of me (due to a horrendous past experience), but by the power of Jehovah alone, I was able to get through it.  And for the past two weeks, I've been relatively pain free...for the first time in about three months (except for the fact that I'm going through major narcotic withdrawal, which is never fun).

But that's not the reason I'm writing this.  I'm writing this because, yesterday, I went on my second hospital advocacy call with the DC Rape Crisis Center.  And it was...intense, to say the least, but it also served as an amazing reminder of where I'm going and what I need to be doing with my life.  And it re-confirmed that I might actually be good at this...

Since school ended I've been focusing pretty much all my attention (with the exception of studying for and taking the LSAT) on my political interests.  I've been interning at EMILY's List, an organization that works at all levels, (national, state and local) to elect pro-choice democratic women.  Furthermore, working at this incredible (and remarkably influential) organization, I've begun to believe that my next step after graduation (this coming December) may be working on a campaign.  And this place can get me there  After asking some former interns if they had any specific advice regarding how to get onto a campaign, the thing which stuck out in my mind the most was one of the former interns saying, "Think about and write down the five names of the people on whose campaigns you would most like to work.  Then talk to people here [at EMILY's List].  They'll make it happen."

 My jaw is still kind of on the floor after that one.

See, when I applied for this internship, I knew that I loved EL and that it had a great mission and had done some cool things.  I had absolutely zero conception of their reach.  I didn't know that the President of EMILY's List, Stephanie Schriock, was the campaign manager for Al Franken.  Yeah, that campaign.  I had no clue that Denise Feriozzi, the director of the WOMEN VOTE! department (basically, EL's Get Out The Vote arm) was the Field Director for Hillary Clinton's Iowa Caucus race.

This place is incredible, and there are so many people here that I can learn from and so much to do that I agree with and love doing.  But...

There's that little thing in the back of my head that I know: This just isn't my passion.  Yeah, I love it, and in so many ways I'm obsessed with it, but it's not my calling.  It intrigues me, amuses me, and excites me, but I don't have that guttural need to do this.  Not like when I'm touching on anything to do with combating sexual violence.

That's where this past weekend comes in.  As many of you probably know, I'm a volunteer at the DC Rape Crisis Center, and I take both crisis hotline calls and hospital advocacy shifts.  Well, on Saturday I had an advocacy shift and, for only the second time since starting, I got called in.  Now, as usual, I can't actually talk about details, but needless to say it was a very intense call.  But beyond all that, for me, it was a remarkable affirmation of who I'm meant to be, of everything I'm meant to do.  Because this was my second time going on an advo call, I was confident enough about where I was going and what I was doing that I could actually just settle in and trust my instincts.  And as I've seen many times in the past, that's when I actually can do a good job.  After the major portion of the call was over, I had a moment alone with the SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), and even though throughout the call I thought I had been getting very mixed signals from her, she actually told me that I had done a really good job, and she was shocked that it was only my second call.  Later, as I was spending a few final minutes with the survivor, she told me that I had made the whole process much easier for her and that she thought I would do a great job as a sex crimes prosecutor.

I'm not repeating all of this to try and toot my own horn or brag or whatever.  It's just that as I'm getting deeper and deeper into the political world, I love remembering what my true calling is.  And I need to remind myself that politics isn't it, as much as I may love this crazy world of American politics.

Oh, and by the way: I'm an American citizen now.  It's very weird...

Who I am Meant to Be

I was reminded yesterday of how very much I love litigation.  In my honours colloquium, Women and the Law, we posed as fake lawyers and Supreme Court Justices alternatively and argued a real Supreme Court case.  We had to prepare briefs and be aware of the inquiry style of the Justice to whom we were assigned.  It has been so long since I have been in a fake litigation setting that I entirely forgot what it felt like: the exhilarating anxiety, the feeling of my brain finding the central issue at hand and articulating it, the heart-pounding feeling of not having the answer, the amazing ability to bullshit something that somehow manages to be convincing.

I find it very strange.  I really hate speaking extemporaneously.  My brain seems to always freeze and I can't remember what I wanted to talk about.  I especially don't like to be forced to talk when I'm not highly versed in the field.

Now with that last statement in mind, I'm in no way claiming to be highly versed in the law, or even in any specific area of the law.  But somehow, for some reason, when I get up to the podium and begin to articulate a legal argument, and then a panel of "justices" inquires, interrogates, and attacks everything that I say, I get this incredible high and I find a way to combat and to redirect and to figure out what the central issue is.  And I somehow manage to focus on that central point, and hopefully manage to get my point across.

I'm going to get to do it again a week from today in my Con Law class, and I'm beyond excited.  Not because I have some lofty idea that I'm somehow amazing at it.  But because it reminds and affirms that this is what I was meant to do.  Even if I fumble, and falter, and fail, I still have this feeling inside that I can't even begin to describe.  It's just this feeling, this high, this invigorating voice which whispers in my heart and in my soul: "you were meant for this."

And I needed this affirmation.  I'm facing the prospect of LSATs and law school applications and all of these overwhelming things which seem to try and discourage me from pursuing this long-standing goal.  So I'm just so grateful that right when I needed it most, God gave me this affirmation of everything that I am striving to be.

Rejecting Jesus

My roommate recently told me about a class discussion which she had to participate in which was essentially a very frank and open discussion about the class members' personal religious beliefs.  Of those in the class with religious beliefs, there were several Roman Catholics, one culturally protestant Christian who openly admitted to not actually believing in God (not entirely sure how that works), one protestant Christian who didn't say much other than that she was a protestant Christian, and my roommate, a very passionate, outspoken, and charismatic protestant Christian.  The rest of the members of the class were either agnostic or atheist.

As the discussion progressed, much of the attention became focused on my roommate, as she was the only regularly active and devoutly outspoken religious person in the room.  Furthermore, her beliefs seemed radical to most of the rest of the class.  Much scrutiny was paid to the fact that my roommate believes that whether or not one goes to heaven is not based upon the good or bad things which one does in his/her life.  Instead, it is based upon one's belief and faith in Jesus.  Serial killers and child molesters, if they truly believe and accept that Jesus died on their behalf, will go to heaven; likewise, if Gandhi or Mother Theresa never came to believe and accept Jesus' sacrifice for them, they will go to hell.  To everyone (or at least every one who spoke up) in the room, this was an entirely novel concept.

Now, I have no clue who all reads this blog or what your respective backgrounds are, but I grew up in a devoutly protestant Christian home in which we went to church more than once a week, I went to a Christian highschool, and even here at American U., my closest friends tend to share at least my most basic religious beliefs.  So, to me, the idea that someone wouldn't understand the most basic tenant of my faith made no sense.  We live in a supposedly Christian nation, and while I know AU is very unique in its frequent rejection of devout Christianity, it never really dawned on me that some people here (or really anywhere in America for that matter) might not understand at least the very basic tenants of my faith.

So I'm going to lay it out.  Not to try and convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point, and beyond that, it would never work.  Believing in this requires both knowledge and faith.  Knowledge alone will never lead one to believe.  But I digress.  I'm only sharing this because I don't want to keep talking about being a Christian and about having faith, without people understanding what it is I mean by that.  It was my own naivety, personal comfort bubble, and cowardice that has kept me from doing this thus far, and I really am sorry for that.

This is what I believe to be true to the core of my being.  It is my statement of faith, and my declaration of love for this crazy radical man and son of God named Jesus:

I believe that this world is broken, and that everyone in it is entirely screwed up.  There's something terribly wrong with this place and these people.  We weren't meant to be like this.  We were made by a sovereign and holy God who loves us completely, but who also gave us free will, because he didn't want robots.  With this free will, we screwed up, and we continue to screw up.  Because God is entirely perfect, entirely good, and entirely holy (meaning that He cannot allow Himself to be with anyone who is not entirely perfect and good as well), he can no longer be connected with us like He used  to be.  However, because God is also compassionate and loving beyond anything that we could ever imagine, He cannot stand to be away from us, and He continues to help us and even show Himself to us, even though it hurts his holiness.  So God had to somehow find a way to reconcile His need to not be with imperfect beings and his need to embrace us with His unceasing love.  Well, God has a Son, and that Son agreed to come to this earth over 2,000 years ago to show us the extend of God's crazy radical, heart-wrenchingly awesome love for us.  Jesus didn't come here to condemn us, but simply to love us.  He also came here to show us what it's like to love those around us.  He wasn't here to set up some great moral code, but instead to be a radical, crazy example of what it's like to love those who are absolutely least in this world.  The culmination of this radical life of love was to agree to be tortured and brutally killed, accepting the ultimate punishment for every crappy thing which every human being to walk this earth has ever done so that no one else has to.  Jesus died for everyone, because He loves us all so God damn much that He couldn't stand the thought of any of us spending an eternal afterlife of total separation from all things good, including and especially God Himself.  God doesn't want anyone to experience what that total lack of Him is like, so he offered His son to die on our behalf.  The even more amazing thing about it all, though, is that, because Jesus never actually did anything wrong while on earth, death had no power over Him, so after three days in the grave, He rose from the dead, having conquered all disease, every horrible thing any human being has ever thought or done, and death itself, both physical and spiritual.

I don't fully understand it all, and it makes no sense to me why Jesus would do what He did, but what I do know is that if I simply believe it to be true and accept and truly accept that Jesus died in my place, and I will be able to spend eternity being completely connected to Jesus and everything that is good and amazing in this world and the next.

What I think that I like most about what Jesus did for me (and everyone else) is that he lived out this crazy radical life, basically just showing us how it's done.  He was entirely radical.  I know that I've said it already, but he really, truly was.  He declared the entire legal and moral code obsolete.  He advocated socialism.  He was a total feminist.

That last one's my favourite, and I love how much evidence there is to support it.

During the time of Jesus, women were not allowed to learn the Torah or address men in public (or even in private depending on the relationship).  Yet many of Jesus' good friends were women, during a time when women were viewed as essentially less than maggots. He allowed women to be His disciples.  In fact, Jesus' female followers were the only ones to stay with Him throughout His whole trial and execution; all of His male followers deserted Him, though they eventually returned.  He listened to women and showed them respect.  He refused to condemn and therefore saved the life of a woman with the worst reputation imaginable (she kept sleeping with other people's husbands).  Many scholars believe that Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' closest friends, yet she was a former prostitute.

And yet over the past years, decades, even centuries, the organized Christian church has chosen to reject this Jesus whom I have come to love so much.  The church tends to pay lip-service to Christ, and then immediately launch into its impossible laundry list of moral and political expectations for "good" Christians.

The Church has forgotten about Jesus, about his radicalism, and his socialism, about His feminism, about all of the crazy stuff which He did for the sole purpose of showing how radical His love is.  In fact, it's worse than a mere forgetting.  I believe that, in so many ways, the modern church has rejected this Jesus.  Instead of focusing on the most broken and hurting populations in our society in order to love them radically, the church seeks out these populations in order to condemn them and tell them how to change.  Instead of picking up Jesus' feminist mantle and advocating for female equality, the church lectures young women about their proper place in the church, in society, and in the home.  Instead of rejecting the legalism of the religious leaders which Jesus condemned so harshly (the only people whom Jesus condemned were the religious leaders, ironically), the church has created its own hierarchical list of morality.

By embracing the gospel of fear, the gospel of capitalism (aka the "Prosperity Gospel"), and the gospel of the Religious Right, the modern church has utterly rejected the radical, all-inclusive, even socialist message of Jesus.  This is why I have such a problem with the modern Church, and yet I still love Jesus so much.  But like St. Augustine says, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother."  As much as I can't stand how the church has distorted and utterly rejected my Jesus, I still must love her, even though it hurts.

This is what I believe.  I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point.  Jesus didn't sit around arguing and cajoling people into finally conceding that He was the Son of God.  No, half the time He didn't even want it to be said out loud.  Instead, He just lived his life, let his radical actions and ideas speak for themselves, and then asked His followers to live radical lives too, and to simply tell His story.  So that's what I'm trying to do.

I refuse to reject this amazing man named Jesus, no matter how crazy radical He seems.  He is my salvation, my reason for living, my everything.  And a long time ago, I said to him, "Yes, Here I am.  Send me."  And so I go, knowing full well that where thus life may lead may be crazy and radical and uncomfortable.  But that's ok, because the Jesus that I know will give me exactly what I need to live this life.  I will not reject Him, and I even will not reject the modern church, but I will reject what they've done to my Jesus.

Another feminist rant. What else did you expect?

So it really annoys me when people (male or female) make references to a specific piece of the male anatomy as a dysphemism for courage of some kind.  It's another one of those cultural slip of the tongues that most people say without even thinking.  It permeates our airwaves and our movies and our every expression.  And yet it serves as a constant reminder to women that they are less than, that they are incapable of achieving the same level of courage, audacity, or toughness that a "real man" can.

A friend's recent facebook status update used the phrase "...maybe one day I'll have the balls to [do the same thing which someone I respect does now]."  He was talking about a man of God and the courage which he had to talk about the true meaning of sex, as well as calling out men's improper and even violent treatment of women.  The message of the video my friend was promoting is absolutely fantastic, but I almost didn't even want to watch it due to the off-handed "balls" comment.

In one of my favourite movies, Whip It, the main character's best friend, Pash, tells Bliss that she doesn't have the "balls" to try out for the Austin all-girls roller derby team.  The movie is about a bunch of kick-ass, rough-and-tumble, anti-establishment women who basically say a big "F-you" to society's view of the proper place of women by wearing slutty clothing, having tons of very visible tattoos, and obsessively competing in the hard core game of Roller Derby.  And yet, by saying that she will "grow the balls" to learn how to play Roller Derby, she basically infers that this all-female sport really requires some form of maleness.

I've never understood why this anatomical reference is necessary.  I'm very aware that the people who say it rarely mean anything by it, but there is a very clear subtext behind the phrase.  That subtext goes something like this: "I am less than a true man because I can't do [whatever it is that he/she is trying to do]; furthermore, a true woman would never be able to do this thing."  However, what most people who are using this phrase truly means is "I don't have the courage/toughness to be able to do this thing, but I wish I did."

I'm gonna state the obvious here, because it apparently isn't so obvious to some people:

Men are not inherently more capable of courage or toughness.  Nor do men who lack said qualities become less than a true man.
Women do not inherently lack courage or toughness, and they don't have to become like a man in order to gain these qualities.

The phrase "grow some balls" (and its variations) is just one of the phrases which permeates our society which inherently degrade women.  "Man-up," "who wears the pants in that family?" and "Is it that time of the month?"  All of these phrases tell women that, due to their sex, they are somehow less than men.  Womanhood is negative.  Our two little tiny X-shaped chromosomes determine our lesser place in society and in the world.

Speaking of which, I find it incredibly strange that at a University which is 70% female, women very rarely run for student government positions and are even more rarely actually elected.  For this reason, I'm considering applying for an SG cabinet position for next fall.  Not sure though.  I've never really thought about getting officially involved in politics, but I figured, if I'm going to complain about a lack of women in the Student Government, I might as well do something about it.  Because at a majority female institution, we deserve to have female representation.  Because I am woman enough, and no actual balls are required.

It's not about me

Yesterday, I had a really, really good appointment with my new primary care physician.  We now have a plan for going forward, for figuring out what's causing this.  My pain is now firmly under control.  It spikes every once and a while when I overdo it, but I can usually just take an oxycodone, and it gets back under control.  I'm back in classes (actually in a class right now.  shhhhhh...don't tell the professor), and feeling like my normal life can actually resume.

On Monday night, I took a hotline shift (for those who might not know, I volunteer for the DC Rape Crisis Center and help staff their 24 hour crisis hotline).  Because I've been taking hotline for quite a while now, I actually felt fairly comfortable dealing with the two calls that I got (due to confidentiality reasons, I can't share anything about the actual calls).  But I think what felt even better than that was the fact that, for the first time in practically two weeks, I was able to completely forget myself.

I wasn't talking to these two people about my own present pain levels or my medications or my search for doctors or answers.  Instead, I was simply spending three hours of my life being ready to listen...and counsel...and encourage...and empower...and just listen.  Listen to people who, at that moment in their lives, had no one else in their lives who could just listen to them.  So I was that person for them.  And it had nothing to do with me.  It was all about them.  And it felt so amazing.  To shed my own problems and concerns for a while and just be there for someone else.

It made me realize how much I don't like it when everything is focused on me.

Because that's not the point of my life.  I dedicated my life a long time ago to helping people, to making the lives of people who have been through horrible trauma just a little bit better.  And spending the last two weeks just focused on myself has been in such opposition to who I am, and what I care about.  It's been so draining. And I really don't like it.

I understand people's urge to ask how I'm doing, to find out if I'm in pain, to ask how they can pray, to see where the doctors are at in finding an answer.  I get it.  And if I were in their shoes, I would be doing the same thing.

But I miss being able to just have normal conversations.  To talking about how other people are doing, how classes are going, what's happening in current events, or even about the weather.

I want it to not be about me.

The Final Chapter

Earlier this year I felt the need to start reading through the Bible chronologically (i.e. in the order that the events actually occurred, which may or may not be the order in which the books are placed in the actual Bible). Therefore, after getting through Genesis 11:10, I flipped to the middle of my Bible and began reading through Job. Now I began this whole process in January, and actually started reading Job at the beginning of February, long before I had any clue about what was going to happen with me medically.

Well, as I have been saying continuously throughout this whole thing: Jehovah Jireh. The Lord provides. Today I reached the final few chapters of Job, when God finally comes out and provides Job with clarity. Not necessarily the clarity that Job thought he wanted, but absolutely the clarity that he needed. God explained in magnificent, poetic language just how beyond Job’s comprehension His infinite wisdom and understanding are. At the end, Job was satisfied, not because he had answers to the age-old question of why suffering exists, but because he had learned what it meant to fellowship with God in suffering.

I’ve been here at the hospital in Baltimore for the past 21 hours. Late last night, as I was still sitting in the ER admittance area, I was told some of the worst possible news I could be told: my MRIs look normal, better even than before. Now you’d think I would be happy and relieved by this conclusion, but what it means is that we have absolutely no clue what is causing my reoccurring symptoms. We’re back at square one. And square one means weeks and months of re-explaining my symptoms to countless nurses, physician assistants, residents, and specialists. I’m already beyond exhausted. I don’t know how to explain my pain in a way that these medical professional can comprehend and fit within a specific box.

It’s not burning or sharp pain. It’s not tingling or numb. It’s not really aching. It’s just extreme hypersensitivity. To everything. My mom got here today and simply laid her hand on my leg at one point in a gesture of comfort, and I jerked away in pain. Just lying on this bed, my legs will sometimes start shaking because it feels like my nerves are going crazy. Like they’re on hyperdrive.

These are the types of things which I say to the medical staff, and they never seem satisfied. They want me to explain it more, or differently. Just like nine years ago, it doesn’t seem to make sense to them because the pain doesn’t seem to fit within their strict categories of types of pain.

Well, what can I say: I’ve never been one for fitting within predefined boxes.

But getting back to the point: when I heard the news that nothing was wrong, that the MRIs were essentially clear, I just broke down sobbing. I can handle it when I know what to expect, when I know the war path. If it’s that my Chiari decompression surgery wasn’t complete enough or needs to be redone for whatever reason, fine. Do it again. Take some more skull out. Make it better. If it’s that my syrinxes are acting up and need to be shunted: fine. Shunt away. But when you tell me that neurosurgery sees nothing wrong with me and we’re starting over: that, I can’t process. That sends me over the edge.

I spent the rest of the night alternating between sobbing and just staring blankly at the wall, trying not to think about what this all meant.

But I’m coming to realize that, no matter how scary, no matter how overwhelming, God is in control. I know Him. I know His providence and His grace and His love. As the title of this blog (and my next tattoo) references, I know that even in my darkest hour, even when I feel totally alone and abandoned, God is here, hovering over me, protecting me, sheltering me. I will rest in His shadow. Because the Lord will provide. Just like the lesson that Job learned, there’s no point in asking why if you know who God is.

And just as the book of Job ends with Job restored, not because of his personal repentance or righteousness, but because of the Lord’s graciousness, I know that no matter what happens in my life, God will write the last chapter. And it will be beyond anything I could ever imagine. I can’t even begin to describe my elation.