A JOYFUL NOISE

My soul finds rest in God alone, My Rock and my salvation; A fortress strong against my foes, And I will not be shaken. Though lips may bless and hearts may curse, And lies like arrows pierce me, I'll fix my heart on righteousness, I'll look to Him who hears me.  O praise Him, hallelujah, My Delight and my reward; Everlasting, never failing, My Redeemer, my God. ---------------------------------------------------------   This past week proved to be a very hard week for me; and I can honestly tell you that I'm still processing it all. I will probably still process it for a while.  It's been an emotionally and physically tough week and as you all know, both go hand and hand.  Physically, I've been struggling so much. Struggling with the pain, struggling with my cognitive function, and just plain struggling.  I can see you down the hall and have a question in my mind; but as I'm walking towards you I will completely blank out and have no clue why I w...

“I’m ready to sign up to be a crew leader”   “Are you sure you are able to do this?” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Posters were up probably by May. Recruiting started shortly after.   Was it already that time?   I’ve done VBS for quite some time. It was something I loved doing.  Working and helping shepherd kids is something I’ve enjoyed doing and continue to do.  It’s where my heart lies. It’s where I find joy. And for me to double question myself about serving never came about. I knew exactly what my friend’s point was when she asked me if I were really up to the task of being a crew leader or not.  Crew leaders really needed the energy, strength, and endurance throughout the week to help lead and guide the kids.  She knew my physical self hasn’t been all that great lately; and they do need a strong leader.   I knew my physical state hasn’t been all that well.  My chronic pain has been on the flare and other ph...

“God in His Love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty. He has the power to bring it about.   God is completely sovereign; God is infinite in Wisdom. God is perfect in Love…….. While it is certainly true that God’s love for us does not protect us from pain and sorrow, it is also true that all occasions of pain and sorrow are under the absolute control of God. If God controls the circumstances of the sparrow, how much more does He control the circumstances that affect us? God does not walk away and leave us the mercy of uncontrolled random or chance events”     --Jerry Bridges, Trusting God Even When Life Hurts One of my favorite devotional books and authors is Jerry Bridges.   His book Trusting God Even When Life Hurts is among one of my favorite out of many of his books. I got this book from a good friend of the family when I graduated from high school; I also was a baby Christian at that tim...

Back on February 25th, my pain management doctor (Dr Davis) approached my lower right side pain a little differently.  He decided to do the usual pain block procedure as he usually does; however, at the same time, he also did an oblation.  This is when he uses heat to basically "burn" that specific nerve.  I have had an oblation done before, but it only lasted a few weeks (I think about 4-6 weeks).  However, the first time my first pain management doctor (Dr. Lee) did the oblation, he went with the traditional method, which means, he did very very low heat and pulsated the nerve.  This means, the heat didn't totally kill the nerve; but sorta of "kept it quiet".  Also when I first had the oblation, Dr Lee didn't use any pain block medication either.   However, this second go around with the oblation along with the pain block preformed by Dr Davis is a bit different.  Dr. Davis went more conventional on the oblation; that is, he went with full ...

Last week, I was sitting in the waiting room at the Augusta Lifetime Physical Therapy.  I was waiting for my therapist and was minding my own business by playing a game on my phone.  There was a Mother and a little girl sitting in the waiting room.  I guess perhaps they were waiting for a family member to be done with therapy or something.  As I was looking at my phone, I heard the little girl (she had to have been no more than 3 years old) ask her Mom "Mommy what happened to her face?", as she was pointing to me.  Her mom graciously told her not to point or stare and told her that she didn't know and that perhaps my being there at therapy would help me.   My heart was in the middle of sinking and smiling.  I'll explain to you why.  I absolutely loved her Mom's answer. She gave her daughter a simple answer, which she accepted because the Mom didn't know why.  What the Mom said isn't too "far-fetched" because I have had OT/PT for my phys...

As most of you know, this has been an extremely rough year for me.  Almost every.single.month. I've had an appointment with either a UVA doctor or my Augusta Health doctor. I've had numerous tests, studies, procedures, ect. I look at it in a positive way that all of the tests came back negative which is good and none of the scans showed any significant  changes (of concern at this point).   Due to my health, my usual yearly surgeries for continual NF tumor removal was not a good idea, so that was put off until I get a bit stronger.  I'm a bit of a mess......as my neurologists (yes, I have two neurologists), pain management doctor, GI doctor, and whole slew of other doctors would say since they can't figure out the cause of anything.    I'm about worn out from the exorbitant amount of tests and studies that was done to me JUST THIS past several week.  In the first week in December I was getting tested for some swallowing issues I wa...

Over the past couple of months, I've been in and out of doctors' appointments, medical studies, etc.  It's been very tiresome and one thing I am grateful for is that so far most of my tests has come back negative. Yet, the flip side to this is that doctors are baffled at what is causing my increased medical issues which are: --increased head pain --increased abdominal pain --increased confusion/cognitive issues, including falling for no apparent reason (Side note: For those of you wondering, my increased cognitive issues is a bit scary.  Imagine yourself "wondering" around somewhere, knowing you are suppose to find someone/something, but you just feel "lost" or just not realizing where you are or what time of day it is. My Mom has seen this on numerous occasions).   I had a neurology followup a couple weeks ago and my doctor figured it would be a good idea to have an MRI to see if there were any NF tumors in my brain that could cause any of these...