New Words..... Familiar Love... Perfect

Early this morning, before the sun came up, I was jolted awake with a painfully not-so-kind reminder that I am in the trenches of a celiac relapse due to gluten exposure that happened a week ago. Simply put: a relapse means titanic pain (especially after eating, once the food begins passing through the small intestine), eventual fatigue, lots of laying down, and unpleasant digestive outbursts of every kind. 

I spent much of those early hours between our tiny bathroom and living room floor. (Thankful for both!)

Our 5th wheel is divided into basically two studio apartments. One upstairs, and one downstairs. The kitchen and bathroom areas are shared. This gives our daughter the privacy she needs, and works great for the circumstance we find ourselves in. Super grateful. 

BUT... When I'm dealing with a physical trial of this magnitude... Well, there really is no privacy. Not completely any way. And certainly not for my sweet husband. 

NEWSFLASH: It isn't easy AT ALL being married to someone with multiple chronic health issues. Nope. Not one bit. 

So, as Rick was getting some much deserved sleep on the sofa with one of the pups, I cuddled up to the heater and our other pup who was looking much like a scoop of cafeteria mashed potatoes plopped into his dog bed. 

As I was sitting there, waiting for the next abdominal prompt to head to the restroom.... I looked down and noticed all my dress shoes nestled carefully near the heater. At the same moment I heard Rick's soft breathing from behind me on the couch. 

And then I rememebered how he had taken my shoes that had been stored in a cubby that started to have a mildew issue and sterilized them outside. He then brought them in to completely dry by the heater. 

Outside in the cold, wet, windy weather.

 

My dress shoes that I rarely ever wear because my left foot and ankle were forever changed in my car accident 4 years ago. 

And he was already tired when we discovered the mildew issue last evening. 

Inside my head, my life has a sound track. Much like a movie. But I don't have any say, really, about which songs play at any given moment. 

The song that came this morning as I pondered the sacrifical love of my man was.... 'So This Is Love', from Disney's original Cinderella film. Soft and sweet, it floated through my soul like a feather on a summer breeze.  

The reminder gently shook loose other recent memories of this man and his reflection-of-Jesus love for me...

Endless bowls of soft foods this last week, (read OATMEAL). Walking at a much slower pace in the grocery store, then having to wait patiently while I stop to get a picture of the sweetest, teensy, hot pink flower. Rolling down his window so I can get a good shot of a view I love with all my heart, so I don't have to stand out in the windy cold weather.

The list could go on and on, but these were the beauties that came to warm my heart and comfort my mind in that moment on the rug this morning. 

The last 4 years have been some of the most incomprehensibly hard I could ever have imagined. 

I thought I would never really write again, paint again, play again.....

But so often in life, if something that is broken is given what it needs to heal... It heals so much STRONGER. 

I'm here to say that we are living it. Even in... No, ESPECIALLY in these most difficult times. 

Thank you JESUS for this gift I have in a man named Rick Spears. 

For reminding me, in the sweetest of ways, of all the strong healing You have done and will do. 

So this is love.... Mm mm Mmm Mm.... So this IS Love....... 💗

(He held all the dogs while I took that one too.) 💗🐾

Internal Leprosy...

Sick as a dog...

Who came up with that term anyway?

I mean, I've seen plenty of dogs sick. And for the most part they still wag their tails and recover fairly rapidly... So long as it isn't something terminal.

Definitely sad...

But cats?

Cats on the other end are GNARLY when they're ill, at least in my experience.

Especially with respiratory stuff... The wheezing, the coughing, the runny eyes and bubbling mucous from their teensy nostrils....

Gnarly.

I'm currently sick.

Caught a bug from my sons and it's running it's course through my head and joints...

 Not necessarily gnarly, but it got me thinking...

My husband read a devotion to me a few mornings ago about Jesus and the Leper.

Leprosy is gnarly.

Gruesome.

Debilitating.

Isolating.

A person with leprosy in Biblical times was marked.

Commanded to cry out 'Unclean!' as they made their way through the streets to warn others of their approach.

Hopeless.

As a girl who scored a 12 out of 12 concerning touch as my Love Language, the thought of being ostracized and untouchable makes me shudder.

As my husband read the devotion he was noticeably moved. He could relate to the feelings expressed by the author.

The shame.

The horror.

The disconnectedness.

The ridicule.

Painful doesn't really do it justice...

Leprosy starts out painful but results in numbness.

Deadness.

Irretrievable loss.

What begins as a wound ends as a gaping vacancy.

There is an innate inability to heal.

We always pray after we do our devotions and that morning wasn't different.

As he held my hand I was grateful for his touch in a new way.

But as he prayed he said something that pierced me....

"Lord, I can't begin to comprehend what it would be like to be a leper. But I do know what it's like to feel shame. To feel marked. To feel disconnected. To struggle daily. To live with internal leprosy in desperate need of a Healer..."

Internal Leprosy...

What started out as a wound now numb and rotting,

or maybe even just gone.

Oh it rang through the halls of my heart and found so many places to land!

I too walked so many years with the internal dragging of emotional and mental limbs.

The rot of sin and it's consequences eating away at the beautiful gifts the Lord so carefully placed there.

The injury of abuse, divorce, addiction, unforgiveness, envy, selfishness...

And in my mind always the echo of  "Unclean... unclean.... unclean..."

On the outside, however, everything looked pretty great...

The to-do list was checked off.

The smile was intact.

The house was reasonably clean.

The obligatory duty to God and man was in order...

But inside?

Rotting.

My husband and I know that all too well...

The exhaustion of constantly covering up...

And finally the admittance that we desperately needed the Healer.

The Leper in Matthew 8 went in search of Jesus,

1 "When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.² A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

He approached Jesus...

in a large crowd.

Do you think that he was crying out 'Unclean!' as he moved in that crowd?

Or do you think that the had carefully bundled himself so that nothing showed, making sure not to let anyone get too close, planning each movement with meticulous care to assure he wouldn't be identified as...

Grotesque

Unacceptable

A lost cause

Beyond help?

I tend to think the latter...

It's my opinion for sure, but it fits the image that Scripture paints for me.

Jesus would have been the focus of the crowd.

The Leper knelt before Him.

I'm thinking the Leper was right in the middle of it all...

And how many of us are right in the middle of it all?

The middle of ministry

The middle of chronic illness

The middle of grief

The middle of parenting

The middle of mental illness

The middle of loss...

No one is immune.

We're all in the middle of something.

But I guess the question is: 

Are we in the middle with Jesus?

The Leper believed that the Jesus could heal him if He was willing...

And this was Jesus' response:

³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

"I am willing."
 
 Jesus is compassionate to depths that are unfathomable to us.

He was willing and the Leper was cleansed immediately!

I understand the heaviness of trying to make sure that my internal leprosy is covered so that I'm not identified in negative ways.

I understand the numbness that results from years of rotting wounds that eat away at mental, emotional, and spiritual nerve endings.

Jesus does too.

He knew that the wounds on the heart, mind, and soul of the Leper were in even more dire need of healing than his eroding body.

And He was willing to cleanse them all.

He has done it for me...

And He has done it for my husband.

As we continue to come across areas that fester we kneel before Him and say:

  “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

And He is.

Push through the crowds in your careful wrappings if you must.

Plan your steps meticulously and keep others at a distance if that's where you're at.

But make your way to the feet of Jesus.

Come in all your wounded, rotten, numbness.

Ask Him for wholeness, for cleansing, for healing.

Jesus is still about the business of healing leprosy of all kinds.

Even yours...




 

Learning to Stay...

Have you ever spent time with a dog that's been in a shelter for a while?

So long that maybe he doesn't know his name anymore, doesn't want to touch his food, doesn't look you in the eye?

I have.

I used to work in a shelter. A no-kill shelter, which meant that we often had animals that were nearing permanent residency.

When I first walked into the shelter I remember recognizing the body posture of an animal who had given up. The slow breathing, head hung low, dry nosed resolve to never leave. To never trust again. The loss of hope.

This doesn't happen to every animal in a shelter situation by far, but when it does it is utterly gut-wrenching.

Dogs by nature are so unconditionally loving, so forgiving, so resilient that when they give up it is only because they have been pushed to their limit.

I could instantly relate to these dogs, and cats, that I worked with. It would take patient persistence to bring them back to the possibility of trusting a human again. I had had my fair share of experiences that lent to not trusting humans and that gave me a radar that some people just don't have. The compassion and commitment that it takes to woo one of these sweet creatures back to the place of trusting taught me volumes about the love of Jesus toward his wounded children.

He really does use everything...

Once you get past the barriers to trust there is a long road to being able to obedience train these animals.

Trust is fragile, yet it is essential to obedience training.

I had a rescued terrier once that I took months to trust train. Everywhere I went he went with me. I actually had his leash looped through my belt loop... he wasn't thrilled to say the least. He had been the dog that would act like he didn't understand English, only to find out months later that he knew tons of commands. He was also the dog that would leave me "presents" that he made his-very-own-self in precise intervals the entire length of my closet floor when I had upset him by telling him no.

But I knew that he was also the dog who had been raised since he was a pup by a service man and his wife only to be dumped when the husband was overseas and the wife decided to leave. He then had been shuffled from family to family in hopes that someone would have time for him and found himself in a laundry room for 12 hours each day with a temporary family who really did have the best intentions but realized they didn't have the time to care for him properly.

That's where I came in.

Boy howdy did that dog know how to ignore with precision.

The first moment I took his leash and spoke to him he didn't even turn his head my way... I spoke his name again and he responded by promptly walking over to the nearest stationary item and marking it with his signature scent.

 Oh me. 

I knew I was in for a challenge, but I also had had the sense that this challenge had my name on it from the first moment I saw the information about this dog. So, I put him in the kennel that came with him and headed back to my house.

I had done trust training in shelter settings in the past, but never to the extent that this dog required and never in my own home. Strapped to my side; he got up when I got up, he laid down when I laid down. He even went in the restroom with me and stood by my side while I cooked dinner or folded laundry.

It was an all day, every day experience that lasted months.

Then one evening as we were all sitting around reading by candle light he did something that shocked me.

He jumped up on the couch and one by one he went to each family member, stood on our laps, and licked one of our cheeks while slowly wagging his tail.

Trust.

It had come.

He finally knew that we were not going to just arbitrarily dump him or lock him away in some room for all his active hours every day. He knew he was safe.

The hardest command I ever taught him was Stay.

Terriers by nature are easily distracted. They love to chase small animals and thirst for the hunt once they catch a scent or sight in on one. Squirrels were not helpful in my endeavors, or birds, or butterflies, or snarky fence-balancing cats.

But he got it.

Lots of treats, and much praise was a big encouragement. That and an extra long leash...

The side-by-side tethering was one tool that worked wonders for this dog that had lost his faith in humanity. Another is the Gentle Leader. It looks a bit like a muzzle but isn't really a muzzle at all. We have a rescued dog currently that was taken from his mother much too young and wasallowed to be  mishandled by very young children. These cicrumstances led him to become very nervous on a near constant basis and to have fearful aggression tendencies on certain rare occasions.

The Gentle Leader reminds him that we are RIGHT THERE. The gentle pressure on his muzzle mimics the pressure from a mother to a pup and lessens his anxiety considerably. It is a wonderful tool of help for him, and an essential one for us to be able to integrate him into situations that would normally be overwhelming to him.

The lessons I have learned from working at the shelter and from owning my own pets are innumerable. They serve as a mirror to show me the Lord's training in my own life.

He is patient.

He doesn't take me anywhere that He Himself isn't willing to go.

He is liberal with treats.

He understands why trust is hard sometimes.

And it is possible to learn to stay...


~ In Honor of Tobias Longbottom, Louie the Meatball, and all the other furry blessings that have graced our lives.