I hadn't anticipated making my first post about my "exciting" trip to the E.R. a couple of weekends ago, but it seems to be a good place to start.
As emotions and thoughts flood my heart, I can't help but let them flow onto the keys of my keyboard. I have struggled with the idea for several months that my life could be under attack by the evil one. I have also encountered those whom when they hear me talk of spiritual warfare, roll their eyes in annoyance because in their minds, what I'm experiencing is nothing more than coincidence and hard times. But I just can't shake the feeling that the evil one and his disgusting demons are nipping at my heels and hoping to sink their teeth into my flesh, leaving a fatal wound; not a wound that would cause me literal death, but one that would shake my faith to the point of unbelief. I am certain that this battle exists and that it is going on in my life right now. It's biblical!
Ephesians 6:11-12
"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Hebrews 1:14
"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?"
Romans 8:37-39
" No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The Ephesians verse tells us to put on our full armor of God so that we take our stand against the devil's schemes and talks of our war against him as a struggle. It sheds light also on the fact that these beings have power! In Hebrews, we are told that the angels are sent to serve all of those who will inherit salvation. Why on earth would God send us angels, unless He of course knew of the battle we would be facing with the dark powers of this world! And in Romans, it states that we are conquerors through Him (Jesus) who loved us! How can we be conquerors unless we were fighting something? And it states right in that same passage of scripture who we overcame (in spiritual battle): death, life, angels, demons, present, future, any powers, height, depth, and anything else in all creation!
Ok, so now you have some pretty strong evidence of why I believe spiritual warfare exists and that God commands us to wear the armor of God, and that it must be fairly common! Especially against those who love Jesus! I believe an attack has been made on my life and ministry for Jesus, particularly because I have made it clear in my life and writings that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords and that in His presence, Satan has no authority or power! That is why I believe this war has been waged against me.
With my point made, I'd like to invite you to skim the steps of my last few months as I verbally journey through the attacks of the evil one and rejoice over God's tremendous victory!
After being plagued with terrible head-aches for months and months and received the chiding of my loving husband to go and see an eye doctor, I finally relented and made the trip. To my great surprise, I needed glasses! And for a while, the glasses helped with my head-aches. But after a few weeks of significantly less occurrences of these pains, they started to surge again and with new strength. Shortly after the head-aches returned, I was asked to speak at a banquet, sharing my story of Ella and how God saved her life and the hopes I had to inspire others to save the lives of their babies by taking a stand against abortion. This was the undeniable launching point of many more personal attacks on not only my health, but on Ella's as well.
As I mentally and prayerfully prepared for the banquet, I could see that the evil one was trying to throw me off track at every turn. Ella came down with some breathing problems that just wouldn't go away. At one point, she began wheezing so badly that we took her into the Emergency Room and later had to undergo breathing treatments, multiple inhaler doses and x-rays. During my time of preparation, Ella's breathing became so concerning that her doctor began suspecting that she was not simply having trouble breathing, but swallowing as well. When we took Ella in for the video x-ray swallow-study, we discovered that Ella was aspirating on every sip! It was suspected that Ella's aspirations had been going on for so long that even with large portions of fluid escaping into her lungs, she no longer had the urge to cough! We were then sent to a Pulmonology specialist who could diagnose and treat each of Ella's breathing issues, which we found out were: Chronic lung disease (portions of dead lung from the life-support at birth), Asthma, Aspirations of fluid both from drinking fluids and acid reflux, and smaller than normal lungs because she had no amniotic fluid to develop them in the womb!
With all of that going on, I think the evil one thought he had put a pretty severe wrench in my preparations for the banquet, but to what I assume to be his undoubted frustration of foiled attempts to dissuade me, he lathered on more roadblocks. The nights leading up to the banquet, when I sat to write my speech, were afflicted with surges of blurred vision, splitting head-aches, and even disorientation and memory loss! Immediately I knew I was under attack. But as I stated before, Satan's power cannot even hold a light to the power of God! As the physical symptoms persisted, I went in for a CT scan of my head to see if there could be any cysts or remaining parasites from our year-long stay in South America the year before, but received only the answer that I had a sinus infection. So, with the continued, strange symptoms in my head and no real answers, I journeyed on through prayer, prayer and more prayer. I plead for God's clarity and for something coherent to somehow run through my fingertips and into my speech. And wouldn't you know that God was more than faithful to provide words that not only made sense, but pierced hearts and lives at the banquet! I had people come up to me afterwards and share how something I had said, touched their hearts and inspired them to take new steps of faith! The amazing thing though, is that I had no idea I had said any of the words they were saying that I had said! Isn't God amazing!
With the banquet behind me, I thought things would ease up. But, for those of you who read my blog about Ella, know that our family vacation to the coast, that followed only two days after the banquet, was cruelly attacked as well, with a popped tire, a trailer fridge that went out, heater that stopped working, lights that refused to flip on and us left in the dark for hours, and several other "bumps" in the road... Thankfully, God did not allow us to wallow for too long in self-pitty and brought us as a family to His gracious throne in prayer over the rest of our trip. Minutes later, we were roasting marshmallows over the gas flame of our trailer stove by the light of a flashlight. Bundled in our warmest clothes (because the heater went out), warming our hands by the flame of the stove, roasting the marshmallows, squishing them into chocolatey crackers and then into our mouths was so much fun! It will be one of my favorite memories from a trip that God mightily swooped in and rescued from the schemes and evil plans of the evil one. Praise Him!
When we returned home from our awesome family vacation, and I realized that my sinus infection had not gone away with the antibiotics and extra doses that my doctor had prescribed, I went in to see another doctor. Her first course of action was to put me on a stronger antibiotic to get rid of the persistent sinus infection that had plagued me for over three weeks at that point and then look into what all of my other symptoms could be pointing to. She did have the lab draw some blood, but she didn't want to do any other sort of brain MRI until my sinus infection had cleared up.
That night, only minutes after taking the first dose of my antibiotic, I experience a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction. My entire body swelled up, turned red, and was covered with both tiny bumps and hives! My eyes and lips became so big that I could hardly see or speak. The scariest part though was when my airway began to close. Calvin rushed me to the E.R. but when we got there, my throat had closed so tightly that when I walked briskly into the lobby, my oxygen had depleted so much that I fell to the floor and blacked out for a moment. I remember willing my eyes to open in fear that they would perform a tracheotomy when they discovered that my airways were blocked. In seconds, I had become aware enough to stand back up and allow them to get me to a hospital bed. With the lack of movement and the tiny hole remaining in my airway, I was able to oxygenate well enough for them to avoid performing the tracheotomy. They gave me an epinephrin shot and breathing treatment and told me that in ten minutes I should be breathing normally and shrink back to my usual self...
When ten minutes had passed, the nurse returned and found that my reaction was not the typical bout. My face and body was exactly the same (big and swollen) and my throat had only relaxed enough to allow me to oxygenate effectively, but not without making noise. For several hours they watched me in the E.R. where I went through different spurts of reaction from: shaking so violently I made my bed rattle to my heart racing to dangerous heights. When I was "ok" enough to talk with my doctor, I thanked him for not performing a tracheotomy on me and this was his response, "Well, we still might have to"! Sheesh! What ever happened to bedside manner! haha! Later, they performed an EKG, and when they saw no improvements in the E.R., I was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, where I spent the night and half of the next day.
During my next day and a half in the normal inpatient floor of the hospital, my body started to shrink back to it's normal size, but continued displaying strange symptoms such as: tingling feet and hands, racing heart, struggle to breathe, dizziness, weakness, and forgetfulness. My left arm was the pincushion as flabotomists poked over and over again to equal a total of 8 times to draw blood for tests, tests and more tests. My right arm was where my IV ran over two bags of saline solution through my system in the first hour I was in the hospital and dripped constant fluid through-out my stay to flush my body of the poisonous medicine that had caused the reaction.
For the sake of time and space, I'll spare you all of the details from my time in the hospital, but it was one of the most difficult stays I have ever had. From not being allowed to eat for the first 24 hours because of the possibility my airways might close again, to having nurses that were cold and rude, to having a doctor that conveniently forgot to write orders for me to be allowed to eat for 4 more hours...it was tough, to say the least. But as I look back, God was so good to provide in the times that were darkest by allowing two of my friends that are healthcare professionals to be working on my floor and assigned to my room! One of my friends, who is a respiratory therapist, performed my second EKG! And the other, a nurse, prayed over me as my symptoms persisted! Thank you, Jesus, for your perfect provision and faithfulness!
Once I was released, new and more problematic symptoms arose. My strength was gone. I felt like a zombie walking through my house when my wobbly legs would allow me the privilege of a short trip to the kitchen or restroom. Dizziness almost took me to the floor several times. Numb feet and hands, aching, stiff joints added more mysterious signs to my list of symptoms. Over the course of the first week, I returned to the hospital for an emergency chest CT Scan with IV fluid because of a blood test that revealed the possibility of a blood clot (which came back negative), and a head MRI with IV contrast to evaluated my brain because of continued confusion and trouble piecing together my thoughts, which revealed three small white spots on my brain. The doctor assured me that in my case the spots did not indicate Multiple Sclerosis.
When I became frustrated with my down spiral in health, I posted my symptoms on Facebook. After one of my friends saw my list of symptoms and pieced them together with her extensive medical knowledge (she had finished med-school only a few years prior), she began instant messaging me and trying to figure out what was going on. When we had talked for a little while, she decided to call her dad (who is also a doctor) here in Nampa to see what he thought. My instant message screen had been blank for about ten minutes when she returned and said that her dad was going to personally phone in a referral to his neurologist for me! His thoughts, coupled with the thoughts of his daughter were that even though my tests weren't showing any real answers, my symptoms were concerning enough to warrant another look.
And this is where I have to leave off. I have not yet heard from the neurologist. Waiting seems to be my companion for the time-being. At first, I told God, "I'll be ok when I know what my diagnosis is...". But that wasn't good enough for Him. He challenged me to be "ok" with the right here and now; to be ok with the knowledge that He knows exactly what's going on inside of my body and to be content in the mean-time. And let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. One night, the numbness crawled up my left foot and part of my leg, as well as my left hand and arm! I can't tell you that I was completely calm and didn't have thoughts that my heart was in danger, especially as pain began to surge in my left arm! But, I can tell you that when I gave the situation to my Lord and my God, that His peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7) swept my heart and left me with the inspiration to live each day as my last, with all of His passion propelling me forward! I don't want to waste a minute! I know it's probably frustrating to leave you at this point with no answers, but that's the wonderful thing about blogs! I will continue to post updates, and I promise, none of them will be this long and boring, but I had to start somewhere.
The Lord assures my heart daily, that His plan is perfect! That He is walking beside me each step of the way, and carrying me when necessary! And that I need to spend time daily in prayer and His word so that I can be filled with His hope and joy in the midst of the storm! Great and Mighty is He! And I claim in His power that we are "more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)
Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Psalm 91:14-16
" “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Romans 15:13
" May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
As emotions and thoughts flood my heart, I can't help but let them flow onto the keys of my keyboard. I have struggled with the idea for several months that my life could be under attack by the evil one. I have also encountered those whom when they hear me talk of spiritual warfare, roll their eyes in annoyance because in their minds, what I'm experiencing is nothing more than coincidence and hard times. But I just can't shake the feeling that the evil one and his disgusting demons are nipping at my heels and hoping to sink their teeth into my flesh, leaving a fatal wound; not a wound that would cause me literal death, but one that would shake my faith to the point of unbelief. I am certain that this battle exists and that it is going on in my life right now. It's biblical!
Ephesians 6:11-12
"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Hebrews 1:14
"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?"
Romans 8:37-39
" No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The Ephesians verse tells us to put on our full armor of God so that we take our stand against the devil's schemes and talks of our war against him as a struggle. It sheds light also on the fact that these beings have power! In Hebrews, we are told that the angels are sent to serve all of those who will inherit salvation. Why on earth would God send us angels, unless He of course knew of the battle we would be facing with the dark powers of this world! And in Romans, it states that we are conquerors through Him (Jesus) who loved us! How can we be conquerors unless we were fighting something? And it states right in that same passage of scripture who we overcame (in spiritual battle): death, life, angels, demons, present, future, any powers, height, depth, and anything else in all creation!
Ok, so now you have some pretty strong evidence of why I believe spiritual warfare exists and that God commands us to wear the armor of God, and that it must be fairly common! Especially against those who love Jesus! I believe an attack has been made on my life and ministry for Jesus, particularly because I have made it clear in my life and writings that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords and that in His presence, Satan has no authority or power! That is why I believe this war has been waged against me.
With my point made, I'd like to invite you to skim the steps of my last few months as I verbally journey through the attacks of the evil one and rejoice over God's tremendous victory!
After being plagued with terrible head-aches for months and months and received the chiding of my loving husband to go and see an eye doctor, I finally relented and made the trip. To my great surprise, I needed glasses! And for a while, the glasses helped with my head-aches. But after a few weeks of significantly less occurrences of these pains, they started to surge again and with new strength. Shortly after the head-aches returned, I was asked to speak at a banquet, sharing my story of Ella and how God saved her life and the hopes I had to inspire others to save the lives of their babies by taking a stand against abortion. This was the undeniable launching point of many more personal attacks on not only my health, but on Ella's as well.
As I mentally and prayerfully prepared for the banquet, I could see that the evil one was trying to throw me off track at every turn. Ella came down with some breathing problems that just wouldn't go away. At one point, she began wheezing so badly that we took her into the Emergency Room and later had to undergo breathing treatments, multiple inhaler doses and x-rays. During my time of preparation, Ella's breathing became so concerning that her doctor began suspecting that she was not simply having trouble breathing, but swallowing as well. When we took Ella in for the video x-ray swallow-study, we discovered that Ella was aspirating on every sip! It was suspected that Ella's aspirations had been going on for so long that even with large portions of fluid escaping into her lungs, she no longer had the urge to cough! We were then sent to a Pulmonology specialist who could diagnose and treat each of Ella's breathing issues, which we found out were: Chronic lung disease (portions of dead lung from the life-support at birth), Asthma, Aspirations of fluid both from drinking fluids and acid reflux, and smaller than normal lungs because she had no amniotic fluid to develop them in the womb!
With all of that going on, I think the evil one thought he had put a pretty severe wrench in my preparations for the banquet, but to what I assume to be his undoubted frustration of foiled attempts to dissuade me, he lathered on more roadblocks. The nights leading up to the banquet, when I sat to write my speech, were afflicted with surges of blurred vision, splitting head-aches, and even disorientation and memory loss! Immediately I knew I was under attack. But as I stated before, Satan's power cannot even hold a light to the power of God! As the physical symptoms persisted, I went in for a CT scan of my head to see if there could be any cysts or remaining parasites from our year-long stay in South America the year before, but received only the answer that I had a sinus infection. So, with the continued, strange symptoms in my head and no real answers, I journeyed on through prayer, prayer and more prayer. I plead for God's clarity and for something coherent to somehow run through my fingertips and into my speech. And wouldn't you know that God was more than faithful to provide words that not only made sense, but pierced hearts and lives at the banquet! I had people come up to me afterwards and share how something I had said, touched their hearts and inspired them to take new steps of faith! The amazing thing though, is that I had no idea I had said any of the words they were saying that I had said! Isn't God amazing!
With the banquet behind me, I thought things would ease up. But, for those of you who read my blog about Ella, know that our family vacation to the coast, that followed only two days after the banquet, was cruelly attacked as well, with a popped tire, a trailer fridge that went out, heater that stopped working, lights that refused to flip on and us left in the dark for hours, and several other "bumps" in the road... Thankfully, God did not allow us to wallow for too long in self-pitty and brought us as a family to His gracious throne in prayer over the rest of our trip. Minutes later, we were roasting marshmallows over the gas flame of our trailer stove by the light of a flashlight. Bundled in our warmest clothes (because the heater went out), warming our hands by the flame of the stove, roasting the marshmallows, squishing them into chocolatey crackers and then into our mouths was so much fun! It will be one of my favorite memories from a trip that God mightily swooped in and rescued from the schemes and evil plans of the evil one. Praise Him!
When we returned home from our awesome family vacation, and I realized that my sinus infection had not gone away with the antibiotics and extra doses that my doctor had prescribed, I went in to see another doctor. Her first course of action was to put me on a stronger antibiotic to get rid of the persistent sinus infection that had plagued me for over three weeks at that point and then look into what all of my other symptoms could be pointing to. She did have the lab draw some blood, but she didn't want to do any other sort of brain MRI until my sinus infection had cleared up.
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| go ahead and laugh...it's pretty funny |
When ten minutes had passed, the nurse returned and found that my reaction was not the typical bout. My face and body was exactly the same (big and swollen) and my throat had only relaxed enough to allow me to oxygenate effectively, but not without making noise. For several hours they watched me in the E.R. where I went through different spurts of reaction from: shaking so violently I made my bed rattle to my heart racing to dangerous heights. When I was "ok" enough to talk with my doctor, I thanked him for not performing a tracheotomy on me and this was his response, "Well, we still might have to"! Sheesh! What ever happened to bedside manner! haha! Later, they performed an EKG, and when they saw no improvements in the E.R., I was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, where I spent the night and half of the next day.
During my next day and a half in the normal inpatient floor of the hospital, my body started to shrink back to it's normal size, but continued displaying strange symptoms such as: tingling feet and hands, racing heart, struggle to breathe, dizziness, weakness, and forgetfulness. My left arm was the pincushion as flabotomists poked over and over again to equal a total of 8 times to draw blood for tests, tests and more tests. My right arm was where my IV ran over two bags of saline solution through my system in the first hour I was in the hospital and dripped constant fluid through-out my stay to flush my body of the poisonous medicine that had caused the reaction.
For the sake of time and space, I'll spare you all of the details from my time in the hospital, but it was one of the most difficult stays I have ever had. From not being allowed to eat for the first 24 hours because of the possibility my airways might close again, to having nurses that were cold and rude, to having a doctor that conveniently forgot to write orders for me to be allowed to eat for 4 more hours...it was tough, to say the least. But as I look back, God was so good to provide in the times that were darkest by allowing two of my friends that are healthcare professionals to be working on my floor and assigned to my room! One of my friends, who is a respiratory therapist, performed my second EKG! And the other, a nurse, prayed over me as my symptoms persisted! Thank you, Jesus, for your perfect provision and faithfulness!Once I was released, new and more problematic symptoms arose. My strength was gone. I felt like a zombie walking through my house when my wobbly legs would allow me the privilege of a short trip to the kitchen or restroom. Dizziness almost took me to the floor several times. Numb feet and hands, aching, stiff joints added more mysterious signs to my list of symptoms. Over the course of the first week, I returned to the hospital for an emergency chest CT Scan with IV fluid because of a blood test that revealed the possibility of a blood clot (which came back negative), and a head MRI with IV contrast to evaluated my brain because of continued confusion and trouble piecing together my thoughts, which revealed three small white spots on my brain. The doctor assured me that in my case the spots did not indicate Multiple Sclerosis.
When I became frustrated with my down spiral in health, I posted my symptoms on Facebook. After one of my friends saw my list of symptoms and pieced them together with her extensive medical knowledge (she had finished med-school only a few years prior), she began instant messaging me and trying to figure out what was going on. When we had talked for a little while, she decided to call her dad (who is also a doctor) here in Nampa to see what he thought. My instant message screen had been blank for about ten minutes when she returned and said that her dad was going to personally phone in a referral to his neurologist for me! His thoughts, coupled with the thoughts of his daughter were that even though my tests weren't showing any real answers, my symptoms were concerning enough to warrant another look.
And this is where I have to leave off. I have not yet heard from the neurologist. Waiting seems to be my companion for the time-being. At first, I told God, "I'll be ok when I know what my diagnosis is...". But that wasn't good enough for Him. He challenged me to be "ok" with the right here and now; to be ok with the knowledge that He knows exactly what's going on inside of my body and to be content in the mean-time. And let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. One night, the numbness crawled up my left foot and part of my leg, as well as my left hand and arm! I can't tell you that I was completely calm and didn't have thoughts that my heart was in danger, especially as pain began to surge in my left arm! But, I can tell you that when I gave the situation to my Lord and my God, that His peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7) swept my heart and left me with the inspiration to live each day as my last, with all of His passion propelling me forward! I don't want to waste a minute! I know it's probably frustrating to leave you at this point with no answers, but that's the wonderful thing about blogs! I will continue to post updates, and I promise, none of them will be this long and boring, but I had to start somewhere.
The Lord assures my heart daily, that His plan is perfect! That He is walking beside me each step of the way, and carrying me when necessary! And that I need to spend time daily in prayer and His word so that I can be filled with His hope and joy in the midst of the storm! Great and Mighty is He! And I claim in His power that we are "more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)
Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Psalm 91:14-16
" “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Romans 15:13
" May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
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| This was taken on Easter (only a few days ago) |
Thank you for sharing so that others can join you in fighting this spiritual battle! Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world!!
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