Deliver me... out of the sadness
Deliver me..... from all the madness
Deliver me......... courage to guide me
Deliver me.......... Your strength inside me
I know that You're the One to pull me through
Deliver me... this cross that I'm bearing
Oh, Deliver me
Deliver me
Come and pull me through...
[ "Deliver Me" by David Crowder, song posted below ]
CRAZY HOW JUST ONE PHONE CALL can totally change the course of your day even as hard as you fight to not let it affect you. It was three phone calls to be exact. Each one I fought and I pleaded and I asked for a ton of options, only to no avail.
I think helpless and NOT in control are two ways I'd describe it.
After the second time I called trying to clear up a discrepancy for why I am not on the books for an appointment to see the internal medicine doctor we are now planning on seeing, I just said to myself, as I was waiting for her to call me back to check on the questions I asked her, where there is a will, there's a way.
We WILL get an appointment. Whatever it takes.
Basically, with the last of my test results and my condition worsening in the last week to two weeks, we have felt confident that it's time to close the door on neurology. Several doctors my mom works with and we have felt that the reigning opinion that something that started off neurological could now, after eight months evolved into something else.
But, with my condition changing so quickly and trying to adjust again to learning my capacity day to day, what my body can and cannot do, there is again, a heightened sense of urgency for being seen, since right now the only thing that has worked to get my body back in a stable condition that last week and a half has been being mostly home bound again, the less I move, the less I drive or am on my feet, the better.
But, this is obviously not a long-term solution, and it just seems time and time again, no matter HOW hard I try not to put my hope in an appointment or this highly esteemed doctor or this one, I am still always crushed when things like this happen.
Even as I told Ben, I told him I wasn't upset and didn't want to go back down the road of discouragement, I was having a good day. You know the days when you're feeling good and encouraging and having a good day, you just don't want anything to ruin it. Yesterday and today both have been really encouraging, then for whatever reason, it can all change in a moment.
I realized I was denying my feelings when I told Ben, not because I didn't want to be honest with him, but I was trying to protect MYSELF. I didn't want to go there. So I held onto the last little shred of control and said, we will get an appointment.
There was a lack of communication somewhere along the way, basically when things got worse last week, I called my mom to let her know the new direction we're thinking of heading in, as she works as a researcher for the University's department of internal medicine and works with several doctors.
She had been suggesting a lot lately that going back the internal medicine route, as we had originally set out in the beginning, could be helpful because internal medicine will give us a more holistic look at what is going on with my body since my symptoms are all over the map and no longer strictly neurological. We had been transferred to the neurology clinic in March once those symptoms grew worse after seeing internal medicine doctors in the beginning...
She and several of her fellow doctors believe it could now be something auto-immune or various other diseases where something is attacking my nervous and now muscular system, yet we do not know where the problem is originating, and that something can be attacking it, but the nerves still show up as “normal” as they have been in the tests.
After a frustrating and draining and emotional few days last week, I finally felt peace again and finally felt we at least had the next step in the “plan.”
I think that word is funny really. I want to say there is a “plan,” but plans fail. And are always changing. It is inevitable. I had to let go of finding any security in a “plan” long ago. This beast marches to its own beat, anytime we make a “plan” it seems to have a mind of its own and do as it wishes. But it is totally natural to feel better with a plan. This is part of how we are wired.
But I realized as I sat there after Ben left about an hour ago, that I WAS sad. I WAS disappointed... I WAS discouraged.
God, where do we go from here?
Now there is no longer a plan, or even a mere semblance of one. I have nothing to report to people. Once again, we are told to wait.
Basically, we asked my mom who was the best internal medicine doctor in the department and if she could get us an appointment with them. She called back a bit later that day and said *Dr. Kramer I'll call him, (not his real name), is one of the best in the state and in Columbia, he can meet with me next Wednesday, his office should be calling to schedule the appointment.
Great! I thought. But I didn't hear from them last week and didn't really worry about it and honestly didn't feel like dealing with it come Thursday and Friday. Then I call today to confirm the time, I'm not scheduled. I'm not on the books.
He's all booked up till January. Only his residents will be in clinic tomorrow, he won't even be here.
I explain to the receptionist that my mom works with him, he said he could meet, they were supposed to contact me with an appointment time... etc.
Nothing. I ask all the questions I know now to ask, could he overbook me, could I go wherever he is on call, can I get on a waiting list in case someone cancels, can you let me know what days he is attending (and just go to the hospital), and on and on. She hadn't gotten some of those questions before so said she would call me back.
That was the second phone call. In the first one, the lady saw I wasn't' scheduled, but asked if there was anyone else I would want to see, we go through three of the doctors or residents I saw in the beginning, *Dr. Smith is now at a different clinic (she was the best, my mom got us in with her when this all started, but because she is so good, she was elected to start a new clinic outside of Columbia but within the University system.) She was the first person who really listened to me and cared about figuring out how to get me felling better. Same with the residents we saw, they were all amazing. But since my symptoms became more neurological, they suggested the move, even though we had a great experience with them.
So the receptionist said, the other two residents I had seen before wouldn't be back in rotation till December, as they are now on their rural rotation. Great.
Are you wanting an appointment this week or next.
This week. Yes, by the end of the week. And I explain again the symptoms I'm experiencing and convey a sense of urgency.
Do you mind seeing someone else? I can get you in with *Dr. Moore today at 3:15, he is a resident for *Dr. Cole. Sure, I said. Planning to call my mom and see what she knows about Dr. Moore and then cancel the appointment if he's not good.
Well, at least I got something. I call mom, no, you don't want to see him. It's just going to be like in the beginning when we bounced around from doctor to doctor, but since it is a resident clinic, oftentimes we would only see their residents and not even the attending doctor.
Unfortunately, just getting an appointment with ANYONE is not enough. There are different good doctors and definitely bad doctors. The first few primary care people we saw were HORRIBLE. Just any doctor will not do, we didn't want to waste more time with re-telling the story to doctors who aren't good and/or see mostly residents, especially at this stage in the game.
So I called back and canceled and that's when I made a few more pleas and told them why I needed to get in with *Dr. Kramer... well unfortunately, because he is so popular, he can't even take new patients till after the new year, I can go ahead and set you up for then. I'm really sorry I'm not able to help more.
I try to be nice and understanding to the lady but tell her we can't wait till then, that I would talk to my mom and see if there are others she'd recommend and then call and try to schedule something.
Then I come and tell Ben. He had just woken up from a nap and I was getting off the phone with a close friend and he asked if I had talked to the clinic about the appointment.
Well, I start... then tell him. I could see the disappointment written all over his face. He wasn't mad at me, he was just frustrated, as I am, that EVERYTHING has to be so difficult. I mean, REALLY!?
Then I call my mom to see if *Dr. Kramer wrote back, (earlier when I talked to her she said she'd email him to remind him, he may have forgotten to have his nurse get me on the books). And then I told her about the residents only being there tomorrow and that I felt like I couldn't get anywhere with the secretaries on the phone because YES it is TRUE that he is booked till January, but only he has the power to overbook me.
This has been the only way we've gotten in to see many doctors, someone somewhere pulls a favor. And since he knows my mom and has worked with her for years, he was willing to overbook himself and make an exception and see me. But somewhere along the way, between his busyness or maybe his nurse's, the appointment never made it to the books, even though there was a verbal agreement made to my mom.
SO frustrating. I think that is what really got me. I was reading psalm 71 today, after all of this and trying to still, settle my soul again and have my mind renewed. Re-center. Re-group. I wasn't too excited about reading it to be honest and then these words hit me:
Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.:: psalm 71:20
Everything within me cried, YES. That is what I am feeling. That is where I am at.
It was as if, in my 20 minutes of slowly coming out of denial and allowing myself to feel those hard emotions I just wanted to stuff down or rationalize away, that God led me to that passage, to that verse just in the time I needed it. I was planning on reading a few chapters earlier in the day, and so the timing and not reading it until this afternoon was certainly not coincidence.
It was as if God was showing me, telling me, it is OKAY to feel this, I care about your HEART, I want to go there with you...
Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again...
I broke into tears. How long will the grief persist. I began to think about the troubles we've seen and the troubles many of our beloved friends are facing. The circumstances and the seasons of grief that we know we are not alone in.
Why, Lord? Is a question I always come back to. Why do they have to suffer? Or our other friends? Or that woman? Or that guy? Why?
In those moments, everything I've read about God's purposes in suffering and God's provision in suffering fade away and I cannot answer the question sometimes.
But I don't HAVE to know why.
All I DO know is that God is with us and is with them, loving us and loving them, through it all. Giving strength for the next moment and just enough grace to take the next step.
Yet you will restore our lives again, from the depths, you will again bring us up.
You know it is funny how after reading those chapters, I just had to do the next thing. One moment has no bearing on the next, and while I had been having a good day and felt encouraged, now was an entirely different story.
I decided to wash dishes and turned on one of my favorite songs I recently remembered, David Crowder's, “Deliver Me.”
As it has been on repeat the last hour or so, as I was processing and listening to those words as I was washing dishes by hand just because I knew it would be relaxing for me and finishing a couple loads of laundry, then I had to lay down to ice my neck and rest my muscles and was reminded of a verse I've been chewing on since counseling yesterday.
As we were discussing the stages of grief and how difficult this last adjustment with my health has been in the last week and how I spent many days last week crying out to God, and crying out for Him to lead us to doctors that can help, doctors that can be our advocate, when I felt I was getting door after door slammed in my face.
Psalm 142 depicts someone who can relate.
David starts out talking to God, words I can resonate deeply with,
“I cry aloud to the Lord, I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy... I pour out before him my complaint, before him I tell my trouble.”
And then she talked about how in trials, when we are crying out to God with everything in us and feeling, so much how I felt last week, that no one could hear my cries for help or none of the doctors are showing even a hint of concern for me, they are just basing everything on what they see in the records or the test results.
I am not a number on a blood test. I am not a result, I am a person who is sick and who is hurting. Who has not been able to function as I'm used to for the last eight months. Just because all the tests are “normal” doesn't mean it is. I'm getting worse, God, who will you send to come to our aide.... and on and on it went.
Interestingly enough, David faced the same thing!
Just a few verses later he says to the Lord, so similar to the things I talked with God about last week and once again today,
“Look and see there is no one at my right hand,
No one is concerned for me.I have no refuge.
No one cares for my life!”
Then he acknowledges, as I did, that I knew that wasn't TRUE, even though that was how it FELT. I knew God was and is my refuge, I knew that He has graciously provided a strong support systems of my friends, family and church community, I knew people did care for me, I felt all alone with the doctors though.
So he, as I did, changes the tune a bit.
“I cry to you Lord, I say: You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
Like David, I thanked God, for all that He is and all He has done and is doing. I acknowledged that yes, Lord, you are ENOUGH.
I don't know what is going to happen but I know you are all I need, I know you will pull me through.
Then we come to a phrase I don't think I've ever seen before, one that caught her by surprise to as she was reading this psalm yesterday morning...
David ends by saying,
“Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name...”
Another version says,
“Set my soul free from this prison, that I may worship you...”
:: psalm 142:7
Wow.
And that word “prison” really jumped out at her. But as she was thinking more about it, she began to identify what David was crying out here about... about how there are different prisons we all find ourselves in at different times.
Sometimes it is the prison of control.
Or the prison of fear.
Or the prison of physical ailment.
Or the prison of pain and suffering...
Or for me today, as I was washing dishes and listening to this song over and over, the words, deliver me, were the cry of my heart.
Lord, DELIVER me, from this prison of grief.
It is like sometimes we get to escape it, but it is this undercurrent that is always there. Sometimes lighter or heavier. Some days and moments there is relief, or as my friend described it today, in a pressure-filled season of grief, sometimes there are little punctures here and there, that bring relief. The pressure or the weight is not lifted, but there is a little, ahhh, moment, where something or someone or something happening brings relief.
I wanted out. Today, I said Lord, deliver me from this prison of grief. I don't want to be here anymore. Even though it is not like I am always “grieving,” I still feel the prison walls closing in on us, any time we get a no on an appointment or leave with more questions, less answers, I feel trapped. Helpless. Stuck. Not in control.
Like today, there was nothing I could do to change things. And it brought up all the intense and hard emotions we both have been experiencing back to the surface again.
Deliver me, became my cry out to God today and my prayer.
So, there are many different prisons, those circumstances or situations we can't just get out of. They have been the journey we have been called to walk even though some days, many days, we're walking with a limp. Bloodied and beaten from the ruthlessness and unrelenting terrain of the path. Wondering when things would ever be easier, “normal” again, yet continuing to walk hand in hand with the One we know loves and cares for us in this moment, in this present brokenness, in these prisons.
David cries out to God, as I am, saying, Lord, deliver me...
Set me FREE from this prison... that I may praise your name...
Set my soul free... that I may worship YOU.
I think this looks different depending on the day. Where I was at when I was pondering and started writing a post about that verse is different from where I'm at today.
Today, my cries for deliverance and my soul being set free, is my worship.
My choice to say, even though it feels like all is lost, I will trust in You.
Even when I feel like there is no way and I cannot SEE the way, I am choosing to believe You know the way and You will continue to lead and guide us.
Choosing to believe that You've been faithful before, you'll be faithful again. Choosing to say, even when it feels things are moving at the rate of a snail, Your timing is perfect.
Your plans are not thwarted.
I'm reminded of a song that ministered to me deeply this morning, as it has so many other times, these beautiful words:
In the chaos, in confusion
I know You're Sovereign still
In the moment of my weakness
You give me grace to do Your will
[ Hillsong, “None but Jesus” ]
::
So even though there is not resolution. A plan. Or even a semblance of one. Other than trying to get in by Friday to see *Dr. Kramer or at least within the week, the offices are closed now and there is nothing more I can do for today.
It isn't fair. My heart cried again today as the injustice rose within me as I shared with one of my best friends how ridiculous it has been to just SEE a doctor, I feel like I'm applying to law school all over again, I mean come on! I'm really not asking for much.
But I was stopped dead in my tracks, after the last disappointing phone call with the doctor's office this afternoon, when I felt defeated and upset that there was nothing more I could do. Then upset that I WAS upset, I'm having a good day for crying out loud.
I was reminded of this truth, a truth that I've been chewing and meditating on that has become something I can honestly say I believe with all of my mind and all of my heart:
That God is not life.
Allow me to explain. In Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey shares the story of a “modern-day” Job and asked him what he learned that might help someone going through a difficult time. Douglas' words are profound:
“He responds by explaining, 'I learned first through my wife's illness and then especially through the accident not to confuse God with life.
We tend to think that life should be fair because God is fair. But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life—by expecting constant good health, for example—then I set myself up for a crushing disappointment.
Through his time of trials, Douglas learned a new meaning of faith: 'Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.'”
[ Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God ]
::
We dare not confuse God with life.
Because God IS fair, life is not.
His goodness goes far deeper than both pleasure or pain, it embraces them both.
My challenge each day, when I'm tempted to give way to discouragement that what if things don't change for a while or if this is how life is going to be, no answers, no solutions, but that I will just have to suffer with this, forever.
Douglas' last words struck me and have challenged me in the last month. That as I look back and see the things God has brought me through, the pain and the hardships, some that went on for most of my life, 17 years before any relief... that just as THOSE things now make sense and I can see how God was with me and was working in those times even though I always felt He couldn't be further away... and though I could not see all the good that has come of it... I know have the gift of hindsight. I can look back and see how it all made sense.
But now, it doesn't all entirely make sense. Some days more than others it does. But the battle of my heart right now, is to continue to believe NOW for what will only make sense in reverse.
Because my God can be trusted.
Because I know my Father loves me deeply.
I know He will always take care of me.
That I am never forgotten by Him or abandoned.
That I am seen and I am known and I am loved.
He is my hope, my strength and my salvation.
My refuge, my deliverer, an ever-present help in times of trouble.
He Himself is my peace.
And while I cannot see, You can.
My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be Your name...
You will pull me through.
*names changed to protect confidentiality
