I just found this video and it really feeds my soul with it's richness. Having almost died at the ripe old age of 48, I can so relate to her feelings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been wanting to tell this story for nearly 12 years and I'm not sure that I can get through it without bursting into tears. NOPE!
So I had a mystery disease in the Summer of 2006 that nobody could figure out even though we went to every type of doctor imaginable. Even the neurologist was at a loss and said, "It appears that you're under too much stress. I suggest that you go somewhere to rest." SO I DID!!
A friend of ours has a healing center in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota and she said that I could come and rest there. I stayed with her for 18 days until I was strong enough to return home.
One Sabbath morning an angel gave me a message. I woke to a very strong presence in the corner of my room. I turned to look there but saw nobody. A strong sense of peace approached me and a male hand brushed against my hair and I heard him whisper in my ear, "Internal shingles." Then he was gone and I FINALLY had my diagnosis.
Baking up, though, I want to tell you a story from our trip up to the healing center which is a 3 hour drive from our farm. We had gone half of the way when we needed to get gas and to take a bathroom break. Cora had helped me to the rest room as I couldn't walk alone or I would have fallen on my face from the extreme dizziness I had been living with for nearly 3 months at that time.
As we approached the check-out counter where Robert was paying for our gas, my son Andrew came and positioned himself beside me. Ever so gently, he put his hand on my head and stood looking away at the sky as though nothing was going on. Then he moved to the other side of me and repeated the process. Andrew, with a super light touch because the pain in my head was so intense that's all I could stand, steadied my head as it bobbed up and down with very little nerve supply getting to it.
Andrew stood beside his mother supporting me with his strong healthy body. As he stood there, he steadied my head to keep it from bobbing while he looked elsewhere in the room. He said nothing but he held my head steady and filled me with his strength.
A few moments later, he stopped.
I stared at him in amazement and whispered, "Andrew, what were you doing?"
He looked at me with the saddest eyes a child should never have. He said, "Mom, those people were looking at you because your head was bobbing wildly. I just didn't want you to look weird to them!!"
I honestly don't know if I have ever felt more loved in my entire life!!! Lots of people have shown me many kindnesses since then but none have made me feel so totally accepted in the midst of all the ugliness in my life at that time.
In the Fall of 2006 I couldn't walk by myself. I couldn't even think any more due to the intense pain in my head! I was constantly repeating myself, repeating myself, repeating myself, repeating myself. My head bobbed endlessly. The pain was never-ending and growing stronger!!
In the midst of all of that--one act of kindness gave me the hope to keep fighting to live. The way Andrew helped to hide my handicaps to save me from the scorn of those who knew not what I was suffering, yet still judge me as weird, made a life changing impact on me. One act of kindness helped to carry me through unspeakable sufferings. Andrew's act of kindness, at that dreadful moment when I was forced to leave my family, touched me and gave me hope that I might still pull through.
So, I write to pay tribute to my son Andrew's covering my ugliness and I write to encourage you to do the same. That moment changed my life! I felt so loved even the midst of being such a social outcast. I just want to have everyone feel that kind of love and support. I suppose it is the foundation of "Links to Healing" where I work with many who are rejected because of something that happened to them--something that they couldn't help!
PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO!! What she shares is what many of us feel who DON'T get well soon. She has captured the beauty of being alive in an imperfect body! This message is so desperately needed in our world!!
Lord, please make me a winner like her!!! Help me to see how truly beautiful my life is!!
Dawn
PS. I suppose that the reason this blessed me so much is because my mom always hated my hair and she passed that on to me. She would get me permanents 2 or 3 times a year so that she didn't have to look at my "Straight as a poker hair." This continued into adulthood when she paid for my perms so that she didn't have to be humiliated that her daughter didn't have curly hair. When Andrew was a baby, I got a perm and I was sick for 4 months from the chemicals in the permanent wave solution. When I told my mom that I wouldn't be having any more perms, she whined that then she would have to look at my straight hair. My life mattered less to her than my hair did! uggg
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