Strength to Weather the Storm

Today's experience is from Nicole Green.

I have metal rods in my back from scoliosis surgery when I was 16, and at the time of surgery, I found that I have a rare platelet disorder where my blood doesn’t clot as quickly as it should. I was told that I would be fine to have children, but then learned after pregnancy that an epidural was not an option. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but my first baby weighed 9 lbs. 11 oz.! Luckily, my second was a little smaller.
While pregnant with my third, I remember suddenly being so terrified of going through it all again. I remember praying very hard for Heavenly Father’s help. It seemed silly because I knew that I could tough it out, but I also knew that He was mindful of my fears. The doctors had been running a study on my blood, and suddenly for a very brief time, my blood tests were normal. The head anesthesiologist felt comfortable giving me a half-medicated epidural, and I knew that this was an answer to my prayers.
I believe that our Heavenly Father wants to help us endure our trials, and though he can’t always take them away totally, He can give us the strength to weather the storm if we simply ask.

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." - Helen Keller

Trials Are a Part of Life

Like everyone else in the world, my life has been full of trials - some big and some small - major

trials and minor everyday oppositions that come with living on this earth. Financially, there were days in the early part of our marriage when my husband and I wondered how we would make it from one week to the next.

One trial in particular was when we had only been married for a little over a month. My husband had a job in Salt Lake City that barely paid enough to cover the rent and a few other bills. I was waiting for court-appointed child support from my ex that was behind. It was only $52.00 a week, but that small amount of money is what we counted on for groceries. Because the payments were behind, we were down to a can of tuna and a box of rice, and to top it off, I was pregnant with a honeymoon baby and was so sick, I couldn't stomach our meager meal. We honestly did not know what we were going to do. All we could do was pray, so we did.

Then a child support check came, and another, and another. We were blessed and were able to feed our two boys.
The next month we moved down to Cedar City and stayed with my in-laws for a short period until my husband found a job that paid enough for us to get a place of our own. Sadly, during this time, I lost the baby, but six months later I became pregnant again. A year later, loans and grants fell into place and my husband moved us to Winter Park, Florida where he went to recording school and earned his audio engineering degree in a year.

Life was hard and we continued to struggle. And though changes came and things slowly improved, the trials were always there. There were many other times that we worried about feeding our family and paying the bills, but we always made it through with God's help, and each trial only served to bring us closer to the Lord and to each other.

No matter how alone we feel during the tough times, we are never really alone. The Father is always there and the Savior's arms are always outstretched, waiting for us to take His hand, enter His warm embrace, and accept His comfort. And though trials will always be a part of life, His comforting presence will be as well. It is a gift that is always available if we will only receive it.

Facing Health Challenges With Faith

This week's overcoming experience is from Carolee Hall. She is an amazing woman. I have had the pleasure of knowing for years and I'm grateful for her courage and insight.

I personally feel that one of my callings in life is to find my family history. As soon as I began working on this project I became ill. I had extremely high blood pressure - high enough to kill me and we didn't know why. After a year of blood pressure numbers measuring 246/146, we finally discovered the adrenal glands were enlarged and producing too much adrenaline and so they were removed. Their removal caused minor but ongoing problems for some time, and then one day (only 6 hours before I was scheduled to have a laser treatment to remove kidney stones) I felt a horrible ripping sensation in my chest. I had previously had a small heart attack and assumed this was the big one.  The pain was so awful I couldn't call for help or move.  I laid there, in the kitchen where I had gone to get a drink in the night, and croaked until someone heard me.  I lived to make it to the emergency room, an hour away, and was told it was a dissected aorta and the thoracic doctor there told me he could not save me.  That I could not live.

The pain was incredible and my husband and I decided that if we simply asked God to take me now, that it would save my suffering, and it seemed reasonable to us both since I wouldn't be able to recover anyway.  We prayed hard and for the rest of the night I kept thinking the next breath I took would be my last, and wondering what paradise would be like.  I couldn't move.  The pain was so intense that I simply couldn't move.  By morning I wondered why God had not taken me. I was beginning to feel upset that he would leave me in this death watch and in such great pain for so long.  They kept me on pain meds, and one day ran into another, and still I lived.  I prayed every waking moment - asking Him to just end it.  My children and grandchildren all came and said goodbye tearfully and told me it was okay to go.  Meanwhile the doctors and nurses were telling me not to sneeze, not to cough, not to move too fast as it would be instant death.  One even said to me that when it happened, it wouldn't last long and shouldn't be any worse than what I had already experienced.
The doctor said if I got to the point that I could be moved to a rehab facility, I would need to "wrap myself in bubble wrap and not drive over any bumps in the road." I was indeed moved to a rehab facility a few days later and put on a hospice program with counselors trying to prepare me mentally for death.  Old high school friends came to say goodbye, cousins, and neighbors, all telling me goodbye. And still I could see no purpose in this nonsense. Since I couldn't live, why didn't God just do it now?  One morning I was blowing my nose when the nurse came with my pain meds. When she saw me blowing my nose she begged me to stop because she didn't want the paperwork it would generate when I died.  I lived that way for about 25 days.

 I couldn't sleep on my side -- the aorta would pull and cause too much pain to sleep.  I was disappointed each morning to see a new day and I still had to endure another day of it.  It absolutely felt like a horror movie I was living in. It couldn't be true -- but it was. The doctor then scheduled me for a follow-up CAT scan to see how much the aorta was still bleeding inside, since I was still alive.  Immediately following the CAT scan, he said the leaking could possibly be be fixed if he could find the right surgeon, but he couldn't do that sort of thing. A couple of hours later, he came in and said he had found one in Salt Lake City, and I was life flighted there where they did surgery and repaired it, saving my life.  My doctor tells me I can claim this as a bonafide miracle since surviving such an injury is very rare.

 

The reason for telling this lengthy tale is this: as I thought about this whole experience, I kept wondering why God had not taken me -- why had He saved me?  The post-surgery pain is still significant and I can only stand or walk for short amounts of time. So why? I still have other health issues I cannot survive.  I am in kidney failure, so why?  Finally, I worked it out in my mind. Since I felt that my life assignment has been to do family history work and that was when my health suddenly took a turn for the worse, maybe the adversary had some hand in this. I finally found a quote from one of my early church leaders that said all illness and pain came from the adversary.  If that was the case, I was being attacked to keep me from doing what I was assigned to do. Somehow I had given him power over me and my health.  I decided to take my life back, to claim my own right over myself to be free from any such future bombardment.

I began noticing that while getting ready for church, I would find myself in great pain and I'd think I should stay home.  But every time this happens, if I can overcome it and go anyway, the pain stops.  I am convinced that there is an influence there in an effort to keep me ill. Now I pray daily to protect me from that influence.

 

I believe this is part of the challenges we have to face in life.  All are different. Some of us have health challenges and some have other challenges, but all are designed to help us grow. I must admit that when I didn't die after begging God to take me, I almost felt betrayed by Him.  He had always answered my prayers before. However it was pointed out to me that He didn't refuse to answer my prayer - He just said "no". . . for now.  I still have a work to do. God knows all our assignments and all we have done and all we still have to do.  He will not take us until we are done.  He will walk beside us until we can stand alone. He loves us and He knows us.