Imagine.

I have never been a fan of this song.  I never got into the hippy-dippy mindset from which this song came from, the peacenik, hippy, free-love age.  I was thinking about these words this morning and have often wondered:


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...


Why would you want to even ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT of there not being a heaven?  There are days in this putrid, sin-filled world that the thought of heaven is the ONLY thing that gets me from wake up to good night.  There IS a heaven and it was created for us to walk with our Lord and Savior after we leave this awful place called earth and all the pain and illness and sin and darkness.  Contrary to popular thought, there is ONLY way to heaven, scripture tells us this in John 14:6:  Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and John 10:1, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.”  


Hell is very real and it was created for the final resting place of satan at the end of the age, but society today doesn’t want that reality to cloud their view of hedonism and debauchery.  It’s not cool to have to deny yourself that pleasure.  You’ve earned it.  Imagine all the people living for today?  That’s what a majority of the world is doing.  While it’s convenient, while they’re able, while they can.  Live for today with no thought or consideration of tomorrow.  How shallow, how empty, how lonely.  Matthew 6:19-21 tells us, ¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Heaven may or may not come for you today.  But do you really want to live for today—to sacrifice eternity at the altar of the temporary?


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
Sorry, John, there are countries for a reason. 

 
On the planes of Shinar, Nimrod, the king of Babylon, built the Tower of Babel.  This was the symbol of Nimrod’s desire to establish himself as ruler of the world, a one-world government.  God wasn’t having any of that and scattered man across the world, confusing races and tongues.
God seeks us, our hearts.  He created us to have a relationship with Him.  Imagine no religion?  Ok.  I can live with that.  What I can’t live without is faith.  I have to have faith that He created me, He loves me, He numbers my steps and my days, He sent His Son to the cross for me to pay the price for all of man’s sin, and as Jesus said, He’s created a place for me to live eternally.  How do I know this?  Hebrews 11:1:  Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  I have faith.  I don’t have religion.


Until satan is bound and chained to hell, there will be no peace on earth.  Man is born with a sin nature.  You can remove all of us pain in the behind Christians and you will STILL have that sin nature permeating every inch of this earth because Ephesians 6:12 tells us:  ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one


Dreams aren’t going to bring peace to this world.  Dreams are plans of happiness and success and peace and fortune.  Dreamers are the ones that will likely be the first to fall should there be an attack or their lives have been destroyed by war because they did nothing to prepare.  The definitions of “dreamers”—there are so many, some are happy and some are ridiculous, but a dreamer isn’t going to bring peace.  The world won’t be as one as long as the sin nature of man still exists on this planet.  I have yet to get through a day through the last several years where you don’t hear about a Muslim killing, raping, murdering, burning, stoning, hanging, or beheading someone that stood up to him or didn’t agree with him.  While some do go off the reservation, you won’t hear of a believer, a true-saved-by-the-blood-of-Christ believer killing, raping, murdering, burning, stoning, hanging, or beheading someone that stood up to him.  Woe to the man that calls himself one and then does any of those things.  God’s righteous judgment is so much worse than anything a court of man can construct and anyone calling himself a child of God, yet commits any of those acts of aggression listed above is an unconverted convert and and an antichrist and will be keeping satan company in his final resting place.  The world will NEVER be as one as long as man’s sin nature exists.


Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people Sharing all the world...


Amazing.  He’s describing heaven.  The same heaven he denied in the first sentence of this song.  If you wish to look cynically and humanistically at that paragraph, you have Section 8 ghetto housing.  It’s called welfare.


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Unless he’s talking about a commune, it’s not going to happen as long as evil walks among us.  Even the Rajneeshies had some with loose screws and they were supposed to be a commune of peace, happiness, and love, as long as you gave up all your worldly possessions for money which was then given to the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for another Rolls Royce.  I believe he had something like 96 of them.  But that totally blows the “Imagine no possessions” part of this song.

 

Imagine this.

 

Imagine one day all believers, Bible-believing Christians are gone.  It may be coming sooner than you think.  I can just hear some of you now.  She’s gone.  She’s totally blown an o-ring and is thumping on that Bible again.  I’ve lost so many so-called “friends” for my unyielding beliefs that I refuse to tone down or apologize for that it no longer bothers me.  But think about this.

 

You have a friend.  That friend may not have been the one that you could run around with and have a good time with a bottle or two of beer, but he or she was the one you could always count on for an ear or to offer a prayer for you when life had you down or you were experiencing hurt or pain.  Imagine that friend is gone.  Disappeared.  Who do you have left to turn to?  You have other friends, the ones with the beer bottles.  Ask them to pray for you or with you?  How many ways can they tell you no and laugh at you?  That’s what THOSE people did.  The ones that believed in God.  They don’t want any part of that.  Now, where’s that bottle of beer I had…….

 

There’s now an ache in you.  You need that friend, the one that tried to show you God’s love through Christ and you rebuffed them.  Joked.  Laughed.  Admit it, you laughed at him or her behind their back most likely.  And that was probably the one person that would have been there for you during this time of pain or question or hurt.  That faith they had isn’t looking so bad now, I would imagine.  

 

So, imagine a world with no heaven, no hell, none of the boundaries that make for a civilized society.  It isn’t hard to do.  And we are living in it and it’s getting worse each passing day.  A world where heaven and hell are laughed at and mocked.  Where Christians are killed, shouted down, harassed, arrested, sued, made fun of, and turned away.  Not quite as pretty as a song now, is it?  Not quite the utopia he had in mind when he wrote those lyrics. 

 

Imagine.

Another one bites the dust

So now Aaron Hernandez has been arrested and arraigned on murder charges and is awaiting a bail hearing later on. What amazes me more than anything about these cases is the shock and awe people have when a celebrity or pro athlete find themselves behind bars for crimes like this. When Steve McNair was murdered by his girlfriend in 2009 everyone was blown away, no pun intended, and the saddest of all was that he was a married man with a wife and kids. I never would have thought OJ would be capable of what he was convicted of. Who knew? God knew. God knows a man's heart. Just because someone has a string of platinum songs, or a storied and well-paid movie career, or is a gifted athlete and a star on the field, court, ice, or diamond, that doesn't mean they aren't a HUMAN first. Humans are fallen by our very nature. We are born with a sin nature. While it is very sad that another gifted athlete has succumbed to his arrogance and lifestyle, what is saddest is that a human life was taken and that people are shocked that another HUMAN BEING is the one that took the life. Our pop culture has exploded like a bomb and when people are more consumed with the antics of the horrendously over-exposed Kardashians than they are about making sure their children know about faith, God's will for their lives, their relationship with the Lord, Houston, we have a problem here. This is simply one more sign of the times of God's Church Age. The love of many are waxing colder by the day, and yes, even the rich and famous.

Looking through the eyes of love.

Every day I look at my husband, not only do I see love, I see hope. So many people have commented that we have been through a lot, and yes, we have, but there are others that have been through so much more, lost so much more. We don't live in a country where my daughters might be the victims of an honor killing or stoning for shaming the family. We don't live in dry, cracked land in Africa where I have to watch my child starve to death and take her last breaths in my arms. We are humbly grateful for all the GOOD we have in our lives, and there is much good to be had.

I see hope when I look at Mike because I am reminded that not only is God using him to hopefully show Himself to those that don't know Him, how he depends fully on God to get through each day, but I see eternity. I see the day where we will have the bodies that are perfect, healthy, strong, everlasting. No pain, no hurt, no disappointment, disease, abortion, murder, divorce, anguish, death.

I see that one day I won't have to fill a syringe at 9:30 each evening with 90 units of Lantus, a slow release overnight insulin to keep blood sugar from spiking in the morning, and give him that shot in his arm because his abdomen is covered in large purple bruises, bruises caused by a needle going through a blood vessel. I won't have to watch him cringe in agony when I've hit a nerve in his arm (nearly every stinking night). I see that one day I won't have to be in touch with my nurse angel at the doctor's office who helps complete the paperwork for the Kwik Pens and Lantus that keep him alive as a Type 1 diabetic. There won't be the need for testing his glucose levels. Diabetes is an insidious disease. Literally thousands of dollars spent on a little piece of plastic absorbs a drop of blood to find out where his glucose levels are. I won't have to wonder when I fell asleep at night if I will be awakened by "that voice", "Lori, I'm at 33." That's all that needs to be said and I go from dead sleep to running to the kitchen where I've learned to make peanut butter sandwiches and a glass of milk in the dark in 30 seconds and get them to him. The lowest his blood sugar has been was in 2007, at 2:00 a.m. it was 23. Normal is about 100. Twenty-three, he's sweating a river, he's incoherent, barely able to keep awake. His body is shutting down and all the glucose that remains goes to his heart and his brain. The after affects of this drop are excruciating. His body aches for hours because a nutrient was pulled out of his tissues and muscles to keep his brain and heart going. We keep a vigilant watch over his feet so he won't end up sitting in a waiting room with a missing limb because he had a blister that became infected and gangrene eventually took a foot and part of the leg.

One day I see that HE will see, with both eyes. They won't hurt, and there won't be any hushed voices telling him, "Unless I can see the blood vessel, there's nothing I can do at this point. It's six months to a year at best." Doctors see limitations. We see possibilities. We know that even if the eyes no longer see here, one day they will both see perfectly, sitting inside that perfect body that we will have once we are no longer tied to this world. When he asks me, at his most upset or desperate, "Have I done something wrong, or let God down? Is that why?" I can only tell him, "Someone else needs to see God in you. That person won't see Him on their own. You are God's representative. Show that person eternity in YOU." With all my heart I believe that.

Job lost EVERYTHING. Children. Home. Livestock. All his worldly possessions. He sat on the ground, surrounded by his friends, and a wife that begged him to curse God. Job refused. That book is so amazing to me because even after all the pain and loss, Job would not curse God. He KNEW there was a reason for this. Just as I know there is a reason for this. In the end, Job was rewarded. In the end, Mike will be rewarded, and it will be a reward of peace, of strolling through Heaven on perfected legs, gazing in through perfected eyes as he looks upon Jesus. He will look at the wrists of Jesus and be reminded that they bore stakes through them so one day Mike wouldn't be hindered by this shell that fails him by the day. No more pain, no more worrying about the leg, no more cocking his head from side-to-side to see through the blur in his remaining eye. THIS is what we live for.

Monday night, we came back from Woodburn and he was hungry. We went to a favorite little Mexican restaurant in Salem. We are developing a little shorthand, he and I. I position myself to his left and he puts his hand on my right shoulder and he follows me. Right now, everything looks like he's looking through ivory cheesecloth. Sometimes there is more definition but right now that's about it. The restaurant was dark, he was confused as to locations, it was a stressful dinner. As we came out the door to the parking lot, he panicked and started patting the air around him looking for my shoulder.

For reasons I'm only now seeing, my ADD has actually been a benefit more than a hindrance. I can multi-task like a boss, but I also think about five steps ahead of myself. That serves a purpose now. I have to think five steps ahead for Mike. As we left the restaurant and entered the light of a setting sun, I project our direction.

"Seven feet ahead and then we will turn left and head to the truck." We did OK until we came to the slope in the sidewalk where wheelchairs roll up and down. I stopped him and said, "Slope to the right." He lurched a bit and then grabbed my shoulder.

"I am so afraid! Nothing feels familiar, I want to go home."

It's all a learning process and I am going to need Job's patience as Mike will need Job's faith. I must have patience, he must have patience. I need to not flip out when he calls for me for the tenth time that particular day. He needs to remember I'm keeping a lot of plates spinning right now. Ali gets to go to the zoo tomorrow with her church group. She goes to church camp next week. She gets to be a kid and I'm thrilled for her because this kiddo has been to a LOT of doctors appointments. Just go and have fun and I don't go along on these events. She needs to be away from me and dad for a day and just have fun. She really is a great little girl. So much more patient and understanding than a child her age should be but then again, we could live in a country where she's buried up to her neck and stoned for not wanting to be married to an old man at the age of nine, so I guess it's all about perspective.

Heaven is going to be so incredible, and the very fact that there won't be glucose monitors, needles, insulin, twice-a-week wrap changes, eyes failing, that keeps us going. Even with everything going to crap in this world, especially BECAUSE of all that's going to crap, it's easy for us to keep pushing forward because of what awaits us one day very soon.

Tonight as we pulled in the driveway, he had a clear vision moment and noticed that a headlight bulb was burned out. These were expensive bulbs and after he called O'Reilly and I went and picked up the replacement bulb (thank God for warranties), I promised I'd change it in the morning. Not good enough.

He went out to the garage, got one of his brightest lights out, and felt his way through replacing the bulb. Afterward he sat on his stool in the garage and was so happy with himself for still being able to do something.

"I guess I still have some value, huh? I changed this by myself." You have NO idea how much value you are right now, sweetheart.

Going blind

Mike used to joke with me when he realized that diabetic retinapothy was going to eventually rob him of his sight:  He said he felt the Rapture was so close that it was going to be a race between going blind and the Rapture.  That was 2-3 years ago.  I laughed.


I'm not laughing today.


We spent all of late last summer, all of the fall and winter and into spring dealing with his healing from necrotizing fasciitis.  His eyes had not been a priority at the time.  When April came and things were pretty much status quo with the leg, now it was time to see Dr. Westfall.  We were not prepared for his observation:  More internal bleeding in the right eye, with the retina detaching between 1-2 as you would see on a clock.  Now that the leg is nearly healed, and all his docs have signed off on him going for walks, we are now walking.  Two days so far, down to the end of the road and back home.  I'm guessing it's about 1/4 mile.  He used to throw 300 lbs. of something on his shoulder and climb up a ladder to traipse all over the roof of a house he'd build.  Now getting down the block and back is a victory lap.  But, I guess it's the victory laps that count the most. 


We have to keep the faith.  We are watching the news and see the world careening toward fulfilling more and more prophecy and then look at his eye, and who knows?  We may very well be in a race between blindness or the Rapture. 


I'm voting Rapture.

The angel named Jeff

WOW.  God’s greatest gifts and surprises are always, ALWAYS, where we least expect them, but that’s what we have come to expect from Him.

Mike made it to church today, but it’s always a challenge for a man that has really no behind to sit on a narrow church bench, no matter how padded, and try to cram those long legs, both of which are injured, into the narrowness of space between where he’s sitting and the bench in front of him.  If you don’t believe in spiritual battle, we need to talk.  We have LIVED spiritual battle for years.  The closer Mike gets to God, the more brutal the spiritual battle is.  Satan isn’t going to go away and we have learned to spot the signs and recognize when we are about to enter into a total crap storm.  From the minute we hit the church parking lot I could see by his face that it was beginning.  It’s like a cloud comes down and he is scowling and anxious, uncomfortable.  As if he’s expecting the entire building to come crashing down around him.  I joined him in the sanctuary after I checked Ali into her classroom. 

I’ve been to many churches over the years.  It always amazes me that there are some churches you walk into and NO ONE even so much as glances at you, let alone comes up and introduces themselves to you.  It’s pitiful.  I can say without hesitation that there hasn’t been ONE single Sunday at this church that SOMEONE hasn’t come up and shaken our hands, welcomed us, chatted with us, prayed with us.  Simply being acknowledged is an amazing thing.  You feel like you belong.   Two years ago, during prayer time right before the message, a man two rows ahead of us stood up and came to crouch down next to Mike.

“I don’t know you, I don’t know your name, but I feel Him leading me to you to pray with you and over you.  He’s telling me to tell you not to worry, that things are coming that will test you to your very core and you won’t understand the reason and you won’t understand why, but God is going to use you and I want you to know He loves you and I want you to have peace.  Can we pray together?” 

THAT is this kind of church. 

Today was no different, people chatted with us, we chatted with others.  Everyone knows who Mike is because a) he’s REALLY hard to miss; b) he’s been on the church prayer roster for over nine months now and everyone knows who the guy with the wraps on his left leg is.  An amazing church full of people.  Hearts at this church are enormous.  Our pastor has such a heart for reaching out to Salem and Keizer’s lost and lonely.  He lost a child himself 7 or 8 years ago when his 16 year old son, Kevin, died instantly of a brain hemmorage.  When we were interviewing pastors while looking for a church (yes, we interview them.  You are looking for someone who will be responsible for ministering to your heart and soul, you bet we have a list of questions for them and you’d be even more surprised at how many we passed up because they were the emergent, ecumenical, “there are more ways than one to God” kind of pastors that pushed books by Rick Warren and thought “The Shack” was the second revelation after the Bible.  No thanks.)  Pastor Randy kindly came by the house and met with us, very simple man, but kind and direct, answered our questions, and assured us, you won’t find popular churchianity at Salem Evangelical.  You find God, you find God through His son, and that’s that.  Good enough for us.

So, we are sitting through the singing and the prayer portion and Mike is starting to squirm.  And get VERY restless.  He leans over to me and said, “I feel like CLAWS are raking up my skin graft.  I need to get out of here.”  That’s all I need to hear, he struggles to stand up and we are out the door of the sanctuary.  Mike’s legs are still so weak from having done NOTHING in the way of physically building them up the past three years and as he stepped out into the foyer his legs begin shaking and I’m only thinking one thing:  Clear out of here, everyone, the big man is going down and we are in for trouble.”  He’s gone down on his knees on me several times and it’s amazing how strong I suddenly become when I can catch him in time and keep the Titanic from going completely down.  Still, we are in a building of a ton of people, Mike HATES feeling any attention on him, and I’m praying like a mad woman that he’s just shaking them awake and he’s going to be alright.  Thank God he’s alright, now let’s find a place to sit down.  There?  No, chairs are too short.  There?  No, not yet.  We make our way to one of the entrances where there are smaller versions of the benches we just left and he makes his way over to one and sits down.  The look on his face was, “Where do I start?  Lord, why?  Why can’t I have my sight?  You have taken so much away from me already, why are you taking my sight?  Why won’t you let this warrior have his body back, the body that leapt from one second story house to another when I was building them, to the body that hauled glue-lams weighing 300 lbs. on my shoulders up a 12 foot ladder?  The body that took charge of inmates and the body that carried my wife over a threshold, the body that Alison fell asleep on every night for the first eight months of her life after I’d get home from work?  You have taken it all, and yes, granted, I asked you to use me two weeks before August 1, I  get that.  Buy why now my eyes?  Why does there always have to be a battle raging around me?”  I was pissed that once again, Mike had to leave a service, feeling like the enemy won.

I knew that anything I would think of to say would be totally useless.  Sometimes the best things a woman can say is NOTHING.  I believe we women already say way too much as it is.  We need a shut-off valve like the ones on air compressors when we don’t know how to just shut up.  Just hold his hand, let him know you’re beside him, but that quiet exchange often says more than a string of meaningless words you utter simply to make yourself feel better, feel like YOU are doing something, when all the words do is confuse and clutter up more.  So, I held his hand, the tears start dripping down my face, and I felt so incredibly useless.  I can’t do a thing except hold his hand and just be there.

And then he comes around the corner.  God sent an angel.  The angel’s name is Jeff and he’s about Mike’s age, maybe a few years older, Hawaiian, and to look at him, he’s the picture of health and vitality.  He saw Mike’s face, pained and anguished and searching and that was all he needed.  He walked up to Mike and put his hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“Brother, what can I do for you?”

Salem Evangelical, during services, has a constant flow of people walking out in the hallways and foyers, watching who comes in and out, making sure no one loiters or comes in hoping to walk around unnoticed. Jeff is one of those people that patrols.   There are a ton of kids at this church, and they are VERY protected.  It is also a heavily armed church, and not by request of the pastor.  This is done completely on a volunteer basis of the members and they are SERIOUS about protecting our right to worship without the threat of violence.  If you come into that building for any other reason other than to worship the living God and fellowship with your brothers and sisters, you picked the wrong church on the wrong day.  Pastors get threats all the time and if you don’t believe me, wow, have I got stories for you.  They do, and since there are many Salem Police and OSP Corrections officers that attend SEC, you are walking the one building in our area on Sunday where if you charge the pulpit, IF you aren’t crushed by the amount of bodies pig-piling on you, you’ll wind up on the end of a bullet, because we protect our church and the pastor.  Anyway, forgive that little rabbit trail I got off on.

The angel named Jeff.  I know with all my heart that God led us right to that bench and I also know with all my heart that Jeff was going to be led by God right past that bench.  He saw the battle going on by looking at Mike’s face.  He listened as Mike poured it all out.  Everything.  The diabetes.  The nec/fac.  The blindness.  The knee surgeries.  Everything.  How can I provide for and protect my family?  Why does He take away everything I have?  It’s one thing for me to tell Mike that I’m sharing his story with literally thousands of people online and I have heard from so many people telling me, “Reading your husband’s story has given me strength to keep pushing through my battle.  Thank you for showing me God in his life.”  All the time I hear this and THAT is what we have asked Him to use us for—as a voice to share God’s miracles and to tell people, “Yes, this life stinks on ice, but this life is a vapor.  Let me tell you about eternity and then we will ask you to come with us!”  God is so very good!

And then Jeff began to speak.  Guess what?  He’s a diabetic.  Guest what?  He battles testosterone, edema (swelling through retaining water).  Your eyes are failing you?  My kidneys lost 1/3 their function just LAST WEEK!  He is going through his grocery list of the same issues Mike is and every time he said something, he followed up with, “Brother, I am walking this same walk with you—I KNOW how this feels!”  He prayed with us.  We rejoiced that there was another man that could IDENTIFY with Mike, that knew the struggle, the pain, the feeling of the entire world leaving you behind and all you have are your ailments as your body falls apart and no one knows how afraid you truly are. 

By this time, there’s nothing ladylike about me—my nose is running and I have Niagara Falls running down my face and I look up to Mike and WHOA, NELLY………

PEACE.  Absolute peace.  The tension has left his body, he’s lost that pinched look.  Relaxed.   Everything about him said, “God, I needed an angel and you sent Jeff to talk to me.”   I still cannot wrap my mind around how peaceful he looked.  There was a need and God met it.  Not just with a flowery quotation or a pat on the back.  No, someone REAL and tangible and so honest that he opened up and told us all his body’s frailties and that was how he identified with Mike. 

The phone at the greeting desk rang and he had to answer it so he ran about 10 feet away.  I looked at Mike.

“Your angel.  Jeff was your angel.”  Mike nodded.  No words, just nodded with a soft smile.

Jeff returned and apologized that he had to run off but wanted to get our number so he could follow up.  Mike walked on out to the truck and I caught Jeff coming back from the source of the phone call.  He gave me his number and a hug and said, “You have the big man call me.  We are not done talking!” 

I believe the ONLY thing better than having that angel appear to you to offer you God’s heart is when YOU are the person God chooses to be the angel.  It’s like your love tank is just topped off.  It feels so good to minister to someone in desperate need, and today Mike was in desperate need.  How totally like God to just at that PERFECT time send that PERFECT person to give to you exactly what you needed.  Mike needed to see God’s face and feel God’s love, and oh, how he did in such a PERFECT way. 

Just one of the uncountable reasons I love God SO much.

The eyes.

There are days when you cruise along and even though you hit speed bumps here and there, life is still good, and then there are days when you get socked in the gut and now it's time to stop and regroup.   We have had a lot of speedbumps lately.  Today was the sock in the gut so I'm stopping to regroup.


Mike hadn't seen his opthamologist since some time last September or October.  We were too busy with the day-to-day visits to Wound Care and things had stabilized for the time being with his eyes.  Left eye is still 95% blind with a teeny little window of vision that is like looking through cheesecloth.  He'd been having "bleeders" off and on this winter but finally had to get back in for an exam to see how the right eye, his "good" eye, is doing.  A few weeks ago, while replacing the shocks on the Dodge, he held his breath while wrenching hard to get a bolt loose and fresh blood squirted out of the blood vessel and had been giving him problems.


A bit of history:  As diabetics progress, the body starts killing off blood vessels.  This robs parts of the body of needed oxygen.  That is when nerves start dying off and diabetics begin having trouble with abscesses, gangrene, losing limbs, etc.  In the eye, the blood vessels die off.  But the eyeball tells the brain, "Hey, I'm suffocating down here, make me some blood vessels NOW!" The body complies, creating blood vessels that get the job done.  But these vessels are weak.  Very weak, and they burst easily.  We didn't know this was occurring until his vision began to really go bad in October 2007 and he had an eye exam at Walmart, only to be told by the optometrist that his eyes were hemmoraging and glasses weren't even close to being needed, laser surgery was.  We have had wonderful opthamologists that have helped Mike.  Sadly, the left eye did not heal.  As you shoot lasers at
them, they do die, slowly, but they emit a sticky substance to hang on in the eye fluid and as they died off, they pulled the retina off the back of his eye.  The surgeon tried to reattach the retina but it didn't do well.  We have to be very careful with his right eye. 


Today's visit was a blow.  The retina on the right eye was examined carefully.  It has already begun detaching on the inside of the eye up near the sinus cavity.  The surgeon doesn't want to perform
the same surgery he did on the left eye.  Based on how that turned out, he told Mike there is nothing medically that can be done, other than he strongly suggested finding out some way to get Mike's sleep apnea checked out and get a cpap machine because the body is starved for oxygen and that will help prolong his right eye.  In the end, however, Mike has passed point of no return and we just have to watch things carefully and be prepared.  As you can imagine, this brought about a whole new set of emotions.  He has been through so much already.  Now to not be able to see..........he has joked for years, "it's a race between me going blind and the Rapture taking us Home."  Today, we saw that race tightening up and we may very well be coming down to the wire on one or the other.

 
When God brought us together in 2001, I was mystified at the timing.  Why now?  Why not in high school?  Why not 1991?  I will know that answer one day, but for now, I do see Him bringing us together because He knew there would be challenges that Mike would be going through and I am to be his support.  I do not grieve.  I am not my mother, whining about "This isn't the man that I married!" and worrying myself into cancer, as she did.  No.  I squared my shoulders today and said, "Bring it."  I am stronger now than I was back in 2001.  I am smarter, more capable.  I have courage where I had none.  I have a servant's heart for my husband and I love him dearly.  I only pray he has peace and can seek God's strength through this should the Lord tarry a while longer.  I live under no illusions.  If you think things have been wild and uncertain these last four years, you have no clue what is coming.  That realization adds to my resolve and my mission is to raise a godly, loving child, encourage Katherine as she grows as a wife, and to be the best helpmeet Mike could ever hope for.  God has moved paths here and there and provided for us when I didn't know how we would hold it all together.  Why does He keep putting Mike through these trials?  Maybe this side of heaven we will not know the full extent of how our lives have impacted others, but from the kind notes that people have messaged me with after reading entries about our journey with nec/fac, I pray that this, too, will show God's love clearly to someone needing that encouragement.  Maybe this is our time to stand on the roof (however, not on this house.  The roof might collapse) and show people God's power and the enemy's failures.  


In his early days in the hospital last year, he was visited very often by a really darling older gentleman, Pastor Dave.   He is a visiting pastor from our church, Salem Evangelical Church.  His wife, Anne, is one of the most energetic, happy, positive women I've ever met.  You know the story in the Bible, faith being so strong if you told a mountain to collapse into the sea it would?  Anne would be the force that would CHASE that mountain into the sea.  Every single week she calls to
get an update to include Mike on the church prayer list.  Pastor Dave has made it a point to come visit Mike here at home and it's blessed Mike so much.  His father left for good when he was six.  Mike has not seen his dad in 44 years, although after some letters exchanged in the 90's, he discovered his father is a really creepy, nasty individual, athiest, White Supremacist and anti-semite.  The personality cocktail from hell.  He has had a succession of male friends in and out of his life. 
For whatever reason, he's not had a lot of friends, but then again, he's not into lying, cheating, drinking, running around, or pretending to be stupid.  An old friend from grade school and high school is more interested in getting drunk and online gambling and calls Mike a Bible thumper (which, incidentally, is a compliment to Mike).  Even our old pastor has cut off all communication with him.  Seems once Mike was no longer in construction he wasn't really all that interesting because he couldn't supply leftovers from job sites.  He needed that pastor when he went back to work in the prisons and the door had closed.  Humans will always leave you feeling empty and alone.  Humans will be the first to run out on you.  I am as guilty of that as anyone.  I've had to mea culpa my way through a lot of things in my life.  When we run out of people here, we seem to think that's it.  Well's run dry.  There is NO ONE for me.  That is when God makes His biggest entrance.  And He does it without fanfare.  He is simply standing there and you see him after the crowd around you disperses.  His hand is out.  It was there all the time.  We simply fill our lives up with too many "touchable" people that end up leaving us.   We put too many people between us and God and we miss that hand that was out the whole time waiting for you to take it.



Yesterday, at Pastor Dave's urging, Mike attended a men's Bible study at the church.  He'd been wanting to for a few months, but the enemy always seemed to throw a monkey wrench in the plans.  Yesterday, he finally made it.  While Mike was there Pastor Dave's wife, Anne, called for her weekly update.  We had a lovely chat.  I shared with her something God had shown me about my husband.  A dad is an important part of a child's life.  Mike desired that presence of a man in his life for as long as he could remember.  Just a dad.  We live in this world of immediate gratification and response, and he'd been seeking a father figure like that, seeking a mentor, seeking ANYONE that would give a boy direction.  My uncle was the closest thing he'd really had to a dad, but life stepped in and they went their separate ways.  I told Anne yesterday, Mike will have to come to a point where he sees GOD the Father as that father figure.  Hebrews 11:1 tells us "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  We have to walk in faith, as the faith heroes of the Bible did.  Mike may not have his earthly dad, Mike may not have mentors that he's wanted, or those friends he could trust, but he has his Father.  His Abba Father.  The God that will love him like no father ever could.  He created Mike.


When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 I was immediately fearful for my girls.  How will they survive without me?  God spoke to my heart and said, "I made them!  I love your daughters more than you ever could because I created them, and if it is your time to come Home to Me, I will take care of them."  That Hebrews 11:1 faith, when grabbed on to, shows you God's love, His all consuming, deep, abiding, protective, providing, rescuing love He has for you.  Now, at a time when Mike's vision may be slowly waning and the light fades, all the people around him, except those of us immediately there, fade away an and either with vision or without, Mike will see that all along, there He was standing there, just waiting for that hand of Mike's to reach out to Him.  I love my husband so much.  I would willingly take anything he's gone through just to give him a day's peace.  I am so proud to be his wife and so thankful to be on this journey we've been on.  I don't want earthly
things to make me happy, gifts make me uncomfortable, I hate shopping, a new shirt from Goodwill nearly puts me over the edge of giddy.  I have what makes me happy.  But being Mike's wife, all the good, all the bad, all the funny, all the sad, it is a PRIVILEGE to walk this walk with him.  Sight or no, we live our vows and that is the one thing I pray that, sight or not, he will ALWAYS see.

Is that light the end of the tunnel?

This was taken today at Wound Care.

There are only three very small places left on the top of the foot. Just about the ONLY place there is swelling anymore is the toes and the front half of the foot. The graft site seems to be expanding to fit more of the contour of the leg. He's been doing a lot of walking and the muscle is no longer so atrophied, but building. The seams of the graft are just beautiful and completely healed. The variations in color are mellowing out and it's looking more normal. The girls aren't taking any chances, though, and are strictly sticking to protocol to get these last few places totally healed up. Again, the slow spot seems to be over the tendon on top that seemed to take longer than any other area to cover with granulation. Because of all the time he's spent lying down with the foot elevated, he has done a lot of flexing and rolling his ankle so it doesn't become stiff and any more arthritic than it is. He has a very good range of motion in the ankle, the nurses were quite but to get the top large spot completely healed, he needs to lay off that for a little bit. No signs anywhere of problems or infection. What used to take nearly an hour to accomplish in a visit now can be done in 20 minutes or less. As of Thursday he has been off all prescription pain meds completely for two weeks and is not going back, no small feat considering the months that Dilaudid flowed through him in large amounts.

I have remarked many times that this has been as difficult mentally and emotionally as it has been physically. It was important to him to get off the pain meds. His father was a narcotic pill popper and he's done everything he can to not be anything like his family. There hasn't been alcohol for over 10 years anywhere near him, and to have had the pain pills this long bothered him. He did go through withdrawal, but focused on what he was accomplishing instead of berating himself that "I'm no better than my father." To him this was a very personal challenge for that reason, but it also meant closing the door on one more aspect related to this battle with nec/fac. He had an appointment with his regular doctor today and instead of the milk chocolate he's been eating to help with the withdrawal, the doctor instead said he'd rather it be dark chocolate for several reasons. It won't mess so much with his blood sugar, lots of antioxidants, and because of the sharpness of the taste you're less likely to eat as much of it. Duly noted, getting some tomorrow.

I showed the doctor the photo below and he was blown away by how well Mike has healed. "To have gone through what you've gone through, being almost 50 and Type 1 diabetic since 1988, once we get this testosterone back up, you will be like a kid again." He was very proud of how well Mike's done. 

However, the visit today was not entirely a happy one. In December 2011 he was found to have VERY low testosterone. We were doing injections every three weeks up until August 1 when this all started. He was doing better and after the nec/fac, his doctor took him off all of the testosterone. This has obviously been a physically difficult time but the last blood test a week ago revealed that his testosterone was now in very dangerously low levels. With the pain meds gone, I now can see the effects of low T on a man and it's heartbreaking. Depression. Lack of initiative. Exhaustion. Weight gain. But the doc wasn't willing to prescribe anything until he'd done a prostate exam.

Do not think for a minute that I didn't run with this. Because I did. :o) After years of heading off to an annual exam and hearing, "Smile big!" for the mammogram and all sorts of lewd remarks about the exam table and stirrups, karma came back to bite him square on the behind. And I had fun with it. Ali and I left the exam room after the initial checkup and on the way out the door, I called to Dr. Kuzma, "Be gentle with him. And give him a 15 second cuddle when you're done." Karma. They both blushed.

So, the plethora of meds are gone, now it's only insulin, diuretic, potassium, and the testosterone cream. I marvel at how each piece has fallen in place and it only happened because we followed every instruction to the letter and looked to God for everything. We have lived in such a state of panic and urgency for so long that we now both agree on one thing: Boring is GOOD.