"He gathers the water in the sea like a dam and puts the oceans in his storehouses" ; Psalm 33:7
I've been having a time discerning what to write about in the series I call "Lioness Among Tigers". I've taken a timeout to access and discern what God is leading me to write about and then praying over it. What is being asked to write about is deeply personal. It is about Emily's journey and my own, friends.
I have been guarded because of the mama bear that protects her daughter. In the second year of seizures I was praying more like pleading with our Heavenly Daddy in tears for Emily. It was during one of those whiny pleas that I heard "Emily's story is my glory. It is her story. Dry your tears and be her mom. You are my hands and feet, daughter". I stopped writing and speaking about Emily and her seizures. About the extreme pressure my daughter was under and I as her mom.
Now our Heavenly Daddy has done a miracle. Emily is 48 days seizure free. She has not been seizure free for this long since she was 19. We are now in year 7 of "her story for his glory". It feels like God is telling me it is time to open the dam and the storehouse that has been guarded. It's been a challenge friends and a heartbreaking process to write the second in this series. How much do I share; the response is "all of it". Won't that make me volatile? The response "not a chance it will make you free". Ok, here we go, friends;
My mom passed away last year. As I went through my mom's clothing to donate last year I came across her perfumes. I stood in her bathroom and just cried and sniffed perfume. I found a bottle of "Happy" perfume and cried more.
When I was a teenager I so wanted a bottle of "Beautiful" perfume. My mom and I went to the mall. My mom told me that I needed to smell all the different perfumes and find the right scent that was uniquely me and not just what I wanted. We sniffed and sniffed and then went and got a coke. We came back to sniff and sniff some more. I found the bottle of "Beautiful" that I wanted. My mom sniffed and said "Beautiful is too heavy for you, Sherry. I think Happy is exactly you. Happy is what God created when he gave me you. When I look at you I see a happy girl that perplexes me because she can always see and find the good".
Each year after we would go on my birthday to the perfume counter together and she would buy me "Happy". I wore the perfume not only as my scent but as a reminder of what God created me to be; to find the the positive and hope for the best. Secretly, I still longed for "Beautiful" but knew that beautiful was too heavy for me. It became a metaphor for my life, friends. I have spent years spinning in happy ; finding the good in the moment, seeking the best from God, and knowing heartache that only the Lord could heal. Being happy but never feeling beautiful.
November marked the first anniversary of mom's death. I totally forgot it. My daughter was in the hospital fighting for life and we were in a battle for a miracle from Heaven. At the time it didn't feel happy or beautiful. It felt painful, prolonged, and personal ; that is right where our Heavenly Daddy wanted me. He wanted to teach me a lesson that even when you feel attacked, frightened, and overwhelmed you can be happy. That kind of happy is beautiful because it is heavy.
A friend asked me last week how Emily was doing. This is what I shared; Today she felt like she was slurring her speech. I assured her that she wasn't and she sounded just fine. She actually repeated her sentence a couple of more times to make sure that I heard her and it was correct. Her hair has started growing back which is a huge self esteem booster. The biggest thing is that she has not had a seizure since we got home". Just typing that makes me happy. Can you feel how that could be happy or possible even beautiful? Yeah, probably not enough for beautiful but definitely happy.
I went on telling my friend ; I think the biggest praise to our Heavenly Daddy is that the girl I sent to college at 19 is back. I have not seen Emily track this well in years which brings me to tears. I have seen her gradually being reduced to one or two days that she tracks well. The rest of the days she; has garbled speech, stumbles as she walks, has migraines, and sleeps her days and nights away. Right now she is doing NONE of that. She does nap but when she is up she holds a conversation well, is pertinent with information, and shares from her heart and soul beautiful stories about her journey. The most impressive is that she has told me that she has felt she has felt trapped in her own body for years with no way out and feeling like she was loosing it". There are lots of things within that where you could find happiness especially that Emily can now talk freely rather than having something holding her back...but beautiful? Check this out.
I finished up telling my friend this ; "Emily told me what got her through all of it is that she could feel that she wasn't alone. She says it felt like someone was always there with her but it wasn't me, her dad, or brother it felt different. Emily shared she felt the same way at the hospital. At the hospital she had a dream that Jesus was sitting next to her holding her hand as she slept. Emily told me that it has been Jesus there with her for the past 7 years beside her. That she couldn't realize it was him because of the seizures, migraines, memory loss, and not tracking well but now she knows that it was always him". I believe that is too heavy to be called just happy, friends, that can only be called beautiful.
As I sat writing for the past couple of weeks to come up with a second blog in the series I kept coming back to the "Happy" perfume with my mom. I kept thinking about my text to a friend. This week it became clear I needed to write about being happy and the heaviness of truly being beautiful.
I would be hard pressed to tell you that everything for seven years with Emily has been easy or happy. The seizures she experienced were grueling for her physically, mentally, and spiritually. The seizures came unexpected in the night or even when we were sitting eating dinner at the kitchen table. The seizures came to reap and sow in fear not only in Emily but in me and our family. We could not live a normal life and we could never anticipate the weariness of sheer happiness. I took everyday as a challenge to remain happy. To give God praise each day that I woke up and that I had a daughter named Emily. I praised God that he had promise and perspective for Emily and that her story would be for his glory. We began doing a "celebration of life" over Emily after every seizure. It was a time to celebrate she was still alive and pray over her.
Friends, I know it is hard to be happy. I know it is hard to find praise when you want surrender. I have believed for years that beautiful was too heavy a fragrance for me. I also began believing that beautiful could never be a descriptive word for me or my life. Seven years ago my life changed my life. Seven years ago in January when Emily's college called and said she was in the ER and was unresponsive after a seizure. They told me that she began seizing in class and stopped breathing. That she was unresponsive and the EMT's were called. They told me that she laid in an ER in St Louis alone and unresponsive. I had no idea what had happened. The one thing I did know was that she was not alone that Jesus was there with her. I put all my trust that Jesus was there as I called the hospital and quarreled with the staff until a nurse had mercy on me and told me that my 19 year old daughter was alive and details.
As I began thinking about writing about being happy and beautiful this week. I can't say that Emily or my story has been a happy one for the past 7 years. In honesty, friend, yesterday, stunk! Emily wasn't tracking well and almost fell down twice trying to use the stairs. By the grace of our Heavenly Daddy I was home with her and could get her up the stairs and in a chair. I asked if she was ok and her response was "overwhelmed" and then nothing. Nothing but "overwhelmed" and tears.
I know the face of disappointment, delay, and anguish yesterday just like I did 7 years ago with the phone call from Emily's college. I felt Psalm 33:7 pop out; "He gathers the water in the sea like a dam and puts the oceans in his storehouse". I sense that God has been gathering the waters around Emily and our family for the past 7 years and creating a dam that held back despair and replaced it with determination. He created a storehouse of God given grit for Emily, myself, my husband and son to access when needed, necessary, or we just wanted to.
God given grit allows the passing of time without recognizing the pain of the moments in between. God given grit allows you to wake in the morning and praise our Heavenly Daddy for waking up and ask him what should we do today and listening for a response. It allows each of us the capability of being happy in the face of what we are going through personally or what is happening in the world.
God given grit allows us to seek mercy and peace at all times. God given grit is ours even when we do not hear a response as we pray. God given grit allows us the freedom to deal with the day and the challenges we encounter. God given grit is the blessing of trusting our Heavenly Daddy, our creator, who calls us beloved with everything and walking in mercy and peace not only for our own happiness but to bear his light brilliantly to the world.
I feel like I need to point something out, friends. Something very important. There are times I have come to know when our Heavenly Daddy is silent. He is NOT silent because I have made him mad or that I am undeserving. It is by grace that he is gifting me silence because my world is so very, very extraordinarily noisy. It is his gift that I would find solace in the silence of just being with him. Solace in silence can bring happiness if you realize the gift from Heavenly realms that it is.
In the past 7 years there have been mornings that I hear what I am to do and I relish those mornings because they bear my heart and soul of who I am created to be. There have been more mornings that I heard silence and that I knew it was going to be a tough day and one that I could feel compromised. In the silence I grew in resilience with our Heavenly Daddy for the day and how to approach it. Resilience led me to an alignment with our Heavenly Daddy that says "you can go if you want but I would really like it if you stayed a while". That alignment is fierce and is a step to allowing yourself to dig your heels in and stand when the world roars to knock you down and make you whimper. If you have experienced moments like that and stood tall and firm on the rock of Jesus guess what? That is God given grit.
Grit lets the world roar and knows that our Heavenly Daddy's ROAR is so much bigger, louder, and fiercer than anything else. Grit releases you to tell your Heavenly Daddy to ROAR over you and situations to break you free. Grit requires absolute trust and praise to a Daddy that will always be there and ready to pick you up out of the mud and clay and sit your feet back on the rock and make you steady. Grit is allows you to be happy at times that would bring tears. Grit is saying that happiness is beautiful when the world sees a mess.
Emily had surgery on November 19. I got to bring her home before Thanksgiving. One week after coming home I was up in the morning watching the news. I saw a commercial advertising makeup at Macys and cried. It hit me that it had been one year since my mom passed. One year and I forgot it. Emily heard me crying and came to make sure I was ok. I told her that I thought we should go buy some perfume. I shared with her I forgot my mom's death anniversary. I shared with her about "Happy" and "Beautiful" and asked if she would go with me to buy perfume.
By God's grace my daughter was two weeks out of her second brain surgery and was walking and talking. She hugged me and told me she would get ready. We went to Macys for perfume. I bought a bottle of Happy and a bottle of Beautiful. The happy is for the girl that I was and still am that loves the God, sees the best in people and situations, and hopes. The beautiful is for the mom that helped me realize that being happy can be beautiful but it can feel "too heavy" for us. Beautiful grace steps in when that happens. Emily and her journey has allowed me to see that beautiful is not heavy but it is connected to being happy.
Today I praise our Heavenly Daddy for God given grit that he has in storehouses for us to use. I find thanks for generations of women that challenge me and allow me to be who I am. I had to stop writing to praise our Heavenly Daddy for the gifts of my mom and my daughter. I am thankful for the ability to see that happy and beautiful work together harmoniously even as the world roars. I know my Heavenly Daddy ROARS over me and you too. I am praying that I will walk in mercy and peace today. I pray that you will find yourself walking in mercy and peace too.
There it is friends. The second one is wrote. Wowsies, what an incredible blessing to dig in and share with you.
May you walk in mercy and peace- Sherry
