A Friend Who Travails

Miracles Still Happen

The last few months for me have really been a great lesson about the depths of friendship...what truly defines a friendship, and what friendship is NOT--and the vast world between the two.

I have friends that I know pray for me all time. They even tell me so and I appreciate that because it is easy to forget sometimes that the war is not with flesh and blood and I have warriors watching my back!

I don't minimize those prayers at all...but if you were to ask me if I had a friend that would LITERALLY give up a whole night of sleep to truly war in prayer for me, to stand guard in prayer through the third watch of the night...I don't know that I could have so easily answered that one...until today.

Some of you may already know about our recent trip to the ER after completely losing my ability to walk. I began limping for no apparent reason last Friday. I had not injured my leg in any way. By Monday I was completely unable to walk. The pain was more than excruciating. They gave me Morphine at the ER that could not even touch the pain. The diagnosis was that I had a flare up of Lyme Arthritis. It was not known if this would be a temporary or permanent problem as Lyme Arthritis can be permanently crippling. Tuesday the pain was no better, in fact much worse. At this point genuine fear had set in and gripped my heart.

The sudden reality of what I could not do was a wake up call for me! I had to make arrangements for other people to get my kids to and from school. Brad took off work so that he could pick Chris up across town after his ROTC training, after already being up for over 24 hours since he had stayed with me at the ER the night before. Brad also was making runs to the pharmacy and getting the kids something to eat for dinner...and suddenly I realized this situation was going from bad to worse before my eyes. My husband HAD to be able to sleep or he would injure himself! Battling his own case of Lyme, stress is not good for an immune system that is in high alert! At that point I felt it was time to ask for help...I needed to find a wheel chair so I could at least function on some level around the house.

I spent all of Tuesday in bed alternating ice packs and heating pads...and by bed time still had no relief. The pain meds only took the edge off but was far from "working" to relieve the pain. I spent the night tossing and turning, the pain made it too hard to get comfortable. Eventually morning came. I sat on the side of bed, and for the first time I realized I had not yelped in pain as I rolled over. I reached for the crutch a friend had loaned me and steadied myself as I stood up...no pain. I took a few steps with the crutch...no pain. I put the crutch down and walked into the bathroom...no pain. I walked into the livingroom where my daughter was getting ready for school and I held both hands in the air..."Look...no crutches!" Cheers came from the livingroom!

Bear with me as I use a new word my friend Donna taught me....
I was rather "bumfuzzled" by the drastic change of events from the previous 2 days!! GO GOD!!!

Later this afternoon Brad told me that my Pastor's wife, Debi, had called and wanted to cook us dinner for tomorrow night. I called her back feeling a bit guilty and that I might be getting a free meal under false pretenses! After all...I was walking!!!

It was then that she shared with me that God woke her up last night and she literally prayed ALL NIGHT for my healing. I was about beside myself when I told her that I truly woke up this morning with no pain and I was able to WALK!!

I have never had such a drastic and immediate answer to prayer before!! And I , of all people, know there was no over-exaggeration of my pain and inability to walk. You lose all sense of dignity when someone has to help you use the bathroom because you can't walk....(you just cant fake that kind of indignity! At least not when you VALUE modesty!)

As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately...and even re-defining what friendship really is. In retrospect, I just ended a 19 year friendship that boiled down to be of little substance and was very unhealthy. Yet, right here under my nose, was a friend that I rarely get to spend time with other than in passing at church and a few hurried moments before or after a bible study at her home...yet the substance of THIS friendship proved to be more real and authentic than the fruit (or lack thereof) of a 19 year friendship that just ended.

I guess Debi has really raised the bar of what a quality friend really is. I long to be a friend like that...and God permitting, I plan on learning a lot from this wise woman of faith! Many friends will pray for you...but how many will pray ALL NIGHT for you until they see the breakthrough?

I have that kind of friend! When she speaks into my life...I listen. God does not place precious and priceless gems like this in your path to be stepped over and ignored! She is a Titus 2 woman if I ever met one! Through her faithfulness in prayer, she has won a place in my heart that few will ever enter.

I wish for you all to have a friend like Debi Kerr!

Dawn

When Facing Adversity Remember The Carrot, The Egg and a Cup of Coffee

A carrot, an egg, and a cup of coffee...

You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again. A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see."

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart? Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity?

Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean? May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy. The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can't go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches. When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying. It's easier to build a child than repair an adult. This is so true. May we all be COFFEE !!

Resurrection of a Dream

God is Never Late, He is Right on Time

For those of you who know me, and know me well, know that there is a part of my heart that will forever be linked to Nicaragua. I dont know when that happened. Maybe it was the last 8 years of missions conferences at our church. I always tell my friends that the Missions Conference at our church the the highlight of my year (ahem...next to Christmas and Easter, of course!).

This year, battling with the Lyme disease, there were days that my dream of seeing Nicaragua were slipping farther and farther away. I kept holding on to scriptures that would keep my dream alive...how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! Many are called, but few are chose. The harvest is great, but the workers are few.

Whats a girl to do when she feels the conviction of God to do something that seems wholly impossible in the natural scheme of things? In those first months after the missions conference when I made the 1 year plan to get prepared to go, the conviction was STRONG. There was no way to discourage me. But somewhere on that journey, doubt crept in. Maybe it was the day my legs would not work correctly and I could not walk. Or maybe it was the day the skin on my arm blistered and burned on a 15 trip to the store with the sun coming in from the car window. I mean, the medication said to avoid PROLONGED sun exposure...who knew 15 minutes would be considered prolonged! How in the world would I survive a week in South America, in summertime, if I had such reactions to the sun? I can't pinpoint the actual moment I no longer believed I would actually make it to Nicaragua. But the past few days I had been thinking about Nicaragua again and there really was a doubt and disbelief. I honestly started thinking "Well if I can't go, maybe we should just send Christopher." Without realizing it, I had already accepted defeat and was making a plan B.

The last few days have been kind of tearful. I was telling Brad, I don't know what's wrong with me! I keep leaking tears! Something has been so tugging at my heart that it has kept my emotions raw for several days. At one point I was feeling like an emotional basket case and I told Brad we needed to go buy some pregnancy tests...maybe that would explain the tearfulness and tender heart! No pregnancy...just tears. I knew I was a mess when I was waiting in the car for Josh to get out of school and a radio commercial came on that was advertising the movie World Trade Center and by the end of the trailer I was leaking again and digging through my purse for a kleenex! A COMMERCIAL!! What is wrong with me!!??!!

Then on the way to church this morning I really felt the Lord tell me he wanted to touch my heart BEFORE I got to church. Just listening to the Worship on the radio, I started leaking again...by the time I arrived at church I was conviced that the worship team could have sung Mary Had a Little Lamb and I would have been reduced to a puddle of tears. For the life of me I could not figure out what all the emotional TURMOIL has been about!

After worship, Pastor asked the team who went to Nicaragua to come up and tell of their work their. I had no idea they would be sharing this morning. It was almost as if God just tapped me on the shoulder and said "Dont you dare let that dream die." No kidding, just the few days before I was working on "plan B" thinking maybe Chris should go. But more than ever the dream was rekindled.

When Pastor got up to preach, it was as if God sealed it with a kiss. The message this morning was about raising Lazarus from the dead. What a beautiful reminder of Jesus' ability to raise to life that which we have let die with our doubt and disbelief. Jesus still functions in a resurrection power!

Again, I cant tell you why I have such a passion for Nicaragua. When most people desire to travel to a foreign country it is to see the Eifle Tower, the beautiful cathedrals of europe...but not me...

THIS is where my heart is:This is not exactly the heart's desire of most people if given the opportunity to hop a plane and go somewhere.

On the way home from church, a song came over the radio...it seemed almost the perfect ending to a perfect day of resurrecting a dream...

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with eyes wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
********************************
"Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield

Diary of a Mad Black Woman

Brad and I watched this DVD this weekend when we went away for our medical visit in Louisiana. When you are cramped up in a hotel room, too sick to really go "see the sites" the best you can do is rent a movie from the local Block Buster, hunker down and make the best of a medical visit weekend.

It is not a movie I would have chosen on my own, but we had a friend highly reccommend it (thanks Stan!). I laughed and I cried...just an incredible movie! (There is mild language as a disclaimer.) In this photo, the grandmother Madea has just witnessed her grandaughter get pushed around by her husband who has had an affair and put her out of the house so the girlfriend and his kids can move in...well...what is any respectable grandma to do? Just sit and watch her grandchild get the shaft? At one point I asked Brad...so who is the "mad" black woman? Was it the jilted wife or the grandma? Grandma Madea in this scene has a solution to the cheating spouse...half of everything he owned belonged to her granddaughter...and which half did he want? She took a chainsaw to all of his posessions!

I laughed till I cried...I think I identified all too well with that kind of attitude that has taken all it can it take...and then there is the breaking point!

So welcome to the diary of a mad white woman tonight!!!

You know, there just comes a time where you can take NO MORE of injustice! I have had little "fires" brewing around me for the last week. At first I seemed intimidated...but NO MORE! I can't tell you WHAT the "last straw" was that broke the camels back...but whatever it was that poor camel is now permanently injured. And I find I just dont care!

My pastor preached a sermon once that said you can be a victim or you can be an overcomer! Just this last week I determined real quick the "victim" role was just not appropriate! Not for me! I have overcome too many things in my life (rape, house fires, 7 miscarriages, chronic illness) and I am not about to let these littles threatening "fires" intimidate me anymore.

Hell hath no fury like a woman who has been badgered with injustices! This southern woman has gotten a taste of a Brooklyn Bronx attitude...and I know how to use it!

FIRE 1: Mid July I got a letter from Compass bank (whom I have had 3 bank accounts with over the last 3 years). The letter said they had closed all my accounts, including my new business account! They shut the account two days after I made an almost $1,000 deposit and began paying my business expenses. They returned all the checks as "account closed" and began charging me fees $36 a shot on an account I had a deposit slip showing funds available! No phone call was made. No explanation was given!

I cordially tried to speak with the Bank manager to find out what the problem was. He could find no reason on any of the accounts activities that would warrant them closing the accounts so he called corporate offices to find out more info. He was given a number to a reporting agency to give to me. I called this agency to see what the problem was and they said a complaint was filed by Compass. I told them the bank manager at Compass could find nothing in the account activities to warrant a complaint. So they told me to write a letter of dispute. I wrote and faxed a letter of dispute and within 24 hours I had a letter saying my dispute was denied because their records showed Compass made a complaint! (How is that for real investigation!) At this point I contacted a lawyer who has his legal assistant coaching me through everything I need to do so that in the end if the lawyer has to make a phone call or write a letter I will have done all the foot work he would have to do.

Compass told me I would have to take all issues up with the reporting agency. So I wrote my first legal letter to the company claiming federal laws that state a complaint of this kind must be provable and show me any account activity to prove such a claim. They wrote back and said Compass would have to provide that info...so back to Compass I go. Again, the bank manager can find NOTHING to substantiate the claim! So today I faxed Corporate Compass citing the same federal law that says they have 10 days to provide photocopy proof any account mismanagement from the account activity (which the bank manager has already told me he can find nothing!) So we'll see how this pans out!

FIRE 2: If you have been following our Lyme saga you know that our previous doctor made some serious malpractice mistakes and gross negligence in our care which led to further injury and caused me to have to stop treatment...and come to find out that he had been treating Brad for 3 months with the WRONG protocol!

As we switched doctors to a specialist out of state, we needed to retrieve our medical records from the former doctor. I called 3 weeks prior to our leaving for Louisiana to request our records. The nurse told me that they could not release the records to me since the doc was out of the country and also that he would need to write the office notes upon his return. I questioned her about that because the office notes should have been written at the time of our office visits! She said there were NO office visit notes in our files and that he would have to write them up when he returned.

The day was approaching when we were getting ready to leave and still no records. I called the office again to check the status and the doctor picked up the phone and wanted to know WHY I filed a complaint with the medical board against him. I took a deep breath and faced this GOLIATH in my life. Victim NO MORE. I told him the reasons why and then he said he would have our records ready the next day. (Of course, bravery is one thing, stupidity is another! I had BRAD go pick up the records from his office!) Upon reading the records when we got them home, we found them to be FULL of complete fabricated material! He span a web of deceit that his own notes showed his errors and contradictions! So this morning I spent 2 hours going line by line in both of our medical records, contacting the pharmacy to get pharmaceutical records showing the discrepencies, and I wrote another addendum to the original complaint we filed with the medical board. The errors in the medical records over 6 months took 5 pages single typed space to dispute and prove wrong! (I admit I had some sort of satisfaction at seeing how he tangled himself up in his web of lies...and his own "office notes" puts the last nail in the coffin for him!)

So the adrenalin was running HIGH today as I faxed off more information and disputes of medical records to the medical board, faxes of legal letters to Compass bank and Compass CORPORATE, CC'd my lawyer and legal assistant...and I just sat there with a feeling of accomplishment...VICTIM NO MORE!! I am fighting back! I will NOT go down!!

And then wouldn't you know....the phone rang...
It was the pharmacist on the line telling me that the prescription that the doctor wrote for both Brad and I was declined by the insurance company and that it would be over $600 per script!! I swallowed hard, asked her to repeat what she had just said, took a deep breath and she told me to have my doctor call the insurance company tomorrow to begin the dispute process. I think for the better part of valor I will allow the doctor to make the first call. My adrenalin is still in high gear! I dont know that the insurance company is prepared to deal with me on full throttle after having just about all I can take of being pushed around, shoved around and generally mishandled!

I am a victim NO MORE...

Good grief, if the insurance company is going to mishandle our premiums that we pay for coverage, I have just the bank that can handle their financial affairs!!

And if Compass Bank cant come up with any better answers than "we cant find anything" they are going to need an insurance company to cover their legal liabilities! Have I got the insurance company for them!!

And God help them all if I have to get on the phone and talk with one more person who is trying to take advantage of a situation...I have just the doctor they will need to put the pieces all back together after I lose it!

I think they all deserve each other!

I think I am liking this New York state of mind!
Southern hospitality and politeness can only go so far!

I will be a VICTIM NO MORE!

Dawn