This time I am talking about MY life after death day. Yes, this anniversary comes right after Easter and I do not think that is a coincidence at all. MY life-day is about my hope and my will to live in a life-threatening body breaking health crisis. That is an understatement. I should not be alive to tell the story, and that is why it truly is all about Jesus…
I have actually written many blogs about my health and my Christian walk through the darkest days (YEARS) of a broken body filled with disease and then that day of death.
The one I remember most vividly through the suffering was Speechless, Our Father… There was a full year when I had no words to pray except the Lord’s Prayer. Can you imagine ME with NO words? What a transformation!
But today it is about celebration. Celebrating life in so many ways.
Had Jesus not RAISED from the dead for me (for you) I would not have had the hope that I had during decades of illness and my death bed.
I am not the person who can hand you that kind of hope. It has to be found deep within. Chronic illness actually is the perfect time to go seeking, reach deeper, awaken your soul more than your earthly body.
The Lord is the only one who can truly be with you, help you see this clearly.
All I can do is tell my story and what He has done for me.
On a physical level, I might as well been dead on that day two years ago…
- 100% heart blockage in ascending aorta
- both carotid arteries blocked
- all organs shut down to 2% functioning (heart zero functioning)
- no oxygen flowing, no blood flowing
- Lyme disease raging from living with it for 50 years
- relentless neurological pain 24/7 for 2 years
- co-infections eating away my body
- 176 RESTING heart rate
- Hashimoto’s disease throwing everything off in my body
- mold toxicity – lungs and chest cavity filled with mold
- 4-inch mass lodged right under my heart creating more pressure on my heart
- cardiovascular disease since childhood – heart murmur (it now could not self-recover like it had my entire lifetime)
- I had started to turn deathly green
Enough of that. The list goes on and on. 2 years later it is still wild to make that list.
What is more wild is that through it all, the Lord never once left my side. Never once said I was not worth the time and attention and expense and the energy it took to love me through it.
He sat with me while I trembled in fear instead of pure faith.
He carried me from the bed to the bathroom many times when I physically could not do it.
He fed me pure and holy nourishment when I had no “bread.”
He loved on me and held my hand when no one else would.
He NEVER LEFT.
Easter the last couple of years has taken on a new meaning for me. I cannot completely yet explain without it sounding like a pity party. So I won’t!!!!
What I will say is that our Lord and Savior knows suffering more than we can ever know. He knows the loneliness and abandonment of His people more than we will ever experience. He chose to do that for us, made from dust.
Then He rose, He still lives. Life, the word LIFE has taken on a whole new meaning for me after facing death within seconds. I can feel so intensely that Jesus lives. He has breathed life into me several times now. I would even imagine that every morning as we awake that it is the breath of God that creates the opportunity to face each and every day.
Life cannot mean living in the past or in the future we imagine. Life is this second, right now. Life/living is action, not just a fuzzy warm feeling. It is actively living the life we all have at this given moment – ABOVE circumstances. Jesus ROSE.
At this moment we are in the middle of a pandemic. My imagination says this is when people will seek a deeper meaning to life, a higher power. Instead, on Easter NOT ONE person responded to my Easter wish. I did receive one response that was nasty and anti Jesus. I chose to bless them, literally typed that in response. I am floored and yet I am not responsible for others choices. I am responsible for mine. I choose to believe, have faith and rise above circumstances.
May all of you be blessed in abundance on this day of celebration, my LIFE DAY!!!