Found by the Prince of Peace

October 5, 2016Leave a comment

Two weeks ago I had knee replacement surgery on my left knee and on November 28 I will be having the right one done.

I’ve known I needed to do this for over 2 years but I still have been putting the surgeries off because the thought of having someone cut my whole knee joint out and replacing it with metal and plastic made me feel really uncomfortable and to be honest it really scared the living daylights out of me.

After I made the decision a lot of worries crossed my mind about the things that could go wrong but I knew I had to not be dwelling on those things and just look to how much better my life was going to be when everything went right.

I had a great peace and I really wasn’t nervous at all during the time up to the surgery but the morning of the surgery for some reason I started to get really nervous. By the time we got into the car to go to the hospital my nerves were starting to get the best of me and I was beginning to feel like I had some sort of dark heavy cloud of dread hanging over me. When we pulled our car out of the garage a thick heavy fog was covering the neighborhood which just added to the dread I was feeling.

A few minutes later we were flying up the highway and I was sitting over in the passenger seat praying silently, but the harder I prayed, the more scared I became.

Where was God’s peace at now??

Somehow I had lost it and it was now hidden deep in the fog which seemed to be pressing in tighter and tighter on me.

I wanted to forget the whole surgery and tell my husband to turn the car around and head back home but before I could get the words out of my mouth suddenly in the middle of the dark gloomy morning the sun started peeking out through the fog and the sky began changing.

In a matter of seconds, the sky was a mix of beautiful colors. I began taking pictures of the sky and somehow without even realizing it was happening God had managed to reel me back to peace.
By the time we arrived at the hospital a beautiful sunshiny day had dawned and I was ready to get on with getting a new knee.

But God wasn’t done yet…
I was met by my nurse who would check me in and found out her name was ‘Joy’. Joy’s name fit her well and she was exactly the perfect person for me to start off this day with. Joy the nurse was full of joy. Being checked into surgery by nurse Joy along with her name tag flashing the word “Joy’ at me constantly, there was no way I couldn’t feel the continued presence and peace of God.

Joy stayed with me until it was time to go to the Operating room holding area.

My next nurse’s name was ‘Lisa’. Which is also the name of my dear friend Lisa who now lives in heaven. I’m not really sure why having a nurse named Lisa gave me peace but seeing the name Lisa reminded me about Lisa and how courageously she had lived her life during her illness right up until she left for her new one. Remembering Lisa reminded me that I wanted to live my life courageously trusting in God like she had.

Everything seemed to be going well and I was doing really great the whole morning but then the anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself. His name was David. David was nice and he looked like just the guy to handle the job of putting me to sleep. I was really liking him a whole lot but then he gave me a choice to make. It was a choice that nobody had even mentioned or that I had ever dreamed was available. David gave me the choice of staying awake or going to sleep during the surgery..… STAYING AWAKE???!!

I remember saying to him, “you’re kidding right?”

But this was not a joke… this guy was dead serious!

I had seen the video of what they were going to do to me and it involved cutting my whole knee joint out with saws and then putting in the new knee with a hammer…SAWS… AND HAMMERS!!! Did I mention they were going to use saws and hammers and this guy was giving me the option to stay awake during the surgery????!!!!!

I’m sure you know by now my answer to that question was…. NO WAY!

I didn’t even have to answer him before he said, “Maybe you better go to sleep.” I wonder if it was the… ‘you are crazy for ever asking me that look’ I must have had on my face.

After that I lost my peace again and suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. I went to the bathroom to be sick and when I arrived back at my bed there was a woman in my room waiting for me. “Hi I’m the hospital Chaplin and I came to see if you would like me to pray with you,” she said.

Ummmm…. Ya…

How cool is that?! The minute I lost peace God sent a Chaplin in to pray with me!

We prayed and then we just chatted for a while as if we were old friends. Before I knew it the God of peace had found me again and it was now time for me to go into the operating room. The last thing I remember was telling someone that they really needed to organize the operating room because it was really a mess….

I’m not really sure what my obsession with organized operating rooms is but the last 2 surgeries I’ve had that line has come out of my mouth just as I drift off to sleep. I will blame it on the happy meds they put in the IV.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

3 hours later I woke up with a brand new knee and a horrible pain in my hip.

Yep you heard that right, I go in for knee surgery and come out with hip pain.

I now know that the pain in my hip is my sciatic nerve. Somehow it became irritated during the surgery and I have to say it is about the worst pain I have ever dealt with in my life!

But...even though the sciatic nerve is giving me problems I still seem to be breezing right through the knee stuff. I am excelling in my exercises with my range of motion coming back way quicker than is expected.
The crazy thing is my knee which is what I was worried about before the surgery is not an issue at all.
The problem is this sciatic nerve hurts really bad If I lay down and I also have had problems with every pain medication they have given me so Tylenol is all I can take.
Sooooo… sleeping is something I have not been getting a whole lot of.

Every night about 11 pm the pain starts and I then spend the rest of the night moving around to different areas of my house trying to get comfortable. I can take a lot of pain and usually never cry about pain but I have to say that this is the first time in my life that pain seems to keep turning me into an exhausted crying mess.

I have spent a whole lot of time this past couple of weeks listening to the Hillsong channel on T.V. and Pandora Radio. Every single night there is one song that seems to always play right at the time which is when I am usually at the height of my pain.

The song is “Prince of Peace” by Hillsong United.

The words to this song always seem to help me find comfort and peace.

My heart a storm
Clouds raging deep within
The Prince of Peace came bursting through the wind
The violent sky held its breath
And in Your light I found rest
Tearing through the night
Riding on the storm
Staring down the fight
My eyes found Yours
Shining like the sun
Striding through my fear
The Prince of Peace met me there
You heard my prayer – Words and music by Hillsong United

Just as I am feeling as if I can’t go on anymore Jesus always meets me right in the middle of the pain and then he carries me through the night. He is my comfort and peace until the early morning hours when I finally fall asleep.

Jesus is my peace…

As I am writing this its almost 11 pm the pain hasn’t started yet and I am hoping it doesn’t. Each night I pray that it won’t start but each night it still does. I am not really sure why that prayer hasn’t been answered yet but so many more prayers have been answered so far.

I am learning that I can get through anything no matter how painful it is when I call on Jesus. I have seen Gods hands and miraculous healing in this and also in past illnesses I’ve had. Also from what I have heard Knee replacement surgery is very very painful, thankfully I haven’t had much knee pain so far which my physical therapist says she has never come across so maybe I have the better pain of the two…. ?

AAAAnyway …. it’s getting late so I am going to try to get some sleep.

Have a great night!
T

P.S. If you aren’t squeamish and want to see something cool, click the picture of my bandage below to remove it and see my incision. You can just call me the bionic woman from now on 😀

Thankful For Pain???!!

June 25, 201411 Comments

I never thought I would be thankful for pain.
The shot I had this afternoon to numb my knee for the Monovisc injection is still working and I just realized how good it feels to be pain free. I find it interesting that before the arthritis got to my knees I never felt thankful for not having pain. But now after living with constant pain for 10 months I see things differently. Right this minute I have a glimpse of what I used to live every single day of my life and never noticed. Tonight I am thankful for the pain because it showed me how much I had to be thankful for that I never knew I had. I know eventually the numbness from the shot is going to wear off but hopefully the lesson I learned will not. It feels so good right now to have a break from the pain and I am hoping the Monovisc injection will work and eventually take it away completely. But for right now I will just live right here in this moment and be thankful for this wonderful gift.

Thank you Father for all the things you have given me every day that I never noticed or thanked you for. I pray that you will keep opening my eyes and helping me see you more clearly as I learn to be the person you created me to be.
Love, T

Pain and Perseverance

April 7, 2014April 8, 20146 Comments

Today I visited a new Physical Therapist. My doctor had told me that this guy loves what he does and that he was good at it. Since I have been to physical therapy before and it did not work I was a little skeptical but then also a tiny bit optimistic because I was told he specializes in helping people get mobile again who are very difficult cases.

He seemed very nice and at the beginning he did some bending around on my legs and then he warned me that what he was going to do next was going to hurt. A few minutes later I found myself clenching my teeth and thinking maybe I had made a mistake by coming here, he wasn’t kidding THIS HURT BAD! When he was finished ‘torturing’ me He said, “okay now get up, walk around the room and tell me how you feel.” When I got up and started walking suddenly I noticed my knees were bending! And they actually felt better! They were not perfect but overall my legs felt much much better than they have felt in months. We did a few more painful exercises and then as I was leaving I happily made another appointment for this coming Thursday.

Can you imagine?… I actually wanted to come back after all the pain he had just put me through!

I realized that what we did today though it was a whole lot of pain, when the pain was over I felt a whole lot better and I want to get better and eventually this will help me to stay better. If I had not persevered through the pain I would not have gotten to feel the wonderful outcome.

Though today what I was feeling was physical pain this whole ordeal with my knees has been a lot of mental pain for me also. I was beginning to feel defeated and like I was never ever going to get better. This knee stuff has been going on for months and getting worse and worse.

Today I walked into the gym feeling pretty weak and down but I walked out feeling stronger and very hopeful. Now several hours later a lot of the pain and stiffness is back but I still feel very optimistic about my future as far as walking correctly and without severe pain again someday.

Today I learned that no matter how bad pain may seem if we keep pushing through it in the end we will feel better. I am not sure that the pain will ever completely go away, but just pushing through it is a huge start and I now see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

I also know that I am stronger now because of it and each time I go back I will continue to grow even more stronger. If I hadn’t pushed through would have never got to see prize at the end. Had I given up I would have left feeling the way I went in and I would have missed the joy.

If you are going through pain today, remember there is always hope. Even if it seems way bigger than you can handle remember nothing is too big for God. So give whatever it is to him and don’t ever give up!

Thank you for reading,

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (NIV)

Those He Left Behind

June 17, 2013June 17, 20133 Comments

Today a friend from my past posted some old pictures on facebook. The pictures were of me and another past friend of mine, his name was Greg. When we were teens in High school Greg committed suicide. That day was probably the worst day I have ever had in my life. I’m not going to go into details about that day but I do want to tell you about Greg and what was lost that day.

Greg was 18 years old and he was just a few months away from graduating High school. He was smart, good looking, funny and very talented. I remember the first day I met Greg, I had just moved into a new neighborhood and I saw him coming down the road on a skateboard but he was not riding his skateboard like most kids rode skateboards instead he was riding his skateboard upside down on his hands! Greg was the type of person everyone loved, kids and also adults. I look back now and still wonder why he did what he did, he seemed to have everything going for him and I really never would imagine someone like him would do a thing like kill himself.

I do know from my own experiences that sometimes life can be really hard and for a teenager it may seem even harder. Sometimes it’s really hard to see past a single moment of time to the future we have coming. I really did not understand why then and I still don’t understand now why life seemed so hard to this boy that he felt he had to die to rid himself of the pain he was feeling. When he did what he did the pain he was feeling then in turn fell on to us, the ones he left behind, I often wonder if he had realized the pain he would leave behind with us who loved him, would he have still done it?

As I write this I realize it has been over 30 years since he died, he would have probably went on to college, have gotten married, and by now had his own children and possibly even grand children, but instead of living his life sadly he chose to end his life. Though it’s been a very long time Greg will be forever etched in my memory. The pain of losing him and also losing him in such a tragic way was devastating to me. I remember feeling so many emotions, shock and sadness and then I was also mad at him for many years for doing what he did. The pain is not as fresh in my mind anymore but always will be there tucked deep down inside of me.

I am not sure why I feel the need to write about this today after all these years, maybe it was because the pictures my friend posted on facebook brought back the memories I thought I had so carefully tucked away. Or maybe it was to let others know that if you feel so desperately lost that you are thinking of doing such a thing I want you to know that it fixes nothing. Nothing in this world is so bad that it is worth taking your own life. No matter how sad you may feel right now or how much you think things are so messed up, remember that this moment of your life is only a temporary and one day you will look back on this time and see that you did get through it.

If you feel desperate call a friend, or a parent and most of all call on God ask him to help you get through this, He will.

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.