We are in a battle We have a real enemy ! God wins.

With a charge to share my hope and experience and strength I take some courage up and share.

Suffering is a state in which I have spent much of my life. Even in these "good years" I have had a share of it.
The easier stuff: (so to speak) The Body
My body was left in tatters.

2006 knee surgery, two torn meniscus due to years of abuse in childhood, adulthood and then the final blow falling over the dog. Surgery has left me somewhat lame and I need to call even today to get another apt. I have to face the need to get help for the pain is so chronic that I am a little out of my mind at times. After such a long wait for my children I am hindered in my joy of life due to the discomfort, inability to function and I really have just denied the need to get more help with it. The bone on bone is so painful!

I am now very over weight and will need to address it! I walked this morning and as long as I don't over do it much I can bear the pain.

1995-2007
Brain sheered lesions that were once just three of them in 1996 according to the MRI and other very unpleasant tests. They said that these were from being shaken as a child I was also beaten into unconsciousness with a brick when I was a teenager. During the seasons of the migraines I began to have mini non epileptic seizures, I spent a stint at Mayo Clinic where I was told that this can cause outburst of anger and that it screws up the kids of such parents and that these kids often need psychological help when they grow up. It was at that point that I felt I had lost the battle. I felt so unworthy of having my two wonderful adopted kids. I just fight hard not to let the stress get too high around me and when I do get the pre-migraine angers I set us all up for success and take the "big gun drugs".
I would find myself with the symtems resembling MS. After many more test they found that if I had MS it is the most mild form she had ever seen. The lesions on my brain have become more of them and now I have several. My face started to go numb on one side and after a very painful run of all the tests known to neurologist including a failed spinal tap that had to be plugged in an E.R., I still just treat the migraines with drugs and hope the partial peralisis stays at bay. They also found that my l4,l5 is in a state of partial stynosis my spinal column is shrunken. That was what was causing me to mot be able to use my right leg sometimes. It also causes a very painful lower back when I bend at the waist.
The scatter brain behaviors have gotten worse concentration fails during stress and I often am forgetful of events and names short term is the worst during migraines I feel as if an electrical storm sets off. It stings all over my scalp but deeper. The side of my face becomes numb. Sometimes my voice slurs and I studder words become hard to find.
I tried a few months ago to get a little help with the things that resemble ADHD and was told that they wanted me do a test to show if I was begining to have early onset dementia. I freaked and panicked. I felt so bad about myself for several months. I even thought that I did not deserve to be a mother and that I would not get to know who my kids even were when they get to be adults. I thought of suicide and that it could be more merciful to my family than having a Mother how was gone out of her mind unable to be there intellectually. I thought of the financial ruin I would cause my husband.
Now I have migraines to treat, Pain to manage, a life to live with Children to raise and a promise to hold onto. That if it all happens to me "if" well may I then live in such a way as to keep dignity. May I fight so hard against bitterness and keep my heart from hardening. Then I WIN!

I suffered with endometriosis for 20 years. It became "end stage" and after six major surgeries I had lost the battle and Six weeks after my son came home from Russia I had to have a radical hip to hip hysterectomy. This after just six weeks with my new son who was 10 months of age! I waited 20 yrs for him!
It was Gods mercy.
I had my son in my arms before the loss of my reproductive self.
I Lost so much of the time with my daughter during all the surgeries where my house was filled with others caring for me. While others cared for me many lives were touched by the witness of just being myself. They were moved to help the sweet children who came home to us. Many lives were touched by these great kids. God gave them grand parents and aunts and uncles and for ever prayer warriors to stand for them and for us. My husband grew to come out of self into a life of selfless dedication to the lives around him. He had his battles and we are so very close.

I have had to have every orifice in my body surgically repaired! All this due to the abuse, neglect and harshness of an evil world.
BUT<>
It is that He is Glorified in the success of the battle won.
We are in an epic! There is a greater story here in our lives. We see the small picture. When We don't let the evil triumph over our hearts that God sticks it in the face of evil and says "I WIN"

Oh I have been angry, Very angry! I live in a fallen world and evil rules the ruest we suffer at the hands of others and through our own consequence. Gravity is a natural law. As is the effect of our choices.

Suffering is Hard it is a fire that pulls out all the dross. We are to be refined as by fire. If we stand this test we are purified of all the yuck that dulls our luster.
When I faced a double mastectomy I was scared and angry for I just was not able to understand "Why God". I was so tired of suffering! Then I got it.
It was not about me! It is about how I respond to it all.