For Dave...

Hey everyone!  I hope you all had a peaceful Christmas.  We missed our families in Ohio, but enjoyed our southern holiday also.  It was been outstanding having Dave home for close to two weeks.  Our vacation at home has been wonderful.  The only downside has been the fact that poor, little Eli has had the flu.  When I say the flu I mean THE FLU.  He has been soooooo incredibly sick.  Keeping a five year old on the couch for five days has not been easy!  So on to the point of my blog entry.

Luke 8:39)  Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

So this is what I shall do now.  Shall?  For some reason Eli has been using this word.  "Shall we play Wii?"  "What shall we do now, mom?"  Anywho.  Like many of you I think if I declare something that has happened that is good out loud there is a chance I will like jinx it or something.  There are also some people that constantly talk about all the good things that happen in their lives.  Let's admit it...we often want to smack those people!  :-)  So there is something really good that I have experienced the last few months...I bet your really curious now.  I don't mean good as in we had a good Christmas, I had a good run the other day, etc.  I mean good as in good like you can't even believe it happened, someone pinch me, an utter miracle, I have been pleading to God for this for years and years and years. 

S-L-E-E-P.  For those of you who sleep well on a regular basis you don't get the magnitude of never sleeping well.  I have been plagued with insomnia for longer than I can remember.  I did everything the experts said to do.  Our bedroom was cold, the bed was perfectly comfortable, I avoided ALL caffeine and had very limited amounts of sugar, I allowed myself to "unwind" before bed, I exercised, I prayed about it, I recited Bible verses, listened to quiet music, had white noise, had a fan on me, turned the ceiling fan on, bought black out blinds, talked to my doctor about it, and the list goes on.  Oh and forget sleeping away from home.  I didn't even have a racing mind.  I just could NOT sleep.  By the time this had gone on for like five years I was terrified and so stressed to go to bed.  I would get in bed and one of two things would happen.  One, I would fall asleep right away and wake up an hour later and be awake for three hours or two, I would lay there for hours on end.  I would get up and do laundry or read, but nothing ever helped.  When I would get utterly exhausted I would just bawl.  Dave would wake up and sit with me for hours until I fell asleep.  It was mind-numbing.  Different treatments were given to me and nothing worked.  If I would have known any national security secrets I would have sang like a bird!

I dreaded going to bed and dreaded how tired I would be the next day.  I would drag myself up and workout every single day.  I would power through the days so tired I wanted to just lay down wherever I was.  I battled exhaustion anyway too due to my severe hormonal imbalances.  I remember one time at Kroger's I was so tired that I literally wanted to lay down in the aisle.  I called my friend whose daughter went to preschool with Eli and asked if she would pick up Eli too because I was too tired to get my groceries in the car and drive over to the school.  She assured me it was not a problem.  I just drove home in a tired daze. 

When I went to Dr. Vliet in August insomnia was number one on my list of symptoms.  She was so compassionate and said she can't believe I had lived this way this long.  We talked about how God's power flowed through me because I would have given up years ago.  He is the reason I have navigated through this journey that I call "hormonal hell."  His grace has been sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Dr. Vliet had ordered blood work weeks before my appointment so when we got there she had all the results.  She pointed to about four hormones that were significantly off all of which cause sleep issues.  I wanted to cry just looking at that lab report.  I am not casting stones at the other doctors that I have seen over the years.  They just saw things differently and treated people differently than Dr. Vliet. 

One hormone in general was basically non-existent so she gave me a sample of it that I could use immediately.  I stuck that estrogen patch on my hip that night.  Guess what?  I slept that night...in a hotel room...not in my usual spot...with different sounds...in a different time zone...etc.  That was the last day in August and now we are almost through December and I'm still sleeping well.  Now I will still have nights that I wake up early or it takes me longer to fall asleep, but it's okay because everybody has those and now I know the next night will be better.  The other night I slept eight hours straight.  Crazy that is! 

So forever I have wanted to share this story, but I didn't want to jinx it.  I didn't want to declare what the Lord has done for me because what if the sleep went away.  What if I put this blog entry out there for everyone to read and than I stopped sleeping well?  Even with Dave, my best pal, or my dad or sister I am hesitant to tell them I slept awesome the night before.  Why?  Because of fear.  I am afraid this gift from God will be ripped from me.  I feel unworthy of a simple gift from God. 

So right now I am doing what the man did in Luke 8:39.  The background on Luke 8:39 is this.  The man was demon-possessed.  Jesus Christ freed this man from the torment that was his life.  The man wanted to go with Jesus on his next mission.  Jesus, instead, told him to go and tell everyone what God had done for him.  So that's what I am doing by refusing to keep quiet out of fear.  God has given me a gift, pure and simple.  There are some symptoms from my imbalances that are still present, but sleep has come.  I am declaring what God has done for me. 

So there.  My dear, sweet (and very patient) husband told me a few weeks ago that I needed to do an entry about my sleep.  I admitted to him that the Lord had laid on my heart a few weeks before our conversation that He wanted me to do an entry on my sleeping.  I put it off, avoided it.  When Dave came to me and said this I knew it was what I was supposed to do.  So I got right on it two weeks later!  I decided today was the day.  I hope this entry spoke to your heart in a personal way.  Happy New Year!