Two years ago on a weekday I was teaching piano lessons and getting weaker by the hour. Then I started itching. Allergies of all sorts took over from that day on. Then the intense weakness set in. I would be using a wheelchair even to get to the bathroom in the weeks and months ahead.
When another family of students walked through the church door I could no longer hide the fact that I was not doing well. Thankfully they were also understanding friends who knew what my sister Elsa had been going through since her health crashed a month earlier. That dear mother let me lay down on the church pew, called my next student to cancel, and would have driven me home. But thankfully Maren was also in town teaching and was soon ready.
That day I joined Elsa on the couch - our new "home."
Two years later we still spend a lot of time with our couch. We are still battling diseases and all the damage they have caused on a daily basis. Some days it feels like we're not getting anywhere. But as our doctor said again last month, "You are going the right direction... just not as fast as we would want."
Thankfully if we look back a year or two we can see clear improvement!
THEN:
Couldn't look at a computer screen 10 minutes
NOW:
Can occasionally blog! (I schedule them to publish more often than I can write.)
Can read most days; Sometimes even aloud for family or others on Librivox.
Made it there today & managed not to wear earplugs or lay down
Can often help get my meal together and even clean up after
Praise God from whom all blessings flow! He is sustaining us, teaching us, and leading us through this "desert."
"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca [weeping/desert], they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion."
Psalm 84:5-7
Psalm 84:5-7
I'm so proud of you pushing forward with your unshaking, unbreakable faith. I love you Hannah, please continue to improve. I miss you. May you and Maren be forever blessed.
ReplyDeleteVery belated thanks for your comment on here, Melanie! I don't know if this will reach you, but since I dropped Facebook and then had to reset my whole computer (losing most email addresses in the process), it seems I have lost all my ways of connecting with you! Though college days now seem like a different lifetime, I have not forgotten you and pray you and R. are doing well. If you see this and want to send me your email address again, you can use my gmail that begins storytimewithhannahmary@... (Just trying not to type a consecutive address in case spammers search places like this. ;-)
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