My Final Prayer

As I pulled the warm blanket over my head, I could still hear the faint humming of the infusion pump. I was starting to shake because someone thought putting chilled fluids into my IV would be good. Silently I was praying - begging - for God to take the pain away. To just make it stop.

When you're surrounded by doctors and every medication under the sun, yet still have no signs of improvement, you learn Who is in control very quickly.

For the first time, my little sister was on the stretcher next to mine. She gets migraines, although not nearly to the extent, severity, or frequency that I do and she doesn't have the additional problems I have with my brain, pseudo tumor, shunt, and heart disease. All I could think about was her. She's 20, but she'll always be "my little sister." I kept asking them to help her. What I felt was shoved inside.

Finally she was released, but I was going downhill fast so they kept me awhile longer. Once she was gone, I could stop holding everything inside and it all hit me at once. I started crying from the pain - sobbing, actually - and couldn't stop. This was my SECOND round of treatment that day... the day before Thanksgiving. I prayed that I wouldn't need emergency brain surgery the night before Thanksgiving, and God answered "yes." Thankfully.

As I was laying there, with an IV in my arm & wrist, the infusion pump humming, shaking on a stretcher and hitting against the railing as I shivered from the cold fluids coursing through my body, I realized yet again that God ALONE is in control. Doctors, medications, the most advanced medical treatment in the world couldn't make me feel better. I was in so much pain that I wanted to die and asked to be sedated when it became clear that the pain meds weren't going to do much... and they actually agreed.

Sometimes I wonder why God saved me through everything I've experienced, only to allow me to face the possibility of death at 23. Heck, I survived 11 years of abuse, kidnapping & being held for a month in Mexico, a suicide attempt, years of the most extreme self-injury the therapists had seen, and now I WANT TO LIVE.

I WANT TO LIVE... for the first time in my life, I'm desperate for every breath I take. And thankful that the Lord allows me to take them. I've always known that there MUST be a reason God got me through all I've been through. If He had no plan for my life, He wouldn't have kept me breathing despite all the odds stacked against me.

I'd always assumed that His saving me meant I'd live long enough to do something big with my life through Him. But then I realized something:

HIS WAYS ARE NOT MINE.

Although I do not necessarily "expect" to die, I know it's possible. When you're told machines had to breathe for you and you face multiple brain surgeries for the rest of your life, when you are told at 23 to write out if you want a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate order) and what measures - if any - you want taken to prolong your life if things don't go according to plan.

Do you have ANY idea what it's like to hand your parents a piece of paper asking them NOT to go to extreme measures to keep your heart beating if your soul is already with Jesus? What it's like to take a deep breath, close your eyes, and know what when you open them you may be looking Jesus in the face?

I do. Welcome to my life.

So in order to know without a doubt that I've covered all the bases, I've written out my life's story. My testimony, if you will, of God's grace, goodness, love, forgiveness, mercy, and strength. Something that will sum up my life so that the world doesn't forget I existed and that my life was God's will. I'm leaving it with someone I trust deeply... just in case.

I have just one prayer... if I were to take my last breath, this would be the prayer I'd want to be saying. It's actually a song... but the words are a prayer from my heart.

This is a song by Shane & Shane. It's their words... my heart's prayer... the only words I know of to sum up the deepest desire of my heart.

You are all,
big and small
beautiful
And wonderful to trust in grace through faith
But I'm asking to taste

For dark is light to you
Depths are height to you
Far is near,
but Lord I need to hear from you

Be near, oh God, Be near, oh God of us
Your nearness is to us our good
Be near, oh God, Be near, oh God of us
Your nearness is to us our good
Our good

Your fullness is mine
Revelation divine
But oh to taste,
to know much more than a page
To feel your embrace...

For dark is light to you
Depths are height to you
Far is near
but Lord, I need to hear from you

Be near oh God Be near oh God of us
You're nearness is to us our good
Be near oh God Be near oh God of us
You're nearness is to us our good

Be near oh God Be near oh God of us
You're nearness is to us our good
Be near oh God Be near oh God of us
You're nearness is to us our good
My good

BE NEAR, O GOD.

I used to fear death... not so much the actual dying, but rather not being able to live. But recently it finally "clicked" in this head of mine: DEATH IS LIFE.

For the Christian, dying isn't the end, it's the beginning. It is LIFE. When you're faced with the possibility of not making it to 24, knowing that - without a doubt, knowing it with all your heart - gives you not only peace, but also sanity.

And to be honest, I'm cool with whatever God wants - even if it means living with Him rather than here. Do I want to die? No, I'd like to live here awhile longer because in the grand scheme of things, on the scale of eternity, this is a blink of an eye and I've got forever to be in Heaven. But I've FINALLY LEARNED that it doesn't matter where I am, I'll still live. And maybe God's plan never was for me to spend decades in Social Work, working with kids who have survived earthly hell like I did. Maybe His plan for me is simply to live, and to have enough warning of leaving for Home that I shout from the rooftops all that He is and has done.

And if that's the entire reason I was ever born, why He kept me alive to 23, I am beyond satisfied.

In the worlds of another Shane & Shane song:

Holy design
this place in time
that I might seek and find my God
my God

Lord I want to yearn for You
I want to burn with passion
over You and only You
Lord I want to yearn

Your joy is mine
yet why am I fine
with all my singing and bringing grain
in light of Him

oh You give life and breath
through Him You give all things
in Him we live and move
that's why I sing

Lord I want to yearn for You
I want to burn with passion
over You and only You
Lord I want to yearn

***
I now yearn for my Lord in a way I never knew I could. I guess that's why I'm okay with what is happening. I'm His, not my own... my life is His... my future is His... and I am beyond okay with that. In fact, I wouldn't change it for anything - not riches, not healing, not escaping pain, NOTHING. What is greater than the Lord? NOTHING!

Think about the words of one more Shane & Shane song (I really do listen to other groups, honest I do, but their lyrics just fit what's going on with me right now!) and try to really contemplate their meaning.

I've tried more of me
and I've come up dry
trading You for things
things that go away
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You

I have found the answer is
to love You and be loved by You alone
You crucify me and the world to me
and I will only boast in You

I'm so satisfied
at the thought of You
growing up in me
covering everything
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You

***

Love life while you can. More importantly, love the One who gives you every breath you take. If you doubt Him, just ask me to tell you how I know He is real - there is no earthly way I'd be alive without His direct intervention. Even doctors will tell you that.

"He is exalted, forever exalted, and I will praise His name! For He is the Lord, forever His truth shall reign; Heaven and Earth rejoice in His holy name! He is exalted, the King is exalted on high."

Another song... fitting words... meditate on them.

I pray that if Jesus takes me Home anytime soon, I will be remembered for being His. My accomplishments and efforts and passions mean nothing apart from Him. With whatever time I have left, I want to serve Him with everything in me. Nothing else truly matters. I'll right what wrongs I can, and rest in knowing that He is in control.

And I pray that you will do the same.