The prescription. The payment.

"Jesus was, and is, looking for humble hearts who confess their need for Him, and allow Him access to every part. He is the prescription, and He's already paid the bill for everything that is sick and broken. We'll spend a lifetime finding things in us that are sick or broken, only to learn that He's paid for that, too." (Shared on facebook by Leigh McLeroy from a newsletter written by missionaries in the far east.)

This morning I am snuggled in my cozy corner on our butter yellow couch.  Wrapped in a blanket with sweet Twixie nestled in beside me and my favorite pottery mug full of perfect coffee and cream held to my lips I feel a physical exhale in every part of my body and spirit.  A lengthy playlist of healing I've built over the past seven years of trial plays song after song of lament, hope and praise.  Following a week of pushing my body to the brink of complete brokenness I am celebrating the gift of Sabbath by staying here where I meet Him face to face, heart to heart and surrender the weighty things I've foolishly carried as my own burdens.  He asks me lovingly to lay them on Him instead, and it takes this slowing down to realize how crushed I've allowed myself to become by trying to do so many things in my own strength in just seven days time.  

A week from today I will be packing for my trip to Maryland.  All the usual anxiety begins to build as I dread the hard travel alone, the logistics of getting around for my appointments prior to surgery and the night before when I take stock of my life and finally allow myself to fully think about the risks I take each time I grasp for less pain and a little more "whole" life.  I have a support system of sorts there.  It's made up of fellow patients who will be in town too for their own surgeries or those of their children.  It's made up of my dear Amy and family who will get me from the airport early on Monday morning, and my Janet who is across the world right now but still plans to fly on Wednesday to be with me after surgery until I can travel home.  This is the first time I will head into my operation on my own.  The few hours of preparation and waiting the day of are hard.  They are hard with your husband or parents or best friends there, but next Wednesday morning I will be alone.  I'm perhaps the most independent patient I know.  I am brave and strong and fiercely okay with my Dan and girls being here while I do these things, because it means they are more okay than if any part of them had to be broken up or witnessing my pain.  It means Dan can continue to work, a necessity, and the girls stay in their routine of school and coming home to their own beds at night.  In the long years of doing this over and over we have found this to be the best for our family.  Still, when I think of what I'm going to do it is the morning of I am most afraid of.  

My physical decline has made very clear I need to have this surgery.  In addition to my neck pain and increased headaches and numbness in my arms and hands I have had new symptoms of seizing lower back pain and hip pain as well as the feeling like my toes are curling under and need stretched.  I have not had these lower body issues since my tethered spinal cord release in March, 2012.  I am praying it is only the compression on my cord from the upper instability pulling things too tight and this surgery will relieve all the symptoms.  

Wednesday I began the day having coffee and three hours of sweet fellowship on the lake with a woman who has mentored me more spiritually than anyone I can remember in my lifetime.  She doesn't even realize how the time spent with me, spread apart by months but always like it was just yesterday, sharpens my iron.  As we shared our lives with one another we talked about our tangible needs.  She spoke of my heart and Dan's heart and how almost everything else in this world has become a mute point to our family and I except the search for a prescription for healing and this crushing and growing debt acquired from our journey.  She encouraged me to remember what I know to be true.  Every single day God has placed our manna outside the tent.  He has always been not just enough but DAYENU, more than enough.  She reminded me to do what we need to do today with what He has always provided.  He is the prescription for everything sick and broken in our lives, and He has already paid it all.  The God who sent His Son to heal the deepest sickness of our hearts and pay for every evil thought and deed is the same God who holds my flesh wasting away and spirit being renewed.  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and none of this is too big for Him.  

I carried this around in my heart.  I felt the lightening of my burden as God gave us the money needed for my deposit for surgery like He always has before.  I felt the courage to push for the birthday celebration for our Danica and her friends yesterday and pressed on for family photos before I have a new scar in the front of my neck.  Last night Dan and I sat across the table from one another to spend what will probably be our last time really alone before I leave, and we talked of the future with hope not dread.  It was as if the sureness of God's hand in all this, and His absolute love motivating even the hardest suffering has finally become our life blood.  

My left arm is numb.  My headache is already escalating.  My neck cracks when I try to move it and sends shooting pains down into my shoulders and arms and behind my left eye.  How is God planning to bring me healing from this?  How will He pay the debt?  I know for sure it's already written, and I'll hold on until I get to read the next beautiful chapter in this story.  Thank you for reading all this time and hoping and waiting with us.