Letting Go and Hoping On =)

I saw my family doctor, Dr. C., this week before returning to work. It was a most encouraging visit, despite the fact that the pain is worse than it has been yet.

I told the good doctor I needed him to reassure me that I had been really getting better before this latest episode. I also told him I needed him to be frank with me about what I must to do to maximize my body's opportunity to be well. He responded generously to both of those requests.

He was affirming and encouraging about all the positive changes he's witnessed in my health since I began seeing him last year. He admitted that the shingles are essentially the opposite response he would have expected my body to have to the immune boosting medicines he started me on recently (and has since discontinued). However, he graciously allowed for the reality that my body fairly often has paradoxical responses to medicines, and he reframed the shingles in a positive way as much as possible. He said they are an echo of an early childhood illness so perhaps this is another step closer to peeling off the layers of illness and restoring my body to health.

We talked at length about what my health was like in Colorado, and especially my acupuncturist's initial diagnosis (which she shared with me two years into treatment) that I had been suffering from a "near devastation of yang," or my body's ability to make new energy, and basically was close to the point of multiple systems failures. Dr. C. reminded me that when we began working together my index (the naturopathic system's measure of illness in the body) was almost as high as it can possibly be. And that was despite three years of really excellent medical care in Colorado (where I was gently and thoroughly tended to by a DO, an MD who also specializes in Ayurveda, and my acupuncturist, who is a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine). Dr. C. helped me reflect well on the progress my body has made in returning to being more physically active over the last year in Portland, and the fact that lately my index had been quite good.

He also very gently said that overextending myself could have contributed to my body's inability to suppress the shingles virus. He expressed concern over the emotionally and physically draining nature of the counseling work I do. We talked about how the type of work I do eventually may not look like traditional counseling, but that the traditional paradigm is where I am committed to work now. He encouraged me to cut back and slow down as much as possible in the short run.

Dr. C. also said that he can see me possibly being quite healthy in another year's time. I am trying to hold that lightly and not turn it into a hard and fast rule, a "should" or a deadline. I had been praying over the weekend about how I spent a year in Colorado before I got sick, and then spent three years trying to heal but fighting various issues - like altitude sickness - the whole time. Compared to those four years, one year of healing turning into two years of healing with a few setbacks doesn't seem too bad. The reality of the situation is that none of us is promised tomorrow, anyway, you know?

So, in light of all that, I made some tough decisions.

I talked with my supervisor. We agreed to leave things with my client caseload where they are for the next several months, then reevaluate. I truly believe that if I need to cut back further my supervisor will work with me on doing that. If not I believe God will make a way for me to walk away on good terms to a new situation that will be more healthy for me. At the moment I am carrying what amounts to the minimum load typically allowed.

I talked with the woman in charge of the jail visit program I volunteer for weekly. She has asked me to come on our regularly scheduled day for the next two weeks to give her the opportunity to line up some guest speakers. After that I will drop back to making only one or two jail visits per month for the foreseeable future. I love going to the jail and will miss visiting often.

I emailed the woman to whom I report about the volunteer domestic violence counseling I have been doing locally. I will stop seeing clients for now. The demand for counseling has increased recently. The program coordinator told me when I last saw her several weeks ago (before I got sick) that they will soon be bringing in two new counselors to meet demand, so my absence shouldn't be very disruptive. Most of my clients were one-time visitors who came in to decompress from crisis mode to survival mode. I doubt many of them will return soon. I did have one client coming regularly. I offered to do transitional sessions with that client if it would be helpful.

These baby steps may not sound like much but for me they are huge. Before I became a Christian I found my identity in achieving. After I became a Christian I'd like to say I found my identity exclusively in Christ. The truth is that I probably found it in serving as much as in Him for most of the past 11 years of our walk together. Part of that, I suppose, is rooted in the home I grew up in having been dominated by a person whose primary love language was acts of service. Although my primary love language is words of affirmation (with quality time an extremely close second) it is frequently through serving that I express my love for God, my friends, and my church, because in my home of origin that was the main way love was received. One of the bigger challenges of this latest health issue is that it has forced me to not serve for a while, and now to commit to serving less than I have recently enjoyed doing for the foreseeable future. It hurts me that I am not able to continue making the allergen-free communion bread for my congregation every Sunday, for example. It pains me to have to stop counseling survivors of domestic violence and to be less frequently in contact with incarcerated women who may not have anyone else coming to visit them in jail, let alone helping them work on issues important to them as they strive to avoid repeat offending. Honestly, though, there is more to it. I think the part of me that wrestles with trust, attachment and abandonment issues was on some level worried that stepping back from service would prompt Jesus to step back from me, as though He would register the change as a decrease in my love for Him and respond by withdrawing His love from me the way a human being might tend to do. Thank God that's not how He works. It's one thing to know that nothing can separate us from His love. It's another thing to experience it firsthand. There is not a doubt in my mind that these steps toward cutting back are answers to prayer. And that means that they are as much His as they are mine.

The most recent Bible study I've been doing is Beth Moore's new study of the book of James, called "Mercy Triumphs." It's a wonderful study, maybe particularly challenging to me in some ways currently because of its emphasis on works - "living it" - being evidence of true faith. This blog is one way I am striving to live out my faith while my physical activity is limited. My goal for the blog is to glorify God and hopefully encourage other people to draw closer to Him as I do the same. One of my other favorite points of the Bible study has been James' emphasis on every good and perfect gift being from our Father in heaven. Beth Moore makes the point that in the original Greek text the translation is closer to "every good and perfecting gift." In other words, every good thing from the hand of God that makes us more like Jesus Christ: Always in relationship to the Father and the Spirit, fully surrendered to the Father's will. Lord, may it be so! Thank you for this perfecting gift of illness and healing. It is certainly not a gift I would have chosen, Abba, but may it be to me as You have said, in the mighty name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit I pray!

Thank you all for allowing me to process this journey God is taking me on here with you. Thank you for helping me to let go, and hope on =).