Baby In Pink

Facebook is filled with first day of school pictures yesterday and today. While my oldest just graduated from high school, after so many years of waiting and grieving through infertility, I'm still stunned I have been given God's gracious gift of having pictures of my own to post over the years, or more specifically, that I was ever given the children who make this possible!

As I was scrolling through my news feed today, one picture brought me to a standstill, totally undid my heart! The little first grader in pink, proudly sporting her new backpack, was born about 2 weeks (maybe 10 days?) before my strokes. I held her as a TINY newborn. Drove to their apartment to see her for myself and hug on her Mama who I had been discipling for some time. I remember I left my sunglasses behind. Had to pull the car back around to a parking spot and run back up the stairs to the second floor to collect my missing possession. How I took such simple ability for granted!

She was the last baby I held prior to strokes, the last baby I held without assistance until just a few weeks ago (and that wasn't physically "easy" a few weeks ago, nor was I relaxed, just was the first time it had even been possible in nearly 6 years).

That day I held this baby was one of the last days I ever drove a car. I never particularly enjoyed driving when I could. Now I really miss it. Well, not exactly driving itself, the responsibility and all. It's the freedom I miss. The spontaneity. The ability to come up with a last-minute thought and jump in the car without having to plan or coordinate with anyone else. The fun of being a mom when I want to do something unscheduled with a child that would take us away from home. The ability to simply "be," like to forget an item and have it be non-eventful, not the least of an inconvenience to ANYONE that I misplaced an item or was a bit careless.

My emotions are all over the board with this picture! Joy that this little girl is alive. Thankfulness that so am I. Overwhelming love for her Mommy who hold a special pre-stroke spot in my heart... Pride at how far this "marker baby" and I have both progressed in both physical and mental skills since that day. Grief over the ugliness of this world (on so very many levels). So much many more emotions I haven't even sorted out yet.

I have an emotion-driven single tear (my more stroked eye, the one that used to leak non-stop, then could NOT cry for years, and now seems weepy again over the past week, but this is only the third time the flow has been specifically tied to any emotions) persistently rolling down my cheek and I can't even put into words exactly why.

Loosing Left

Today's post is going to be a journal of landmarks I need to remember. It's written "to" me more than you. Feel free to read along if you wish.

So thankful for early boarding when I fly, usually allowing me to claim bulkhead seating so
I can keep my left leg elevated, thus significantly diminishing PAIN and swelling that would otherwise occur from sitting with my leg down, not to mention the added physical stress of sudden altitude changes!

I've titled it "Loosing Left" to remind myself of what happens when I don't stay consistent with my physical therapy.  Between two different week long trips, two different bouts of days in bed on muscle relaxants, and the business of summer life in general, I didn't make it to the pool more than 2 or 3 times in the entire month of July! I'm paying for it in loss of much left side response and function. I can still force my body to do most anything I could do back in June, it just is a little slower for the left side to respond and MUCH more painful. Skills that had been regained and had gotten fairly easy, not so much now. I've also noticed my overall sense of balance is more compromised than what had become my normal - I almost fell yesterday even while using my sturdier, wide-footed cane, simply because I turned a corner and my brain kept spinning long after my body stopped, nearly taking me over. Thankfully a wall caught me!

While the stroke-born fear of heights still catches me by surprise as adrenaline surges startlingly at the very instant of sight of even a picture of someone sitting/standing on a tall building or even a cartoon of a person hanging from a  cliff (WHY???), I am so thankful that I am able to calmly fly on airplanes again! Thanks for this blessing, Lord!!!

My kids are back to school on this next Monday already, at least the younger two. My college freshman (GULP!) has one more week home after that.

Posted to Facebook with no credit given.

Wow has it gone FAST (both this specific summer and his childhood as a whole). I have said, for years, that time moves SO DIFFERENTLY this side of infertility. I know that decade of praying for children was MUCH longer than the 17 years just past!!!

Beautiful baby rose from my garden this summer.
www.Facebook.com/HarvestingHope

Physically I've had kind of a tough summer. For one thing, as much as I loved homeschooling, and miss it, as much as I adore my children, I must be honest and say being around people 24/7 really drains me. As much as I hate to admit it, God knew what he has doing in sending my kids to traditional classrooms post stroke, allowing me several daily hours of solitude. Thinking, making decisions that impact others, on a continual basis, still puts my brain on overload!

 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. - 1 Corinthian 12:15

For many months, I've had intense pain, and radiating tingling/numbness associated with what doctors think is the extensor tendon of the 2nd-in-from-the-baby-toe (actually, they use much more elaborate medical descriptives, but that's my translation) on my right foot. How random! How irritating, aggravating, annoying, painful! Scans and exams and meds and frustration! And if I pointed my toes wrong, like sticking my foot straight to get into bed sheets at night, or bumped the top of the foot just right, OUCH. No, I never actually threw up from the sudden stabs of pain, but I came very close a few times! And on my LESS stroked foot too. Why??? (Perhaps I over extended it compensating for the weaker left?)

Then, this happened!

I dropped a large ceramic trivet on that EXACT spot on my foot. The trivet did not even chip, just rolled gracefully onto the floor. My foot absorbed the entire impact of the fall. I couldn't have aimed better if I had tied!

OWE!!!

And guess what? All that blood flow flooding that injury no doctor has been able to fix, dramatically reduced the pain! As my oldest says, "God words in mysterious ways!" Amen, son! Praise Jesus!!!

Sure, I did NOT find the moment of impact at all enjoyable, and that bruise itself is still a little tender two weeks later, but the extension pain, is all but gone now, mild irritation very occasionally now. Haven't had to take pain meds (doses were several times per day for a few months there!) at all, in over a week. Flexing the foot can (but often does not) still triggle minor ache, and the top/side of the foot still gets a little numb/tingly at times, but that is at a totally livable level now!

www.StrokeOfGrace.blogspot.com

The rest of today's post will be pulled from Facebook posts I've written over the last few weeks. I want to gather those stories in one spot so I don't loose them!

Thank you to my sweet neighbor for giving me this sweet gift, and to "My Kathy" for planting it in my rose garden!

On Monday, I posted, "today is my REAL (as in, the day I was actually born) birthday. I have Oct. 25 listed here on Facebook, as it is my "Re-birthday," the day my life started over from scratch almost 6 years ago, where I had to re-learn how to breathe, swallow, crawl, walk, and live again, after a chiropractic accident led to six strokes within 26 days, the two nearly-fatal ones in my brain stem and cerebellum, right there on the treatment table in his office. I thank God for carrying me through these 6 years, as well as the 39 prior!
So here's my birthday request. I am 45 today. I would love to build up 45 (or 450, or 4,500!!! *grin*) new likes on my Jennifer Saake, author page today, please! I even have a fun giveaway going this week (and another, every week this summer)... Could you please go like /HarvestingHope then share this post and invite your friends to do the same? Potential book publishers are looking at my social media right now and need to see I have potential for spreading my message far."

www.Facebook.com/HarvestingHope

The above post brought me 57 new page likes in 2 1/2 days. :)

Thanks to my hubby, my kids, my bestest lunch buddies, and my parents, for making Monday such a special day for me. 

Thanks for the yummy dinner and gluten-free berry cobbler, Mom!

Do you think they might know I like butterflies or something?

One of my very favorite treasures of the day, hand-drawn/designed/colored/shaded by one of our sons.

 

 

 

I was overwhelmed with Facebook birthday greetings. One of my favorites was:

Purchase poster at https://pro.teechip.com/butterfly-out-poste

This has been a summer of transition for our family. We feel we are "on the fence" between two seasons, a season of chronic loss, grief, and destruction, and a time of healing, renewal, joy, restoration, favor. This picture is significant to me right now:

Thank you, A Little Perspective / Scripture Pictures

My commentary on Facebook was, Ever prayed through a hard circumstance for a LONG time and HURT so deeply, yet felt closer to God in that season than any other time in life? Then, once prayers are answered, that close dependence on the Lord tends to slip? I think this is why God allows struggles, to remind us of our need for dependence on Him. If He feels far away today, He isn't the One who needs to move closer again.

Thank you Joanna Weaver!

If you use Facebook, please take a moment to take this guided tour of my author page. This way, my non-FB friend don't need to wade through details of, and links to, features such as weekly Saturday Giveaways and Tuesday Prayers. Current giveaways there include a summer-long series of games and rewards of brand new, still sealed, Christian music CD classic (circa 1990s). 

Choices still available to choose from this week (as of this posting, since one prior winners still need to claim from among these) are:
- Heaven in the Real World - Steven Curtis Chapman
- The Great Adventure - Steven Curtis Chapman
- I Only Want to See You There - Keith Green
- Steve Green
- Coram Deo - Susan Ashton, Michael Card, Michael English, Out Of The Grey, Charlie Peacock
- Nailed In Stone - Barrett Brian
- Home Run! - Geoff Moore and The Distance
- Field of Souls - Wayne Watson

(Sorry, other SCC titles, Jaci Velasquez, Point of Grace, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, the WOW I Love Christian Music, and others have already been claimed earlier in the summer.)

https://www.facebook.com/HarvestingHope/posts/1517961811583542?pnref=story

I have to say it is quite fun that I now get more new people I do NOT know "liking" this page than the number of pre-page friends joining. I am very thankful for each already-established relationship and cannot thank my friends enough for joining me here. It is just really exciting that God is also bring me new friends, expanding my "tribe" with this page. I am eager to watch how God continues to "build my platform" and leads in my pursuit of an agent and publisher!


Last night I posted:

Today was a tough day, starting with an inability to continue water therapy after 15 minutes of really struggling. After that I spent all day in bed, eating like crazy, feeling ravenously hungry, cold, and exhausted, and blurry vision. I'm thinking the blood sugar meds I've been on for 18 years were causing hypoglycemia today! 
By not taking my dinner pill and eating plenty of M and Ms (thanks my sweet Rick), I'm doing better this evening.
First I weaned off years of antidepressants and actually was coping better within 6 weeks than I ever had since the strokes, then much hearing was restored, then my latex reactions dropped from anaphylactic levels to nearly non-existent, now this!
I've already cut my Metformin dose 3 times in the past couple years, so that I was only taking half of my highest dose in June when I started in on these symptoms and dropped my dose in half again, then. Since I'm now on the lowest dose, I guess it is time to just try to stop all together.
This journey is crazy amazing! I did nothing to deserve what God is doing. I'm not getting to pick and choose what is getting healed nor when, but Wow! Thank you, God!

My left-handed coloring is coming along. Still slow (this incomplete 3x5 card represents 30+ hours) but hand control has majorly improved since my first left-handed coloring post in January 2016!

After reading a friend's post about a particularly beautiful way God had restored her joy in an area that has been quite downtrodden for quite some time, this morning I replied with:

I have a tear rolling freely down one cheek as I read this. I have had trouble crying for nearly 6 years now, since my strokes! Beautiful!...

A second tear calmly, silently followed the first. I rarely get even one tear past the first unless I am in an ugly rage. Peaceful/joyful release through tears just really isn't a thing anymore. On the very rare handful of times they have ever come, I may get one tear, so small it has evaporated away before it reaches the tip of my nose. Today was TWO fully rolling tears, the first tear rolled to my chin and dripped, the second making it to my lips before it dried away. Both I sat through joyfully, peacefully, and just smiled my thanks to the Lord! BIG DEAL!

...There starts a 3rd! And even the other eye is a bit damp under the lower lid too!

Pretty view from a recent trip.

Sharing My Struggles

In Why Blog, I've listed several specific reasons I keep this stroke blog, such as:

1. To offer understanding, hope, and resources to other stroke survivors, especially my "little sister" Kendra (who had already been a dear friend for years before the strokes, is 4 years younger than me, and stroked 5 1/2 months after I did).

2. To educate the public on stroke issues and experiences, particularly those unique to younger stroke survivors or pertaining to chiropractic safety and stroke prevention

Chiropractic Adjustments Connected to Strokes: Warnings

3. As a personal journal that documents milestones in my own words since I plan to eventually write a book and the stroke profoundly impacted my short term memory and recall abilities

From my writing Pintrest board

4. Most profoundly, out of desire to fix my eyes on things of eternal import, to remember that this is all temporary.

And, speaking of my writing efforts in general, at Why I Write, I've said:
"I think my desire to "tell all" also reflects 1 Corinthians 13:12, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." I think my blogging is part of my desire to be "fully know," though only a poor reflection of heaven. I would love get to know you too, so please leave comments telling me about yourself!"

As you can see, my "tell all" season has diminished significantly as I've moved farther from the event. Stroke means a lifetime of relearning and new fears and emotions to process, but much of the early story has already played out. So now I make an effort to continue writing so that there is interesting new content posted here to keep you coming back. It's been a tough summer for other aspects of my health, so most of my limited writing energy is going into my book, however, I am trying to get at least one short, inspirational, fresh post up live (I often schedule them a week or two at a time, to insure this method) up on my author page on Facebook, every single day. I'm also hosting weekly giveaways there throughout the summer. I so hope you will come join me!

What About Me?

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20 (NIV, emphasis added)

A friend posted to Facebook about how she had taken a literal "step of faith" on a broken foot, and God healed it. The break was no more, pain gone, foot strong.

God, what about me?
Is my faith lacking? My husband said I was being reckless when I tried the same. Did my step ever hurt! Why wasn't I healed too?

I heard a testimony of a strokie (stroke survivor) who was introduced to Jesus, and got up (from not walking, like I was after my strokes) and RAN several laps without so much as a limp.

God, what about me?
Does already knowing You, living in a country where Your power is well-know, preclude me from miracles You preform for new believers in spiritually dark countries where Your power seems more readily evidenced?

I posted last week about my own miracle healing of my ears. A reply on my Facebook page has made my heart ache ever since...

"Maybe someday God will bring me. physical and emotional healing also."

I could be reading my own experiences into this, but to me this sounds like the same What about me? longing I've felt so often.

My original title for this post was, "Weary of Asking, Loosing Heart." I am experiencing great emotional healing right now, my hearing is being restored, there are several other physical and emotional issues God seems to be rapidly resolving (blood sugars, hormones, greater spurts of energy, ability to have proper emotional responses of tears and shutting them on and off on command occasionally now, possibly even my trigeminal neuralgia (TN is not totally gone, but seems SIGNIFICANTLY improved along with my hearing) and some latex allergy issues, though I have not yet really tried to test out any possible resolution to this life threatening condition...), YET, I am not fully well on any of these issues, 100%.

I have some pain, like a specific tendon in my right (less stroked) foot that has been hurting since March and is actually getting worse rather than better - each time I pray and ask God if I am to pursue further medical consultation, I wake up with more pain there than I went to bed with. I've had a gal bladder issue that totally stopped  moments before leaving the house for the emergency room (and both pain and poop issues have stayed gone a few months now!) and I've had several recent and severe colds, including 2 that have required antibiotics this spring. Central Pain Syndrome and the vascular/circulatory pain that turn my left foot blue/purple, give me wonky blood pressure and pulse reading anywhere on my left side, and require me to keep that left leg elevated whenever I sit, are yet unresolved in the least.

My point is that is totally up to God when, where, why, and how (much) He sends physical healing. Just because you are in a what about me? season today, if God has not given you a miracle, it doesn't mean your day will never come! And if/when God does send healing in one area, He is not obligated to fix it all, nor act on our timetable.

In some cases, Jesus heals INSTANTLY (see Matthew 20:34), sometimes He heals slowly and in stages (Mark 8:22-25). Often healing is a sign of spiritual relief (Matthew 12:22; Luke 8:35; John 5). Sometimes God heals all (Matthew 8:16) and other times He only heals some (Luke 7:21). Often, His healing looks quite different than we were expecting (2 Kings 5:11). Healing is tied to faith often in Scripture (sometimes to the faith of friends or family, rather than of the person healed, such as in Mark 2!), but God is the only One who can measure that - we cannot judge others for "lack of faith" if they aren't healed, in our way and on our timeline, because God can (and often does - no one was more stunned about my ears than me!) heal even when our faith is lacking (Mark 6:5-6)! When we trust Jesus for eternal life, we will ALL be 100% healed and made whole in Heaven!

For our seasons of living the wait, I offer my favorite poem as encouragement:

Wait (c) copyright 1995, Russell Kelfer 

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.

Quietly, patiently, lovingly, He replied.

I pleaded, and I wept for a clue to my fate,

And the Master so gently said, "Child, you must wait."

 "Wait? You say wait?" my indignant reply.

"Lord, I need answers. I need to know why.

Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?

By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word.

"My future, and all to which I can relate

Hangs in the balance, and you tell me 'wait'?

I'm needing a 'yes,' a go-ahead sign.

Or even a 'no,' to which I can resign.

"And Lord, you have promised that if we believe,

We need but to ask, and we shall receive.

And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry:

I'm weary of asking: I need a reply!"

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate

As my Master replied once again, "You must wait."

So I slumped in my chair; defeated and taut

And grumbled to God; "So I'm waiting, for what?"

He seemed then to kneel and His eyes met with mine

And He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.

I could shake the heavens, darken the sun,

Raise the dead, cause the mountains to run.

"All you see I could give, and pleased you would be.

You would have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.

You'd not know the depth of My love for each saint;

You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;

You'd not learn to trust, just by knowing I'm there.

You'd not know the joy of resting in Me,

When darkness and silence was all you could see.

"You would never experience that fullness of love

As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove.

You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,

But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

"The glow of My comfort late in the night.

The faith that I give when you walk without sight;

The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask

From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

"And you never would know, should your pain quickly flee,

What it means that 'My grace is sufficient for thee.'

Yes, your dreams for that loved one o'ernight could come true,

But the loss! if you lost what I'm doing in you.

"So be silent, my child, and in time you will see

That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.

And though oft' may My answer seem terribly late,

My most precious answer of all...is still...wait."

"Wait" taken from Follow Me! by Russell Kelfer, copyright 1995. Published by Discipleship Tape Ministries, Inc., and Into His Likeness Publications. Used by permission on pages 176-178 of Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart in the Midst of Infertility, Miscarriage, and Adoption Loss by Jennifer Saake, NavPress, 2005.

For a decade I've planned to write a future book called Given Me a Thorn, focused on living life when God says no. I'm rethinking that book. I've shut down both the blog and the Facebook page I had set up on the topic. While I may still someday write on living fully during the wait, I now see that I've spent YEARS focused on when God says no, rather than understanding, truly grasping, that the primary point of Scriptures like 2 Corinthians 12 or the parable of the widow and unjust judge in Luke 18, are that God wants us to keep asking, over and over. His heart is to pursue relationship with us. His delays are that we may know Him, not that we give up in defeat when we ask three times and He hasn't yet given the answer we desire.

If you are dealing with barrenness, infertility, or sterility, I'v written additional thoughts especially for you, in supplement of this article. May Why Can She Have A Baby and I Can't? be a blessing to you.

Please come visit me on my new official author page on Facebook. I'm gearing up to publish my next book and would love your support at www.facebook.com/HarvestingHope/. Please help me show potential publishers I'm serious about this book writing thing. They need to see numbers of likes well into the thousands while I'm only in the low hundreds, so far.

A recent post by Lysa TerKeurst is so powerful! In very small part, Lysa's I'm Scared To Pray Boldly words include gems like, 
"...my hesitation isn’t rooted in any kind of doubt about God. It’s more rooted in doubts about myself and my ability to absolutely discern the will of God. The reality is sometimes God chooses not to do things. And if His will is “No,” while I am boldly praying for a “Yes,” it makes me feel out of step with God..
"I so desperately want to stay in the will of God that I find myself praying with clauses like: God please heal my friend, but if it’s Your will to take her, I will trust You.
"I wonder why I don’t just boldly pray: God, please heal my friend. And then stand confidently knowing my prayers were not in vain — no matter what the outcome...
"...So, prayer does make a difference — a life-changing, mind-blowing, earth-rattling difference. We don’t need to know how. We don’t need to know when. We just need to kneel confidently and know the tremors of a simple Jesus girl’s prayers extend far-wide and far-high and far-deep.
"...Not bold as in bossy and demanding. But bold as in, I love my Jesus with all my heart, so why would I offer anything less than an ignited prayer life?"

Organizational Help

This is a cross posting of yesterday's InfertilityMom blog. It is stroke-related, so I was asked to share it here as well.

A really fun aspect of writing blogs is that random companies fairly regularly contact me and ask me to try their products. I am very selective about what offers I'll except. The products have to really fit my niches of Christian living (companies like Dayspring, or books I want to read, or the online college Biblical languages program I told you about this week), or things specific to stroke therapy or adaptation.

I say "no," to more offers than I accept, then even if I accept, you won't find the item posted here unless I have some real positives to share. When I feel it is a product I want to share with my readers, you get my honest opinion, the good and the bad.

When Paperless Post contacted me earlier this month, I was intrigued. I don't easily send postal cards because the addressing, stamping, and mailing process takes a lot of organizational skill that I'm still working to recover since the strokes. With Paperless Post, email addresses are collected once, then the entire process is automated so that I can send out graduation party announcements (my first living baby will graduate high school in less than a week!), birthday cards, shower invites, wedding announcements, Christmas cards, invitations, or general "brighten your day" messages, on a whim.

This is the actual "envelope" I selected, "paid" upgrade coins for. I just now realized that the plain one posted below is what actually got sent. This was visible when people clicked on their plain envelope and visited the Paperless Post website. The customer service is fantastic, and had I not waited until posting deadline to write this blog post, I'm sure I would have been happy with the assistance they offered in this area. Perhaps it is as simple as the need for email recipients to come directly to Paperless Post to access all the benefits of this service?

There are email options, both basic free ones and more elaborate paid ones, and even paper items to be ordered. I was credited "coins" to go in and play around with some of the fancy options to establish my opinions and receive feedback from my guinea pigs friends I tested cards on. I picked a handful on people I know well, some that I regularly interact with via email, and others I rarely exchange emails with at all. I sent them a message of, "I am trying out the Paperless Post service to review it on my InfertilityMom.blogspot.com blog. Fun! I picked a few friends to try it out with and when I saw this card was an option, it seemed perfect for you, my friend. :) If you can let me know what you think of this service, that will help me write my review. " All but my mom (who spent many years being "computer illiterate and proud of it" and has been dragged into the technological age kicking and screaming) opened their messages. (Love the tracking feature built in, so I know if anyone needs follow ups!)

Outside Envelope That Appears In Initial Email

I upgraded envelope "liners" (paperless, mind you) to butterflies and had fun with card messages, backgrounds, "postmarks", and more. This is what I came up with:

Card Front

One third of my test subjects had initial trouble opening/reading everything I had sent on their cards. As one friend said, "It was OK, but all I could see was my name." Once I replied to their questions, they all immediately figured it out and appreciated what I had sent. The replies I sent read like this,"Click on the button in the original post that says, "View The Card". That will take you to a website where you can see the card along with the front of the envelope by clicking on the image on the right and the opened envelope lining by clicking over to the left. If the card flips over too fast to read all of it, click directly on the card and it will flip back over."

Personalized Card Back I Created
Since this message sent directly via email, along with the simple outer envelope picture, this is where I would include my instructions for new users in the future.

Another friend took a while to reply, then said, "Cute card. I couldn't figure out how to respond at first--no box, just one line to write on."

Inside of Envelope With Upgraded Butterfly Liner :)

My favorite reply nearly wrote my review for me, though I unfortunately filed her message in "trash" instead of "blog." *sigh* The point is she LOVED this service and simply GUSHED over it. Now that I've learned a few tricks, what I did right and what I will do differently next time. I will certainly be using this service again! My advice is to initially try Paperless Post out with a very small test group, find out how things work, practice and reine, then use it for serious contacts!

Happy 8th birthday to this innovative company that is going to make one area of my life simpler. :)