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. :)

Core Deep Lies

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Where to start? On May 9, 2017, my life took a dramatic change.

You may have already read about how God so unexpectedly restored my hearing. (Wondering about your own miracle and feeling left out of God's plan? Read my follow-up article, What About Me?)

StrokeOfGrace.blogspot.com/2017/05/Core-Deep-Lies.html

The story few know yet is one I've spent 2 1/2 weeks praying about how to share, what to share.

It's rather like putting together a puzzle.

Piecing together fragments of nearly 45 years of life to gain a clear picture of where I am today.

(Literal jigsaw puzzles are my newest fascination. I call them my "new Facebook," where I'm spending my free time focus. A peaceful place to train my brain while meditating on the Lord.)

I've come a long way from being challenged by a 24-piece puzzle in December, 2011!

Last week I did four, 100, 300, and 500 piece puzzles in 6 days! 

This is even with spending lots of hours focused on deep housecleaning, gardening, laundry, dishes, writing, doctor's appointments, and therapy, so these were accomplished in my free moments scattered throughout those six days!

Starting May 8, and for nearly 40 hours that week, I underwent an intensive week of much needed counseling. The restored hearing was God's gift to get my attention from the get-go and affirm that He was in my week, working, and wanted my full attention.

Physical restoration was the most obvious change to come out of my ministry week, the most easily seen and explained to others, but was actually the least significant change God brought about this month.

I am finally ready to share what some of you have even directly questioned about my life but I have long denied. 

As a very young child, on the mission field in Asia with my parents, I endured prolonged, repetitive, and serious abuses at the hands of a nanny hired to help free my parents to focus on ministry work. My entire family remained unaware well into my adulthood. 

Short and Sweet is the newest book I'm contributing to. If you wish to buy a copy, they are available on Amazon now!
This was a fun writing challenge, to express huge ideas in 250 words of only one or two syllables, 5 letters or less.
I learned of this project at Mount Hermon Christian Writer's Conference, just a couple days before deadline, and my submission (on prayer fasting) was selected for publication in this anthology! :)

My husband was the first to know of my abuse, followed by a counselor, then my parents, then this current counselor, then my children, in-laws, brother, Sunday school class, a very select few friends, and now you. In hindsight, those who have known me long-term can see the imprints left on my life, the impact on marriage, parenting, and relationships with others and with the Lord. 

I got to meet Christian actor and chiropractic stoke survivor, Kevin Sorbo (wow is he tall!), just 54 hours after my hearing was restored, the first time I wore my hair down in public in several years!

To the few who have learned some of the specifics of what I've endured and been broken by the vile ugliness, reduced to sobs and hugs of overwhelming sympathy, I can only share that your reactions catch me by utter surprise. I get that you are just catching up with a weight that's dragged me down for a lifetime, but as you process a new-to-you burden, I've been set free, my heart is lighter than it has been in my entire life! I want to shout from the rooftops what God has done in breaking down strongholds, losing tight bonds of secrecy, shame, and pain.

I am not "all better" yet. I am not fully healed. Many nights are sleepless and terror-filled, especially right now as God peels back the scabs I have so carefully guarded for so long, and oozes out the infection at its source. I still anticipate at least one more intensive week of upcoming counseling as well as potentially other "breakthrough" moments of aid needed.

The day before my counseling week began, I got to attend a dear friend's baptism!

My despair has been transformed to joy. God has not left me without relief.

I am attempting to type with both hands sometimes now. I am believing there will come a day when I learn to drive again, rather than thinking that to be a forever impossibility. I am no longer accepting the therapist's statement that I should give up the goal of standing for a shower and be content to sit on a shower bench for the rest of my life. I believe there may likely come a day, this side of Heaven, when my muted hearing is fully restored in volume, when my latex allergy abates, when my need to use a walker or elevate my more-stroked-leg due to vascular pain, resolves.

May "snow" in Reno. The cottonwood trees are in bloom!

I have given up the practice of full-time head covering and am only practicing this for corporate worship, prayer, and prophecy (including ministry writing and public speaking), wearing my hair down and unbound whenever I wish now. I have been totally off antidepressants for nearly a month. I am stretching my brain by learning Biblical Hebrew, just because I find it fascinating and always thought it would be cool. (You too can earn college credits with this flexible online course in just two hours a week! If you enter the linked giveaway, you will automatically earn $100 toward a course and could even win an entire 9-month class for free.) 

As stated above, I'm taken with jigsaw puzzles now. I've spent 14 hours deep-cleaning two bathrooms in the past two weeks. While I'm still feeling the effects of ME/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), my mom and kids say I have more life, spark, energy, than they have seen in my oldest's 17-year lifetime.

As God has been scrubbing my heart, freeing me of chains of things done to me, He has also provided new strength for this mobility-challenged mom to get in and clean things I have not been able to manage for years!

Jesus has broken three core-deep lies that the enemy has shouted to my heart since childhood:

1. I am not beautiful/acceptable/pleasing to God or others. I am "less than," never good enough.

2. No one will ever believe me. I'm a drama queen. I'm a good story teller. I'm just making this up.

3. I must be broken to be a viable witness. It is my responsibility to "steward" and shoulder my story well, that it may bring glory to my Father. That to be "useful" to God's kingdom, means "being used" by God in the same way I was used and abused in infancy.

These have been replaced by Truth:

1. God loves me, calls me by name, delights over me. I am His jewel, His treasure. 

Through all I have endured, He has never left me alone. At the bottom of a deep, dark well, He is my Living Water. I can trust both my past and my future to Him. I am more than enough because He imparts His value to me, His beloved daughter. God does not leave me without help, without hope, but desires relationship with me.

2. Jesus is the Truth. I am not a Drama Queen, rather a Princess of the Most High God!  He has confirmed my story in countless ways, and continues to do so even now. Yes, He has honed the craft of story telling within me, not so I can flourish in fiction (no wonder I've never gotten the hang of fiction novels!), but so that His story can be displayed in the unique way He has crafted only me to share it.

3. Sometimes healing takes time - this is to my benefit that I continue to bring my brokenness to the Lord, that I don't get my way and forget to keep coming to Him. He makes all things new. Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted. He has already caused this lame woman to walk, blind woman to see, deaf woman to hear, all thing doctors never believed could happen! He who began a good work in me will be faithful to carry it on to completion.
He will guide me one step at a time, lighting my path for this moment. It is not mine to look into plans He has not ordained for me. He calls me to rest in Him. My striving for perfection and accomplishment, is exhausting and vain. He does not use nor abuse, but is gentle and tenderly carrying me.

I an FREE! <3

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If you haven't read it yet, don't miss the funny story behind this picture!

I'm removing some wording from my blog header. I am ready to go from victim to victor:

Jenni is walking (with a cane or wheeled walker), had recovered much eye-sight, some hearing, partial use of her hands, could care for most of her own personal/toiletry needs...

 (please read more and watch short video)...

Near the five-year recovery mark, Jenni has renewed her pre-stroke excitement about the unique Lilla Rose hair Flexi eight jewelry she sells and has finally regained enough hand/arm function to regularly use! (The biggest ongoing losses at the 4 1/2-year point of recovery are left-side nerve pain, inability to drive, loss of homeschool teaching capability, significant sound processing issues (often triggering nausea), and some profound physical ability limitations such as a limp, balance challenges, clumsy use of right hand and only large motor function in left hand.)  

Jenni is clinging to God's grace through the entire experience. Here is her unfolding story, documented in her own words (typing with only her right hand), as she perceives it happening in real time, messy, honest and to the glory of God...

No Words!

I've been quiet. 

Oh yes, there is PLENTY to share, more to process than I know how, in fact!

God very unexpectedly blessed me with much restored hearing 10 days ago. (Feeling left out of God's plan? Read my follow up article, What About Me?)

I am hearing tones I have never heard in my left ear since infancy, and the crackling and constant confusing whistling that have been constants for 5 1/2 years since stroke are simply gone. The pain issue caused by the strokes, where loud music causes vomiting, is also erased overnight.

Feel free to read more at www.Facebook.com/HarvestingHope

Jenni's further thoughts about healing can be found at What About Me?

http://strokeofgrace.blogspot.com/2017/06/what-about-me.html

I Spy a Miracle (or Three)!

What do you see here?

Ordinary?

Common?

Mundane?

I see victories.

Solutions.

"I did it myself" moments.

Not so long ago, I couldn't fold towels. I now have enough right hand skill, and left arm function, that I did the stack myself, and rather quickly, this morning. No, they aren't perfect. Yes, more complex clothing items still present more challenge. But God has brought me so far since the day laundry won!

The Seder plate I prepared for my family last week.
Yes, our "lamb shank" was a chicken leg and our "parsley" was mint, but I manage it! 

Not so long ago, I couldn't begin to braid, or manage a hair tie, or problem solve the solutionlike when I had already packed away all my hair ties but figured out how to use the comfort strap from my Lilla Rose hair band as a makeshift pony tail holder for travel day.

Not so long ago, I couldn't travel. Now I've taken three major week-long trips in the past 14 months (plus a couple of one- or two-day medical travel excursions), one by airplane (another post-stroke first for me), and two busy and intense working conferences to the amazing Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference.

Butterfly lace and butterfly leggings!
What's not to love?

My conference was wonderful! I recapped the basics over at InfertilityMom and shared a funny story at Harvesting Hope. All my kids were walking under their own power when I left home, but I came home to two out of three in wheel chairs, one for illness, and the other for injury! Please pray for my family as my homecoming has involved meeting several new doctor, an urgent care trip, an emergency room trip, emergency MRIs for one of my children, several specialist visits, LOTS of missed school, and HOURS and hours worth of telephone practice (have I mentioned lately how much I hate telephone since my strokes?) with schools and doctors offices over the past week. (We now know that we are NOT dealing with a brain tumor, but are still seeking answers for what is causing our son's symptoms,) We are also dealing with insurance adjusters and contractors over a leaking roof and moldy wall.

My Easter outfit.

Several times this week, when I've started feeling sorry for myself, God's reminded me of my blessings.

I was confronted by having a child back in the room where I've personally faced so very many MRIs and CTs. PTSD! Then God sent a little girl by me who was a very recent stroke survivor with many obvious and tremendous deficits. I was reminded that what we are facing is hard but God has faithfully carried us through so much worse and that's not where we are today with either me or our own child.

My Christmas cactus has identity crisis issues.
 It has bloomed as early as Thanksgiving,, or like this year, as late as Easter!

I'm used to being the lady whose story puts other's struggles in perspective. Last week at the gym, I met a lady who had to live in the hospital for a year and a half and have 27 surgeries during that time. Suddenly my not quite two months as an inpatient and 8 surgeries over that first year seem rather mild!

I am reading the I am N devotional and am simply stunned by reminders of God's provision. Freedom, religious and political. My daily bread. I am so blessed! I take so much for granted!

When my Grandma died, this is the one possession I most wanted out of her house.
My great-granddad was a commercial artist and did the calligraphy work.
It hung over Grandma's sink for years.
It now hangs next to mine as a convicting daily reminder!