Since it’s been a few years now I’m rarely asked to tell my MS story, but this week I was asked by a group of women, mostly pastors wives, to talk through it, so I dove in and remembered how refreshing and helpful it is to both myself, and others.  At the risk of being redundant, I tell it again, because maybe in my story, you will find parts of your story.  

It’s been 4 years of celebrating and embracing life MS strong.  Strength found in weakness.  Strength found in two being more and more one.  A strength that doesn’t appear strong.  Strength in believing. In some ways this is more of a marriage post because the longer we’ve walked this road, the more I’ve been carried by the strength of another and I cannot rightly use the pronoun “I”, but mostly, “we”.

What I remember the most is how faithful God was – to prepare me, to lead me, to masterfully weave this all together for my good and His glory.  Multiple Sclerosis, or any disease for that matter, is not outside of His control.  It’s not a surprise and it’s not Plan B (or Z for that matter).  It is Plan A. 

This story was woven into me from the time I was knit together in my mother’s womb – fearfully and wonderfully made.  My soul is just learning it more and more with each passing year, as the disease steadily drips on and my body gets older.  It’s not a thief in the night.  It is a gift of grace. At the risk of losing you at this point, I’ll dive into the waters of my MS story.  

I was diagnosed in September of 2016 when my youngest had just turned one and I had been temporarily blind for about 2 weeks.  My best friend laughs and jokes with me now about how I could go blind in one eye and think it was normal.  A year before, when I was pregnant with Maggie I had these episodes that looked like seizures where the left side of my body would uncontrollably seize up and curl inward several times a day…honestly, I assumed this was an attack from Satan because it started the same week that we launched public worship services for New City Church.  It was super scary and I couldn’t be left alone with my 3 little kids – one who wasn’t quite walking and every time I put him into or got him out of his crib I knew to expect to immediately fall and lie on the ground in writhing pain for 2-3 minutes.  I share these details because it’s good to remember God’s faithfulness.  He provided friends and family who supported us greatly.  He provided a new rhythm of life in which my husband turned from go-getter, driven, and do-all-the-things-in-a-day-you-can, to one who had to be physically present with me most of the time – in the beginning, days of planting a church, which is the time when you typically go-go-go!  God is too good to ever let us think we’ve created something that we must work to sustain.  All glory to Him.  

Jumping back to 2016, before I even noticed the growing blindness in my right eye, I knew God was at work again.  He had led me to memorize Ephesians 1 – “…the Father…may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe….and He put all things under his (Jesus) feet…” (1:17-22). 

God wanted me to know Him more and He enlightened the eyes of my heart through my physical eyes going dim…the analogy was clear to me and the hope that gave me was, and is, immeasurable.  The fact that MS, or whatever happened, was literally under His feet and in His complete control gave and still gives me a confidence, that allows me to be sad, frustrated, and even angry with my broken body, but yet with great hope.  It’s a deep lament that is not bitter or controlled by my circumstance.  

No matter what, the enemy can not steal anything from me. ALL things are under God’s feet. The wind and the waves know HIS name. The enemy may steal and seek to kill and destroy, but MY King authors, and lavishes, and frees. And He is completely trustworthy, faithful, kind, loving, and beyond satisfying!

Hebrews 2:8-9 “Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. BUT we SEE HIM … Jesus!”

That’s the story to this point, with my reflections, but here’s how this summer went – 

This summer nearly knocked me over.  In fact, it physically knocked me over again and again.

I didn’t get worse, per se, my body just revealed weaknesses more.  No new flare ups, but just a steady trickle of progression in what was already there.  I couldn’t walk or hike as long, my husband noticed the stairs becoming a challenge, and the waves in the ocean kept me totally off balance.  All new things.  Things that completely exhausted me.  Things we lamented over together, Ryan and I.  Yet the lament was sweet and made the celebration louder and stronger.  

We went to Montana because an event we were supposed to go to got “Covid- canceled” and Ryan asked me to pick a place I wanted to go.  Glacier – of course.  It’s glorious and magnificent, filled to the brim with God’s glory, hard hikes, and peace.  I loved it.  I loved the challenge of the harder hikes.  But, everyone passed us on the trials.  Even going as fast as I could go, we couldn’t keep up with people we began conversations with and they eventually soared ahead.   I moved methodically, slowly, and sometimes painfully.  The amount of brainpower going into something that seems so normal is wearying, just so that I wouldn’t fall (but fall a few times I did). 

The beauty was probably greater because we were made to take our journey slowly.  

My approval idols came crashing down as person after person passed us on trails and I had to move out of their way without getting tripped up. 

 The views were all the better because of the time we had to focus on our surroundings.  

The marriage was all the sweeter and stronger because we had to be one…sometimes the stronger giving the weaker a piggyback ride and reminding her that she was going to make it no matter how long it took, and even saying he would probably go no faster on his own anyway.    

Here we are.  We lament.  We celebrate.  We know that God will make all things new, the broken will not remain broken forever, and His power is made perfect in our weakness…as we wait, with hope.  This journey was the beginning of Hope for me, and with hope, it will continue until the day I’m made new.  

And I will lead the blind in a way they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them.  I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.  These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them. (Isaiah 42:16)