Patience

Do you remember how old you were the first time you were told never to pray for patience? I believe I was around 8, and I was at a Mother-Daughter banquet at our church. I have to laugh at this because at the time I thought, in all of my 8-year-old wisdom, that talking about patience at a Mother's Day celebration was pretty weird---Then I grew up and had a kid, I totally understand.  In fact, I started thinking about patience and my lack of it the day I found out I was pregnant. I can not even fathom the number of times in my life my mom would try to tell me that I had to be patient. Back to patience and being pregnant. I self-proclaimed that God tried to prepare me for motherhood by giving me morning sickness---7 out of 9 months, I had to learn that somebody else was getting ready to rule my life in the form of a 7 lb, 7 oz little bundle of joy, who by the way, turned 24 this week and that was what I THOUGHT my blog would be about. No, this ended up being the week, God decided to teach me some more about patience, and experience, and hope.

For the past few weeks, I have been waking up every morning feeling like I have something in my right eye, I would be up a while, my eyes would water a while, and it would go away. I know I have mentioned before that I am taking Humira. It is wonderful to me but there are lots of potential side-effects, one being sinus issues. So, Dr. Mindy here, decided my sinus cavities were swollen and pushing on my eye. I started taking a couple of Benadryl before I went to bed of a night. I was still having the same problem but convinced myself it wasn't as bad.

Wednesday morning, I woke up to the same sensation but it didn't go away. Mom had an appointment in Terre Haute so away we went, I had taken more cold medicine, more benadryl and a few other assorted things that I thought might help my sinuses. I realized driving East at 7:00 in the morning that the light was not fun either.

I ended up getting a doctor appointment for Thursday morning. When she saw me, she said she felt like my eye was pushing on my sinuses, not the other way around and she called my eye doctor who told me to get there asap. Now I was a bit nervous. I wasn't thinking about it being an eye problem and lo and behold, all that research I did on Humira and sinuses, I had never looked to see if there were weird eye problems associated with it. The one thing I did know is that one of the side effects (and the reason my own doctor was very cautious) was cancer. So, I said a quick prayer that whatever this was, it was fixable and went to see Dr. Wolf.

He asked me if I had ever had an eye injury before and I have, but it was to the back of my eye, not the front. I was beat up 25 years ago, right about now honestly. He said that wouldn't have been what caused this but apparently I have some scar tissue on the inside of my eyelid that was loose, it has been sticking to my eye first thing when I wake up and apparently Wednesday morning, I rubbed my eyes while it was still there and gave myself a pretty big abrasion. Bless his heart and modern medicine. He put a contact over the abrasion which gave me about 80% relief. He dilated the eye so I still had some sensitivity but that pain being gone was a tremendious relief. The downside was he said we would heal this and then do some preventative measures to keep this from happening again but if it did, I would have to see an ophthalmologist to have the scar tissue removed.

I have a friend who we had been told had a corneal tear. I kept thinking "at least I'm not going through that!" Ironically, Thursday afternoon, she posted on facebook somethings about what she had experienced and I realized we were going through the same thing. I texted her and sure enough, we were having very similar experiences.

I shared with her about some of the things that had made me anxious and she reminded me that Jesus brings calming in the midst of fear. Yes, he does. And thankfully, He had carried me through a lot of fear. Ironically, the next morning, I was telling Dr. Wolf about this and about my friend telling me about using a scalpel to remove scar tissue off of her eye, this was right after she had said numbing drops were a wonderful thing.

I should have known what was coming next, sometimes I thank God for ignorance. Dr. Wolf took the contact out yesterday morning and put drops in that made everything great. I told him I didn't know what that was, but it made everything better--"they are numbing drops, I'm afraid they will wear off soon." Okay, I didn't ask WHY he numbed my eye but here I am with my chin in this little machine and him shining a bright light into my eye when all of the sudden a tool appears. "what are you doing now?" "You need to hold still, I will tell you in a minute". When he is finished, and tells me I can sit back, he tells me that some of the tissue of my eye that I had torn was just hanging there and it needed to be removed. Yeah, what I thought were tweezers were more like some kind of scissors.

He had to dilate my eye again so I was once again back to holding it closed most of the day. I have slept more in the last three days than I have believe I have slept in the last three years. There is just not much else to do when you are shading one eye from the light and if you try to read or do anything else very long it ends in a headache. Once again, God showing me I am not the one in control. (and made me very thankful that we painted our family room really dark colors).

So, I have had several friends who have reminded me this must be Him telling me to slow down. I find it very ironic that I spend half of my life irritated because I can't get things done fast enough and I have been at almost a complete standstill for three days. It all boils down to patience.

So, I am back to not praying for patience but I believe I am in the midst of the tribulation. Unfortunately, I have not found myself glorying in the tribulation either, YET.

Romans 5 starts out with Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, experience; and experience, hope.

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

We were always taught not to pray for patience because the way you gain patience is through tribulation. So, I still won't pray for patience but I think I have surely gained a little here and people who work and live with me are probably the ones thankful for that.

I am so late getting this on because I was still typing when Dr. Wolf called and asked if I was ready to come and see him. I am now back from that visit, with NO contact in my eye! It doesn't hurt anymore, just feels like there is something a little wonky but I have a feeling I will wake up tomorrow and it will be all better. I now have an ointment that I will put in my eye to keep this from happening again and we will see how things go.

Now to get everything done that I haven't done in the last 3 days, this should be good!  But maybe, just maybe, I am supposed to learn that it will all still be there and I could slow down just a bit.

Sorry this is a LOOONNNG one!

I have to admit to you that the song running through my head all week has been Guns and Roses, Patience, don't judge.

But there is another song that I have had on my mind A LOT lately, since way before Wednesday and one that can probably be more of a little testimony than the GnR song.

Matthew West's Mended. Because sometimes that patience needs to be with God. His time and mine are very seldom the same, but I always know it is His that is perfect and He shows that to me over and over again.

Have a great week!