Glimpse

It feels like those scenes from Star Wars-where the ship is flying through the air at the speed of light, spinning and contorting past the stars. And you get the front seat view as the stars coming flying at you, morphing into one big blob of light. Except this isn’t Star Wars. It’s morning vertigo from a disease you know little of, but it apparently knows you all too well.

“It’s like a bomb goes off in your body” my naturopath said.

“It affects every part of you.”

And I’ve probably had it from childhood.

It affects every part of me? Is this true? My mind wanders. It definitely affects my day to day decisions…it effects my emotions, I admit it, it effects my thinking patterns and how I choose to analyze situations, and I’ve had more than one “spiritual” conversation with God through tears about it…I suppose disease is holistic in its nature, we just like to think it’s contained in a “disease” box.

So I decided to stop ignoring that I have Lymes. It’s o.k. I can love Jesus, believe in healing, see deliverance through my prayers, and have some bacteria in me that needs to be eradicated.

I remember, I was finished with my first semester as a transfer student in Cambridge. I was flying home that day and my friend’s car, the one that would transport me to the airport, had broken down. I had to find a last minute replacement. I texted another new friend I had made in this church community. He wasn’t sure if he could do it…he had to check on some appointments. My heart raced. My body had gotten to the point where exhaustion was an every day experience. I remember one day walking back to my dorm from class thinking I may faint or just stop moving and collapse in the middle of the sidewalk. It was so strange. Confusion and perseverance kept me walking into the dorm, up 4 flights of stairs and into a coma-like fatigued state.

So now, I had a flight to catch, and maneuvering on the T with two heavy suitcases, a guitar, and a backpack, was not going to happen. My mind went to when I did this maneuvering in Norway, through the Oslo airport. I had managed then, I was able. Now…I wasn’t able. And I knew it. How to communicate this? None of these people were really known to me or knew me. I prayed that my friend Will’s appointments could work around my flight. They could. He was coming. Praise God. I remember Will’s comments that I seemed very tired. Yes, I was. I think I mentioned something about lack of sleep due to back problems. Back problems being extreme pain to the point it felt like I was a board of wood that couldn’t move or else a surge of sharp splinters would course through me. I didn’t tell him that.

He dropped me off. I managed to get through the doors, and asked a man to help me bring my luggage to the check in. He was happy to oblige. I have met very nice people in airports. I think the common bond of adventure in travel bonds us.

Tonight my back aches a bit. “On a scale of 1 to 10”…..I hear my nautropath’s voice.

How does one measure pain?

How does a child know that pain and sickness aren’t one time “shots in the dark,” but are symptoms of an accurate, focused bite and suck of an insect? When did I get this disease and its co-infections?  I don’t know. For as long as I’ve known, little Beth has always been “more susceptible” to sickness. That’s just “how I was.”

“I don’t think you were born with a weak immune system. I think you were born fine and healthy, you got bit, and weakness became a new normal for you.”

My nautropath’s words stung, but they gave me hope.

I wasn’t born this way? Should I feel guilty for being relieved that I wasn’t “born weak?” There’s hope that I had the breath of strength and vigor against sickness in me? That I no longer have to assume I’ll get sick too if someone in the near vicinity is sick as well? Questions are still taunting, but they are what have lead me into searching, into seeking the One who has all answers. He has given me hope. He has enlarged my heart with compassion for those living with illness, sickness, pain, confusion. Faithful Friend has brought in that dusting of light beams so that I can see just. that. step. more.

Light came into darkness. And the darkness couldn’t comprehend it.