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Recently, I was reminded of a time in my life when God taught me many lessons. Can I tell you each one in a neat way? No. Why? Because I was in an unbelievable fog. In order for you to understand what was happening, I need to rewind my story a bit.

I was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 20.

At age 20, half way through my nurses’ training, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. The peaceful, quiet seizures that people aren’t sure are happening? No. They were grand mail seizures. I woke up one morning with a bear of a headache, a huge black eye, and a bitten tongue. There had been some epilepsy in the family, so I guessed that might be it, but the doctors didn’t want to test until a seizure was observed. So a couple of months later, some friends came to pick me up on the way to work and I was having a seizure on the floor! The testing was done and I was diagnosed with epilepsy, to my relief! They ruled out meningitis, brain tumor, diabetes, a heart anomaly…you bet I was relieved to only have epilepsy.

But of course, I had no idea how I would respond to medication or how my seizures would be controlled. However, I was optimistic and assumed the medication would control the seizures and as time went on, it turned out it did, very well. I was relieved. At the time, I was writing someone who eventually became the man I married. We were both relieved to see that I was responding well to treatment. But we had no idea how I would do with a pregnancy. After a miscarriage and a stillbirth, the other 3 pregnancies went very smoothly. We were really getting nervous, but it turned out the epilepsy had nothing to do with those losses.

I did fine until I was 50. Then I started having problems.

Fast forward 30 years. I was now 50 and had been on this medication for 30 years. I was becoming allergic to it and needed to change medications. I did okay on medication #1 for all those years going about 10 years between seizures. They changed my medication and I did pretty well for a few years. Suddenly, I started having seizures every month, then every week. There seemed no solution. No matter what the doctor did, medications seemed to do no good. I had to change to a specialist in Dallas instead of the doctor I had in Tyler, TX. I was being changed all around from one medication to another. In the process, I had some more allergic reactions to new medications.

All my independence was gone. My driving was on hold and there seemed no hope in sight that I would ever drive again. I was living in an almost constant state of confusion and fog. Sometimes, my ears were ringing due to the strong medications. When I was able to attend church, I was frequently in a fog and was often unaware of people around me. I often sat in a daze and processed what was happening very slowly. As a pastor’s wife, this was not always understood by everyone.

As the months continued and there seemed to be no improvement, I became more and more discouraged. I felt that having a terminal disease would have been better than my situation. At least I would be able to see the end coming. The way I was, there was no end in sight. I didn’t feel alive or anything like myself. After changing my medication around numerous times with no improvement, the doctor did surgery as a last resort by implanting something to try to get the seizures under control. (Vagus Nerve Stimulator)

During the year after the surgery, the seizures took a new pattern. They were 28 days apart…exactly. The doctor said they must be hormonally related and he told me to have my doctor start me on the lowest dose of progesterone. For the first time in 4 years, I went 4 months without a seizure. Finally, we were on the right track. The dose was slightly increased and I went 6 years! I stayed on that treatment. It turned out my problem was related to menopause. I only had ovaries (no uterus) by this time so it was difficult to tell where I was in terms of menopause.

In the middle of all this craziness, people in our church were offering to help me and I often turned them down. God had to deal with me and my pride.

But in the middle of it all, people in our church were offering to help in many ways. Interestingly, I found it very difficult to accept the help. I was wearing out my husband, getting him to help me with errands, etc. I was also afraid to take some of the people up on their offers of help. Some of them were terrible drivers and I was afraid to ride with them. In the end, God had to show me that my pride was showing.

Did I think he couldn’t protect me from a bad driver? He had been protecting me during this time of increased seizures, hadn’t he? One time I was putting up wallpaper and had just gotten off the ladder when I had a seizure. Was He suddenly going to stop watching over me because I was riding with a bad driver? Maybe I was getting too big for my britches when He wanted me to learn to depend on Him rather than depend on myself. Maybe, He wanted me to get to know some of these people who had offered to help me. So I slowly learned to accept the help they offered out of love for me.

In those few years, I came to know those women in ways I never did when I was independent and self-sufficient. By itself, there is nothing wrong with independence and self-sufficiency–unless God is sending people in answer to prayer, to care for you and you won’t allow them to help you! So I had to repent of my pride even at a time when I was weak and sick. I learned to accept the help God sent me and thank Him for it. He sent people who were very kind and gave of themselves unselfishly. I will never be able to thank them enough. I can’t even remember all the people who helped me. That is the shape my brain was in.

At the end of the four year stint, I was almost recovered. I finally was able to drive again. However, it took quite awhile before I was able to work again. There was a lot of damage that happened in my brain. But over time, my brain settled down and got back to nearly normal.

I am now able to say I am thankful for this gift God has given me. I have learned a lot through it. Especially during the period when I had the terrible flare in my 50’s. I would never want to relive that time, but I would never take money for all I learned from it.

That happened in the early 2000’s. It is now 2024. I was eventually able to go back to work in 2008 and retired in 2013. Although I still have a few memory issues, I am able to care for Ron and function pretty well now..

I’m thankful for that period of my life. As painful as i t was, I learned a lot.  I even learned that God doesn’t always heal us physically and it is for our good.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

II Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV

God answers your prayers the way you ask them or the way you would have asked them if you knew everything He does.

–Tim Keller