As a general rule I'm not a big believer in spiritual warfare. Allow me to clarify. I DO believe that there are times when "the enemy" turns his focus on believers and tries to create discord in their lives but I DON'T believe that every struggle we face is the result of direct attack by "the enemy". Sometimes you're just having a cruddy day and it can be because of your own actions or those of others. In fact my own tendency in the past has been to NEVER attribute my troubles or frustrations to any type of spiritual attack. An attitude I have come to realize is just as wrong as thinking everything is the result of spiritual attack. So here's my question....how do you distinguish between what is and what is not spiritual warfare?
For me one of the most distinctive aspects of spiritual warfare is fear. I'm not ordinarily a fearful person. I tend to be pretty brave and assertive when it comes to things going on in my life but when the troubles I have are linked to fear, especially fear for others, I've found that those are the struggles that truly have a spiritual component. I don't know if that's true for everyone, but it seems to be true for me. I start to envision bad things happening and fear becomes my predominant reaction. Worry and anxiety follow closely on the heels of fear and my mind seems to run in a vicious little cycle that is completely characterized by fear.
I meet with a good friend every other week for prayer and it's really become a special time for me. The last time we met I was telling her about my last blog, about how I tend to picture Stephen's upcoming surgery in such detail and how much anxiety and fear that has produced in me and she said something that really has stuck with me. She said "the enemy is using your knowledge to create more anxiety" that he is in effect attacking me through my knowledge and abilities as a nurse. I had never thought of it that way before but I think she's right.
I decided to do a little more research on spiritual warfare. C.S. Lewis acknowledged the existence of spiritual warfare but cautioned against "seeing a demon behind every tree and believing Satan doesn't exist". I agree with him, and think the truth about what troubles have spiritual origins are somewhere in the middle. But Hank Hanegraaff makes the really good point that "we engage in spiritual warfare simply by pursuing Christ". He also points out that the eventual outcome is pre-ordained, it's a war God has already won! I guess that means that what we're involved in are merely battles, or more likely just little skirmishes! BUT...it's important to remember that you can get killed in a skirmish as easily as in a battle and the fact that the war is over doesn't stop the skirmishes from happening! After World War II ended there were Japanese soldiers on isolated islands who were still fighting, and still dying, in skirmishes for a war they'd already lost.
Even with great thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Hank Hanegraaff I think the last word is best found in the Bible. The Bible makes it pretty clear that there IS such a thing as spiritual battles AND it tells us how to win them! "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12 So if our struggles are against such forces as these why shouldn't we see a demon "behind every tree"? The answer to that is in Ephesians also...the 6th chapter keeps going and tells us that we have all we need to deal with spiritual warfare. We have the full armor to "be able to resist in the evil day". As I went through the different parts of that armor the one that really struck me was the shield of faith. Ephesians 6:16 says that with it we "will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (italics mine). I really like that thought. That our faith, our shield, the thing that we are actually using as our protection is in itself a weapon. It doesn't just protect us from the arrows of our enemy, it actually snuffs them out!
From there I moved on into the territory of how do I increase my faith? (and thereby strengthen my shield) I think that the key to increasing faith is praying. In Ephesians 6 Paul talks about the importance of prayer, not just praying for yourself but also intercessory prayer, the prayers of others. I know that when I ask my friends to pray for me the struggles lighten and the fear dissipates. And Jesus himself prayed for his disciples "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one." John 17:15.
Some of the people who read this blog have made a point of letting me know they're praying for me as we prepare to take Stephen into surgery. Words can't express how thankful I am for that and I have only one request to make....keep praying!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Peace of God
If you read my last blog entry you know that the biggest thing on my mind right now is Stephen's surgery.
When Paul had open-heart surgery in 2000 Rick and I approached the whole thing with different attitudes, mainly because we had different visualizations of what was going to happen there. Rick's thought processes went something like "they're going to operate on his heart and he'll be all better" while my brain was saying "First they'll paralyze him and put a tube down his throat and hook it up to a machine to breathe for him. Then they're going to cut through his sternum and spread his ribcage open, then they're going to put him on a machine to pump his blood and stop his heart. Then they will cut his heart open and try to rebuild from scratch valves that don't really exist and after they do that they will try to repair holes in his heart. Once that's all done they'll shock his heart into beating again and restore the blood circulation so that his heart is pumping it again. Then they'll check to make sure that none of the sutures are leaking and once they feel like things are working then they'll insert giant tubes into his pericardial cavity to drain excess fluid and blood, wire his sternum shut and close his skin. After that they'll bring him out to the ICU where the machine will continue to breathe for him while he wakes up. He'll have a line in his artery monitoring his blood pressure and a line into his heart monitoring his heart pressures and those things will be taken away gradually once he's stable." Are you getting the picture here of how I envision surgery compared to how Rick (and everyone else in our family)does????
So...on to Stephen. While Rick is thinking "they're going to operate on his back and he'll be all better" my brain is going "First they'll paralyze him and put a tube down his throat....".
Right now the verse I'm clinging to is from Philippians, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
This isn't the first time I've clung to that verse and the last time it was my lifeline something in particular really struck me about it. The words "with thanksgiving". I found that when I start to thank the Lord for all the things I have to be thankful for my anxiety level goes down and the peace of God really does seem to descend on me. So....here goes my thank you list:
I thank you Lord for....
Texas Children's Hospital and the doctor's and nurses who care for my son
Dr. Weinberg
The fact that Rick has a job that provides good insurance
That Stephen's back injury is treatable
That Stephen is otherwise healthy
Family and friends who pray
People who will listen to me rant and rave
The assurance that You are always in control
The school district's working with us so Stephen can keep up in school
Hannah Lechmann and the fact that she's going to help with Paul
The list could and does go on and on.....Thank you Lord, I'm starting to feel some of that peace!!!
When Paul had open-heart surgery in 2000 Rick and I approached the whole thing with different attitudes, mainly because we had different visualizations of what was going to happen there. Rick's thought processes went something like "they're going to operate on his heart and he'll be all better" while my brain was saying "First they'll paralyze him and put a tube down his throat and hook it up to a machine to breathe for him. Then they're going to cut through his sternum and spread his ribcage open, then they're going to put him on a machine to pump his blood and stop his heart. Then they will cut his heart open and try to rebuild from scratch valves that don't really exist and after they do that they will try to repair holes in his heart. Once that's all done they'll shock his heart into beating again and restore the blood circulation so that his heart is pumping it again. Then they'll check to make sure that none of the sutures are leaking and once they feel like things are working then they'll insert giant tubes into his pericardial cavity to drain excess fluid and blood, wire his sternum shut and close his skin. After that they'll bring him out to the ICU where the machine will continue to breathe for him while he wakes up. He'll have a line in his artery monitoring his blood pressure and a line into his heart monitoring his heart pressures and those things will be taken away gradually once he's stable." Are you getting the picture here of how I envision surgery compared to how Rick (and everyone else in our family)does????
So...on to Stephen. While Rick is thinking "they're going to operate on his back and he'll be all better" my brain is going "First they'll paralyze him and put a tube down his throat....".
Right now the verse I'm clinging to is from Philippians, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
This isn't the first time I've clung to that verse and the last time it was my lifeline something in particular really struck me about it. The words "with thanksgiving". I found that when I start to thank the Lord for all the things I have to be thankful for my anxiety level goes down and the peace of God really does seem to descend on me. So....here goes my thank you list:
I thank you Lord for....
Texas Children's Hospital and the doctor's and nurses who care for my son
Dr. Weinberg
The fact that Rick has a job that provides good insurance
That Stephen's back injury is treatable
That Stephen is otherwise healthy
Family and friends who pray
People who will listen to me rant and rave
The assurance that You are always in control
The school district's working with us so Stephen can keep up in school
Hannah Lechmann and the fact that she's going to help with Paul
The list could and does go on and on.....Thank you Lord, I'm starting to feel some of that peace!!!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Taking blame
Right now I am pretty much wracked with guilt, and a little tired of people who tell me I shouldn't feel guilty. You see, my oldest son Stephen is going to have back surgery on February 4th and I feel, not unjustifiably, that it is my fault.
One of the side effects (if you'll forgive me a medical term) of being an ICU/ER nurse is that you tend to minimize complaints from your own family. I've been repeatedly guilty of listening to my husband and children's health woes with the attitude of "yeah right, call me when you're dying". When Stephen was in 7th grade he started to complain of back pain, usually when I wanted him to do some type of work, (so maybe I have a BIT of an excuse). The complaints went on for a couple of years and at this point a GOOD mother would have thought "hmmmm, maybe I should take this kid to the doctor" but I just kept not paying attention and putting him off. Finally, right before we came back to Texas he was having a physical for a boy scout campout and I told him to tell the doctor about his back complaints. The doctor called me and said he wanted to x-ray Stephen's back. That he suspected something called a spondylolysis. Of course at that point I said "absolutely, do the x-ray" and sure enough the x-ray showed this condition, it's an intrarticulas pars fracture of the 5th lumbar vertebrae. We immediately went to see an orthopedic specialist in Singapore who had a very good reputation and he told me that these types of fractures can be present for years and aren't always due to trauma. In fact some children are born with them. He also said that as long as Stephen's pain wasn't constant it could be treated w/ exercise and nothing else was necessary. The only exception was if the pain increased or was persistent, in which case it could be treated w/ surgery but that was best avoided. Well, Stephen went on the boy scout camp-out and his back seemed to be pretty stable BUT...he did complain of pain intermittently.
About a year after we returned to the States Stephen's pain seemed to persist to the point that just a little yard work or exercise caused him to have pain. He's a pretty stoic kid so he didn't make a big deal of the pain, but it was definitely stopping him from helping out in the yard and he'd often go to bed early saying his back was hurting. So...I decided to have it checked out by a doctor here in Houston. The doctor we went to see had outstanding credentials and he was pretty much appalled that Stephen had been having pain for a couple of years that hadn't been treated. I was feeling pretty appalled at myself at this point too! He put Stephen into a back brace in June (the week before school let out) and told him he'd wear it for 3 months. At the beginning of September the brace came off and within a couple of days Stephen's pain was back (no pun intended). We repeated the CT scan and it showed that their had been absolutely no healing of the fracture...so now my 18 year old son has to have a spinal fusion on February 4th.
I've been doing a lot of research about intrarticulas pars fracture and what I've discovered is that the closer the time of immobilization (the brace) occurs to the actual time of injury the better the chance for recovery. In other words, if I had taken his complaints a bit more seriously when he first made them there's a good chance he wouldn't be getting ready to have surgery now! Stephen, being the absolutely incredible kid he is, doesn't blame me at all. In fact he said "you know mom, I wouldn't have believed me either!" but that really doesn't negate the fact that I didn't take the care of my kid that I should have.
I'm left with the feeling of regret. Knowing that you failed to do the right thing is so painful.
One of the side effects (if you'll forgive me a medical term) of being an ICU/ER nurse is that you tend to minimize complaints from your own family. I've been repeatedly guilty of listening to my husband and children's health woes with the attitude of "yeah right, call me when you're dying". When Stephen was in 7th grade he started to complain of back pain, usually when I wanted him to do some type of work, (so maybe I have a BIT of an excuse). The complaints went on for a couple of years and at this point a GOOD mother would have thought "hmmmm, maybe I should take this kid to the doctor" but I just kept not paying attention and putting him off. Finally, right before we came back to Texas he was having a physical for a boy scout campout and I told him to tell the doctor about his back complaints. The doctor called me and said he wanted to x-ray Stephen's back. That he suspected something called a spondylolysis. Of course at that point I said "absolutely, do the x-ray" and sure enough the x-ray showed this condition, it's an intrarticulas pars fracture of the 5th lumbar vertebrae. We immediately went to see an orthopedic specialist in Singapore who had a very good reputation and he told me that these types of fractures can be present for years and aren't always due to trauma. In fact some children are born with them. He also said that as long as Stephen's pain wasn't constant it could be treated w/ exercise and nothing else was necessary. The only exception was if the pain increased or was persistent, in which case it could be treated w/ surgery but that was best avoided. Well, Stephen went on the boy scout camp-out and his back seemed to be pretty stable BUT...he did complain of pain intermittently.
About a year after we returned to the States Stephen's pain seemed to persist to the point that just a little yard work or exercise caused him to have pain. He's a pretty stoic kid so he didn't make a big deal of the pain, but it was definitely stopping him from helping out in the yard and he'd often go to bed early saying his back was hurting. So...I decided to have it checked out by a doctor here in Houston. The doctor we went to see had outstanding credentials and he was pretty much appalled that Stephen had been having pain for a couple of years that hadn't been treated. I was feeling pretty appalled at myself at this point too! He put Stephen into a back brace in June (the week before school let out) and told him he'd wear it for 3 months. At the beginning of September the brace came off and within a couple of days Stephen's pain was back (no pun intended). We repeated the CT scan and it showed that their had been absolutely no healing of the fracture...so now my 18 year old son has to have a spinal fusion on February 4th.
I've been doing a lot of research about intrarticulas pars fracture and what I've discovered is that the closer the time of immobilization (the brace) occurs to the actual time of injury the better the chance for recovery. In other words, if I had taken his complaints a bit more seriously when he first made them there's a good chance he wouldn't be getting ready to have surgery now! Stephen, being the absolutely incredible kid he is, doesn't blame me at all. In fact he said "you know mom, I wouldn't have believed me either!" but that really doesn't negate the fact that I didn't take the care of my kid that I should have.
I'm left with the feeling of regret. Knowing that you failed to do the right thing is so painful.
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