Uncaged

"He placed me in a little cage,

Away from gardens fair;

But I must sing the sweetest song,

Because He placed me there.

Not beat my wings against the cage,

If it's my Maker's will;

But raise my voice to heaven's gates,

and sing the louder still."

Last Christmas, Mom gave me this beautiful image, painted by our talented cousin Lisa Wilkes. I was still a shut-in when Lisa finished it, but she refused to paint the bird in a cage. She wanted me free. What a lovely, prophetic gift.

Today, this little bird is free indeed, which was her Maker's will all along. Mysteriously...paradoxically, my cage was the key to my freedom. (Think Hosea 2.)

Therefore, behold,
I will hedge up your way with thorns,
And wall her in,
So that she cannot find her paths.

She will chase her lovers,
But not overtake them;
Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go and return to my first husband,
For then it was better for me than now.'

My heart was a harlot if there ever was one. But--thanks be--God is a determined lover. And His crazy, stubborn love is freedom. 

Hessed love taught me to fly. 

So, if you were wondering--no, I wasn't frightened away. You don't survive what I have to turn tail and hide in a corner when people don't like what you say. I've just been...busy.

Busy living life. 

Having fun. 

Eating in restaurants. 

That's right. I'm eating corn chips. 

With high-histamine, nightshady salsa.

Vacationing with the fam.

 

 We saw Moses at the Sight and Sound Theater. Great show!

I ate the roasted almonds. Mostly because I could. 

But also because of the smell. Mmmmm.....

Shopping. Check my $2.40 find from Banana Republic. That's right--two dollars and forty cents. *drops mic*

(That duck head sticking out of mine...*snort*)

*picks mic back up*

Dating my Superman. 

Doing fun stuff with the kids and crying like a baby because I can. 

Girls' night. (Who am I?)

Prayer group. 

Daily adventures with Jesus. 

I'll share one of my recent favorites. But first, a little backstory...

During my illness, pain was a significant problem for me. I had arthritis, fibromyalgia, and carpal tunnel, which stole any joy I took in playing the piano. So I stopped. My piano has stood mostly silent for the past few years, serving as little more than a fixture to remind me of times gone by.

Lately, quiet calls summon me back to music, most of which I've been able to muffle with practiced excuses--

"That's something I used to do."

"That was my old life."

"It's been four years, and I wasn't all that great to begin with."

"I've lost my dexterity."

"I want to focus on writing now." 

Which, of course, translates into, "I'm scared to death I'll fail." 

But when Mom came to me on behalf of a friend whose mother had just died, a friend who'd prayed for me over the years, my excuses didn't matter. Besides, if I didn't step in, my sick dad and has-never-sung-for-a-crowd-in-her-life mother would be left to sing a duet to canned music, and I couldn't have that. 

So I dusted off the keys. Opened a hymnal. And lo and behold, my brain recalled the old language. My hands remembered what to do. What's more, I managed to sing and play at the same time. 

Miracles happen every day, folks.

On the ride to Winnsboro, I tried not to think of past funeral performance debacles. The words of a former professor echoed in my mind--"Music is a service profession."  

This is service, not performance. It's an expression of love, not a reflection on myself.

We arrived 15 minutes before go time, which in music world is the same thing as arriving late, and were ushered into a small, enclosed room, invisible to the attendees. I sighed relief. 

Two reasons:

1) Singing in the face of grief is hard for me. I just...can't. I'm too empathetic to keep it together.

2) I prefer invisible service. Nothing says, "I love you" quite like doing something for someone that no one else knows about. Which I suppose I'm ruining now...

Oh, well. I have a point.

We all served above our abilities. I hadn't accompanied anyone since 2011 and I played...well. Not perfect, but well. Mom has never sung so beautifully in her life. Dad's cold? Helped him sing the strongest bass line he's managed since his neck surgery several years ago. And God surprised us with a gift. The funeral director who oversaw the music is an outstanding tenor. He sang along with us.

Y'all, God isn't looking for professionals; He's looking for people to say "yes." In our weakness, He shows Himself strong.

On the way home, I felt God smile, pat my head, and say, "Good job, Baby Girl." 

I live for that, just so you know.

An update:

 

These days I eat what I want and do what I want. I'm medication free. My pain's gone. My energy's back. Most nights, I sleep like a baby. And I *ahem* use the bathroom like a normal person now.  

Brandon's in a fun season. I love watching him grow and exercise his faith. Second to being God's child, being Brandon's wife is the highest honor I enjoy on earth. 

I plan to get back to writing--the dollar-earning variety--soon. I'm still trying to figure out where it fits with the rest of my responsibilities. But I'm determined to give this writing career thing a real shot before I agree to head back to the classroom. Which means I have to sell a few books by this time next year. So yeah...feel free to peer pressure me back into the habit. I'm still debating whether I should work on my short story collection or my novel. I don't feel there's a wrong choice, but there might be a more strategic one.

Pretty soon, I'll move my blog to my own domain. You can support me by subscribing and sharing when I do. 

For the month of April, I'm teaching a journaling class for Project 41's Esther's Academy. Enjoying that. Love the awesome women in the program. After the class ends, I'll focus on developing the prayer ministry for P41 and nurturing my friendships with the women. 

I fall more in love with my new family all the time. When I think of the gift God has given me in them, I get weepy. Every time. Two of the women have become good friends of mine. I'll travel to Brazil with one of them in September. The Lord has called me to short term international mission work for the first time in 16 years. I'm thrilled and terrified. 

But ya know...that's life with Jesus. In or out of the cage.

 

Here for the Comments--My Response to the Response to My Food Journey Miracle Post

My recent post about my struggle with food received an overwhelming response. Not all of it positive.

I posted my story in the mast cell groups on Facebook. While most who took the time to read were encouraged and/or happy for me, some just weren't.

I don't blame them. Not at all.

Mastocytosis/Mast Cell Activation Disease affects every aspect of human life. There's no square inch it doesn't attempt to claim. To make matters worse, there's no cure, so it's a disease without much hope. Outside of Jesus, anyway.

And let's face it, Jesus causes trouble wherever he goes.

I thought I'd address a few of the comments made, not because I believe the people who made them will read my response but because you may need to. Some of the questions the comments imply may resonate with you. 

And deep down, who doesn't love a good Facebook debate?

The Comments

"I can't believe I wasted time reading this"


As someone who has battled MCAD, this comment translated as, "I came here looking for real hope, and you gave me a fairy tale." Do you feel the despair in that? Doesn't your heart break just a little? Mine does. 

To this commenter, I would offer this quote by G. K. Chesterton: "Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." 

Jesus slayed the ultimate dragon when he gave his life on the cross. His life was for us, and His life makes us whole. In mind, body, and spirit. God is on mission to redeem it all.

"Unless you have a disease that can be cured by...science...we are all stuck with mast cell. Some people needs their meds to live. This gives false and dangerous hope to people. Unbelievable... I have seen firsthand what a supposed cure can do folks. Putting the word cure on an illness known to be incurable except for periods of remissions can and does cause false hope. Wording is everything. There was no disclaimer...only stating cure. If anyone and I include myself in this.. Wants to say what is helping them as far as diet, supplements Et al then cool, but, unless it has been medically verified as a cure with accompanying information this becomes another blog with the supposed miracle cure. As a scientist, I aware people for reasons still poorly understood can heal. Hope is good. Proclaiming you have a cure without science not so much"


I agree--"wording is everything"--though even the best of us get it wrong from time to time. But the careful reader will notice I never used the word "cure" in my story. Rather, I spoke of healing. Why? Because I want to be clear. While medication, diet, and lifestyle modifications helped, these things did not end my disease. Jesus did. He healed me.


"I'd like to give my view on this as an atheist (and I know a lot of you are already placing labels on me for using that word, but please do not prejudge). I do not believe in prayer or a supreme deity that has the ability to heal us....but...I do believe that prayer can certainly be viewed as a form of meditation and there has been verifiable scientific study done on the effects that meditation has on the body. The most recent National Geographic has an article on the mind body effects of being in nature...scientific data. Including changes in EEG brain waves and drastic reduction in cortisol levels in the body. Doctors are actually writing "prescriptions" to patients to spend time in a natural setting for healing purposes. From my own personal experience, I can slow my heart rate purely by relaxing my body (I suffer from SVTs) and to some extent slow the progression of Mast Cell attacks the same way. This has been seen by multiple ER docs while I was hooked up to monitors. Then there is the whole epigenetics issue. Scientists have shown that these switches can flip back and forth quickly to stimuli and rapidly affect how our body reacts...or over reacts. She is not claiming to have been healed overnight. Nor did she do nothing but pray, she also modified her diet and tried other avenues of improving her symptoms. I believe placing this is the realm of religion is what is bothering some of you, but if you look deeper and place what she is saying in a more scientific framework, maybe you can understand better..."

I appreciate this person for coming to my defense. Truly. She was kind when others were not. Elsewhere, she chastened those who left--in her words--"incredibly rude comments," some of which were deleted by the moderator. That being said, we aren't on the same page. 

2015 was a rough year for me. Though I continued to lean into the Lord day after day, my thoughts weren't always positive. During the weeks before I was healed, I struggled with restlessness, guilt, anxiety, and shame. I was tired, beaten to a pulp by this monster of a disease. My mind did not heal itself. Jesus healed me.

"I always have to wonder, if you are "cured", perhaps the diagnosis was incorrect all along."


I expected this one from the beginning. Before Jesus healed me, I told Brandon and my mom that when He did it, people will say I never had the disease. People tend to reject what they don't understand.

But MCAD isn't a diagnosis doctors toss to the masses like beads and candy at a Mardi Gras parade. It's difficult to obtain, which is why I had to travel all the way to Minnesota to get it. 

While I'm sure God had more purposes for my Mayo Clinic adventure than I can imagine, I understand at least two--Gastrocrom (a medication which allowed me to eat without absolute misery) and that diagnosis. He wants the world to know no disease is incurable when it comes to Him. 


"I'm happy for you Melissa. It seems like your body has calmed down by making nutritional changes. The jury is still out on mast cell disorders, so thinking positive is a good thing. My fear however would be that your overzealous claiming of healing might turn around and bite you - should you regress, relapse, get triggered again etc. I've seen many women in this group already speak of going years "ok" than not ok. For me, EVERYTIME I have gone there - psychologically, emotionally etc and believed "I'm completely better now!" Or "I'm finally coming out of this!" --WHAM. I've been sent back to reality. So I learned to be "cautiously optimistic" and to speak about "improvement" and not black or white declarations that only kick my ass later. Just my share/2 cents. Mast cell (so far) keeps me humble."


I totally understand the warning. I've been in remission. And yes--I thought I was better, then BAM! But this isn't remission. I'm healed. Thank you, Jesus! 

"I am taking this with a grain of salt..be careful with the word "cure." Glad you feel better..please be respectful of all here. Religion, politics cross over many people's comfort level. And seems to imply we are all in the same boat and all able to pray our way to wellness. That is simply not the case. And can lead to blaming those who don't believe to the degree you do or in your religion. Makes me squirm a bit...got my armor on for the replies with this one..I will remove this post if the comments become attacks or too controversial."


Writers, to publish is to give readers permission to quote things you never said and infer meaning you never intended. 

Now let's discuss the idea of "pray(ing) our way to wellness..."

If anyone could've earned healing by faith, prayer, or specialness, it would've been Jenny. 

Before her, I'd never encountered such indomitable faith. Oh, how she loved our Lord! How she sought Him! She was humble enough to seek prayer wherever she went. Churches, communities, and even Dodie Osteen prayed for her healing. Until a few weeks before her death, Jenny believed she would live. Not hoped. Believed.

The woman was so magnetic that people sense her pull in photos. People who didn't want to like her couldn't help themselves. Few love others like she did. She was often the sickest person in the waiting room at MD Anderson, yet she stopped and prayed for people every visit. People who got to live. Before she let hospice put her into an induced coma, she prayed for and blessed everyone at her bedside. She sent me a goodbye text telling me how much she loved me. Jenny went out thinking of and serving others.

If we could achieve our own wellness, Jenny would've been here to celebrate her daughter's fourth birthday four days ago. But after two years of intense suffering, she died. 

Did I survive because I'm so much better than her? Because my faith is stronger? Absolutely not. And if my prayers achieved all that, Jenny would still be here.

This commenter didn't need her armor. She got no argument from me. 

Healing can't be earned. It can only be received.

"I am glad you are doing better, but to claim that God healed you leaves a lot of Christian people who are dealing with the same thing out. I find it distasteful that God would pick and choose you and leave everyone else to suffer. I think there are are too many variables to leave it to "God fixing everything".... Could have been shots finally registered in your system after all that time, anxiety dying down after postpartum time frames end, allowing you belly time to heal after a severe infection.... Ect.... Too many variables to leave it at "God chose to heal me over everyone else."


This commenter doesn't understand my God. And frankly, I don't either.

Human inclination is to fear what we can't control and to dismiss what we don't understand. 

We can't control God, nor can we understand him. So we fear and dismiss him. We explain him away.

And guess what--I've done it, too. 

I have no idea why I lived and Jenny died. I have no idea why some are healed and others suffer all their lives. But that doesn't mean God didn't heal me. And it doesn't mean He doesn't want to heal others. 

Truth be told, these thoughts aren't all that unrelated to some of my own, which have led to questions. Lots and lots of questions:

1. Did Jesus ever turn anyone away in the gospels? Did He ever say, "No, I'm not going to heal you. It's my will for you to be sick. Your illness brings me glory?"
2. Does illness bring glory to God? OR is it possible to suffer with something that doesn't glorify God in such a way that God is glorified anyway? Isn't that kind of the spirit of Romans 8:37?
3. Does God send illness? Is sickness of God? Or does the enemy send sickness and then God uses it for His own purposes with the intention of drawing us to Himself and with a heart to deliver us from it and all lesser loves? 
4. Does God want us to cuddle our sickness and hold onto suffering because He worked it for good in our lives? Do we need sickness to maintain our sanctification? Should we? Or do we just need Jesus? 
5. Is sickness the best way to experience the nearness of God? If so, what does that say about the saints in the Bible? They weren't sick. Are sickness and pain the only ways to cultivate humility and dependence?
6. Can we best fulfill the Great Commission when we ourselves are sick?
7. If it was God's will for people to be sick, wouldn't Jesus have been going against God's will by healing them? Wouldn't we be going against God's will every time we prayed for healing?
8. In Scripture, Jesus doesn't only heal believers. Many he healed weren't believers when he healed them. Some left him, healing in hand, without a thank you. So what does it mean that He didn't do many mighty works in Nazareth because of their unbelief (Matt. 13:58; Mark 6:5,6)? What role does faith play?
9. The mission stated over and over again in the Gospels is to preach the gospel and heal the sick. Preach the gospel and heal the sick. Preach the gospel and heal the sick. When Jesus sent out the twelve, he told them, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8). This doesn't sound like a pick and choose kind of God. So what's the deal?
10. Could the gap between what we see in Scripture and our experience be our fault? As in the fault of the Church? If so, what does this say about our will versus God's will? If not, does the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever carry out his will differently now than he did in the first century?

In Summary:

Notice I have all these fabulous questions and no easy answers. I can't offer a satisfactory response to any of them because God is mystery. But here's what I make of my experience with the information I have at this time:

God did not send my sickness. Neither did He waste it. God used my physical sickness to rescue me from sickness of mind, body, and spirit. My sickness was the fastest, most efficient way for God to do this and make me usable. My sickness did not glorify God; I glorified God by leaning into Him through it. God never smiled at my pain; He smiled at what I did with it.

The enemy sent my illness and used it to try and kill me. Again and again and again. He did this because I'm dangerous. He failed because God didn't allow it. God is sovereign.

And yet other dangerous, usable people die. I don't know what this means. But I do know God is sovereign. He is the head of all principality and power (Col. 2:10). Not a moment of this storm was outside of his perfect control, and his character and attributes do not change with circumstance.

God healed me. God used prayer to heal me. My healing would not have happened outside of persistent, fervent, expectant prayer. My prayers. Prayers of family, friends, and elders. The prayers of many.

These prayers kept me alive, kept me close to Jesus, and helped me navigate the path laid out for me. The path led me to a group of people who operate in the Spirit of God. They saw my plight, had compassion, and rescued me through more fervent prayer. They had faith for me when I didn't have it for myself. Enough faith for me to expect something to happen.

My healing was intrinsically tied to deliverance, which was brought about in a personal prayer session (Sozo), a ministry of the group mentioned above.

My healing glorified God. My liberation unleashed more of the Holy Spirit into the world. Now whole and operating in the power of the Holy Spirit, I can better fulfill the mission--preach the gospel, heal the sick and brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, help the blind to see, liberate the oppressed, cast out demons, raise the dead. Make disciples. Make disciple-making disciples. 

I'm called to give as freely as it has been given to me. Which, you gotta admit, has been pretty freely, so I best be serious about this, yo. 

The miraculous bolsters faith in the miraculous. My prayers are not what they once were because I now believe in the impossible. I ask for impossible things. I believe for impossible things. The impossible has become my new normal.

I know that not everyone I pray for will be healed and delivered, but what do I lose by praying? What do I lose? Time? Energy? Who cares? I get God! Even when the miracle doesn't come. And now that I know it might, by the grace of God I'll never stop asking.

I want to do this thing in such a way that if I'm wrong I'll be the most pitiful fool who ever walked the earth and when I see my Jesus face to face I'll have nothing to regret. And who knows? Maybe one day I'll get to see God do something REALLY cool like raise somebody from the dead!


So yeah...that's where I stand. At the moment, anyway.

Now that I've closed my most recent Facebook debate, let a new one begin. And in the spirit of full disclosure, if you comment, especially if that comment is nasty or despondent, you'll be put on a list and prayed for. You've been warned.

Undragoned

All last week, I struggled to describe what my personal prayer ministry session was like and what it meant to me. Within me lives a powerful drive to define things. But how does one do that when the thing lies on the outer edge of comprehension?

I should probably let things well alone and allow mystery to be mysterious, but that's not my way. My six year old's incessant need to understand? He gets it from his mama.

God often speaks to me through images and metaphor. Sometimes these come to me in dreams and visions, but more often than not, they come by way of the everyday. In conversation, a situation with the kids (this is a big one), something I read.

God is a master of giving moments meaning.

I had such a moment Sunday afternoon while reading C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader to the kids.

 
The book begins with this brilliant opening line:

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

Generally, I see myself in Edmund and Lucy more than Eustace. I've been both traitor and the lonely one who sees things no one else believes. But something happens to Eustace I very much relate to.

About halfway through the book, the adventurers make land on an island to repair the ship after a massive storm. A series of selfish actions brings Eustace to a cave belonging to a dragon. The dragon dies before Eustace's eyes, and so to escape the rain, Eustace takes shelter in the cave and discovers the dragon's horde. Now, as Lewis points out, Eustace hadn't read the right sort of books, so he didn't know as we do that dragon hordes are cursed.

Eustace slips his arm into a golden bracelet inlaid with diamonds, with the hope he'll be able to escape his comrades--whom he still believes to be insane--and use it to barter his way into a nearby country. Then he falls asleep. But when he wakes, Eustace makes a terrible discovery.

 Eustace is now a dragon. 

When he sees his reflection in the pool outside the cave, the sight breaks him. The bracelet, which he'd intended as a means of escape, is now a chain cutting into his flesh. It hurts. He can't get it off. A great, black hole of loneliness swallows him up because he realizes that as a dragon in a human company, unable to communicate or share life, he's isolated. And for the first time in the story, Eustace weeps.

It's a terrible thing to really see yourself.

Eustace manages to return to the others and communicate to them who he is, but no one possesses the power to help him. Save one.

In some kind of dream or vision, Eustace sees a huge lion approaching. Though he's afraid, he follows the lion to a garden he'd never been to or had even seen during his days as a dragon, though he'd explored the entire island in the air. At the heart of the garden is a well large enough to bathe in.

Eustace somehow knows if he could just get in that well, his arm, which throbs from the grip of the golden bracelet, would be healed. But the lion tells him he must undress first.

The lion isn't speaking in terms of clothing.

So Eustace starts scratching. At first, a few scales fall off. He scratches deeper until his whole skin peels away.

But it isn't enough. Underneath the skin is another just as hard, just as scaly as the first. So Eustace undresses again to no avail. And again. Still no good.

"You will have to let me undress you," the lion tells him.

And though Eustace is afraid of the lion's claws, he lies on his back and lets the lion do his work.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off...Then he caught hold of me...and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."

The bracelet falls off, and after a time, the lion takes Eustace out of the water and dresses him in new clothes. The lion, of course, is Aslan.

This is what my prayer session was like.

Suffering has a way of helping you see the dragon within. And let me tell you, it's a ghastly sight. For the past few years, I've been scratching at the scales, sometimes cutting into the knobby dragon skin beneath and wrestling my way out, but I could never get to the heart of the issues. I could never reach the layer of fresh, tender skin and come clean.

What the prayer team did for me was facilitate a meeting with Aslan. They showed me the way to the well.

Sometimes we need that. No matter how long we've walked with the Lord. No matter how sheltered we were as children. Regardless of our heritage, how strong people think we are, or how strong we think we should be. We need our brothers and sisters in Christ to come alongside us and show us the way to the well. Or at least remind us how to get there.

It's the way things work. God uses people. The Church is the visible invisible.

I didn't like exposing my dragon skin. The sight's pretty traumatic to me; exposing it to others wasn't fun. But I wanted that blasted bracelet off. I'd been in a fight with it for years, and I just couldn't win. I was desperate.

I needed Aslan's claws.

Once the Lord undressed me, He gave me something new to wear. (He never leaves us naked, you know.) And then he reminded me of the song of Eustace Scrubb.

Jennifer Simmans, a dear friend of mine and fellow music connoisseur, recommended Into the Lantern Waste, an album by Sarah Sparks. The songs are all inspired by C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Each song boasts its own merits, but my favorite is "Eustace Scrubb." Of course.

I've copied the lyrics below, but you can listen to the song for free here. I recommend purchasing the entire album, particularly if you're a Lewis fan.

 For the first in my life
I’m not living a lie
And I hate who I am
I’ve become what I feared
And I cried dragon tears
Just to prove I’m a man

I tried to change my appearance but I am not changed
I’m just tired
I tried to heal myself long before I met your gaze
At the water
I’m at your feet
Would you tear into the deep of my heart
To heal me?

I’ve seen my own reflection
I know the pain I’m in
I’ve been a lonely wretch and
I can’t get out of it

As he looked through my eyes
At the things I despised
I felt pierced by his gaze
But he pealed off my skin
And he then threw me into
The water to save me

I wore this bracelet, bright and golden
That overnight became a chain
I was a lonely, wretched soul that
Lost in the dark cried out your Name
You cut me deep, I know I felt it
But it’s the sweetest kind of pain
Oh, sweet relief, You took my burdens
Oh, I believe! Oh, I believe!

So yeah...that's what it was like.

And you know, I didn't shock anyone. I didn't lose my new friends. They still love me, hot mess that I am, and don't think any less of me.

As for me, I'll love them forever, but none so much as the One who undragoned me and healed my arm. 

I'll sing His song till the day I die. And beyond.