In this post – http://wp.me/p1Deai-FE – Fingerprints, Heartbeats and Fresh Fruit – I said that “my past is not where I want to go, or stay” but I will need some examples from there to describe the journey to here.

I had a dream once, a big one. That dream was that my Mom and I would be in ministry together.

Her heart was to reach out to those who the world considered unlovely, to let them know that there was a Creator God who loved them so much, that He would wait for them to hear His still small voice, and come to Him for all their needs. He is infinitely patient, infinitely kind, and infinitely loving.

She told people that. She shared His love with them over and over until they got it. In essence, she was being just like Him.

Little did we know that her diagnosis in September, just six days after 9/11, would bring her to her eternal rest by Thanksgiving.

Her care fell to me, since we lived the closest to her. My new grandson, whom I was babysitting for, and I took the 40 mile trek every day to stay with her in her own home. In the evenings, the sweet ladies in her church stayed with her. Overnights became a nightmare for her, and it was decided that she would come and stay in our home until the inevitable happened.

Holy Spirit stayed with us too. He was a constant comfort as care became more and more difficult. The pastor from the local Hospice mentioned that the spirit in our home was different than most she encountered in homes with these circumstances. I was doing fine.

Mom’s funeral was the day before Thanksgiving. It was lovely. God’s love and an invitation to know Him were of course included at her request.

The following day, we emptied most of her home. An empty house in her neighborhood was just asking for trouble. I was doing fine.

The next little while was full of learning how to do things without having her along. I knew we were “Sidekicks”, but I never really knew how much.

Adjusting to her absence was not going to be easy, but, I was doing fine.

I had never experienced grief that closely before, so I really did not know what to be looking for. One by one, one thing at time, I began to have symptoms, strange symptoms. I ignored each one, until they could not be ignored any more. Lying on the floor, barely able to move from the pain, I knew it was time to get something done. I went with a list of 32 different symptoms to my doctor. I was not doing fine.

He said alone, all these symptoms seemed like nothing, but together, they became something, his tentative diagnosis was Fibromyalgia, for which he began to medicate me for. To no avail, I was still not fine.

After literally months with no relief in sight, and a recommendation from my gynecologist, I decided to leave the doctor I had known for all of my adult life, and go to one she knew personally, who would look further into what might be happening to me.

With a new doctor in tow, we began a long process of testing and testing and more testing, until finally the problem was found. The main problem was my thyroid. I was going to be fine.

That being found out, the medication began. It was about a year long process to find the right medicine with the right dosage level things out. When I asked him how a thyroid gets all wonky in the first place, he was quick to tell me that a number of things could cause it, but in most cases, it is due to some sort of trauma, a car accident, loss of a job, family trouble.  Had I experienced any trauma? When I gave him my laundry list of symptoms, he said “That would do it!”

All this to say, a death of any sort, whether it be a close friend or family member, or the death of a dream or a way of life, and in some cases even grieving the lost of a childhood, it must be grieved. If it is not grieved, it can turn on your insides, and eat you up, one symptom at a time.

That was 12 years ago, and now, I am doing fine. There have been a few traumas since, but Holy Spirit has taught me step by step, how to grieve them, and release them to Him so they cannot do the same damage as before.

My Significant Encounter came at a time when I had no other options. I did not know where to look. God gave me the proper people with the proper knowledge, at the proper time, a time when I could acknowledge my lack of ability to “Do fine”.

My Significant Encounter came in the form of these doctors who went above and beyond the call, so to speak, to find the answer to the riddle that was locked inside my body and actually causing it to attack itself.

Proverbs 17:22 (KJV) says this, A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

Keep your eyes, heart and spirit open for that Significant Encounter, the one that will change everything.

Perhaps the most Significant Encounter of all, will be the one where you encounter Jesus, and invite Him in to help make you “Do fine”.

Related reading;

http://wp.me/p1Deai-cE  – Significant Encounters Friday

http://wp.me/p1Deai-tW – Distracted Encounters

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Psalms 139:13-16  For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.