Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 82. I Pray Beyond the Healing (my suffering is parenthetical to His Glory)

Hello human.

Consider this scripture.

33 Your eyes will see strange sights,

    and your mind will imagine confusing things.

34 You will be like one sleeping on the high seas,

    lying on top of the rigging.

This is Proverbs 23: 33-34. It describes my life in the Spring of 2010, fourteen years ago. I was two days from completing one fund development career position and starting a new one as a Major Gift Officer at Lenox Hill Hospital on Lexington and 76^th, New York City.

It was a Wednesday. To finish the day, I had an early evening event in New Canaan, Connecticut. The organization I worked for, The Philip Johnson Glass House, A National Trust for Historic Preservation site was one of the grantees being recognized by a local foundation. I had pushed hard that day to complete a major national grant application and coach the staff who would manage the process going forward. I would use all of Thursday and Friday to tie up loose ends, then enjoy a three-day weekend to decompress, and start my new position on the Tuesday following Memorial Day.

So, I thought. My Executive Director/CEO met me there and we took our seats in the audience. It was a small, swanky setting, and a little upscale campy. As we listened to the community leaders speak about each grantee, I noticed the beams on the ceiling. That they seemed to be moving and then they would abruptly drop out of my peripheral vision. With every slight turn of my head.

I thought, “that’s strange. Feels like the room is moving.” I was a little alarmed, so I kept my focus forward, and did not look up. I could feel the seeping rise of panic in me, ever so slowly as we got close to the end.

I wondered, should I say something to my boss? What if I can’t get to my car? What if I can’t drive? Should I call my husband? What is going on?

When I got up, I saw the ceiling fall off to my right… that’s the best I can describe it. We walked to our cars together with the usual minimal chit chat. I didn’t say anything. I got into my car as if I had been dumped in. Like I had no control, just dead weight. No judgement as to when I would land.

So, I called my husband and said, “I am not feeling well. Heading home now.” He asked if I was ok to drive, and I said… well, you know what I said.

I was driving on a sequence of parkways, which means an abundance of curves and considerable speed. I would feel alright, then feel as if I was turning. When I wasn’t. So, I called and kept my husband on the phone. It was terrifying. It was dangerous. It was the absolute wrong thing to do. I made it to the street one block from home and just stopped. My husband drove us to the driveway, and I couldn’t walk.

He thought I was having a stroke, as did I. I went through 24 hours of feeling like I was on a ride at an amusement park. I got worse and worse. All I could think about was the time we went to Disneyland and my husband spun the teacup at Alice in Wonderland so fast, I got off and was sick for three hours.

It was that a gazillion times worse. Worse than delivering a baby, worse than major surgery, worse than anything I had ever experienced. Being on the tilt-o-wheel and not being able to get off, and nothing stops it. Not sitting, not lying down, not standing. Just around and around and around.

The diagnosis was that I had experienced a vertigo attack. Let me cut to the chase. I started my new position on Tuesday so dizzy I am pretty sure God did everything to keep me from looking like a drunk, an addict, a completely whacked out woman. I told them I was a little dizzy but tried to make light of it. What a paradox, to start a position at a very well-known hospital in this condition. Welcome to my life.

Vertigo is a sensation of motion or spinning that is often described as dizziness. It is not the same as being lightheaded. People with vertigo feel as though they are actually spinning or moving, or that the world is spinning around them.

Verse 34, “You will be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging” is the perfect description. The purpose of rigging is to move a sailboat’s masts and sails, always adjusting, always re-calculating, based on wind and water.

That is exactly how I felt. That is exactly how I feel.

This vertigo episode started a health journey through all the ways a vertigo patient is treated, including physical therapy, including meds that don’t work, exercises that bring minimal relief. Including my doctor telling me it will never go away.

And it hasn’t. But what I learned quickly was that I had a choice. I could go deeper into all the online stories about how vertigo ruins the lives of so many, because it is debilitating, but more out of the fear it will happen again. It’s understandable because when it does, any environment is dangerous.

Driving a car.

Riding the subway.

Walking the Manhattan streets.

Attending any public event.

The grocery store.

So, I made the choice to stop reading the stories, the online laments of hundreds of people with vertigo, and to not let the fear of “what could happen again” have any part of my future. To not give even a mental inch to it.

I gave it to God.

It’s important to note that I wasn’t as spiritually engaged fourteen years ago as I am now. But I knew this was a clear binary choice.

God or insanity.

God or no active life.

God or no freedom.

He gave me the will to make the right choice. I live with vertigo. I have never been the same. It broke my dancer’s heart, a break only God has mended.

• I do stairs with a handrail or assistance. Someone to steady me. Doesn’t matter how slow I go. I need the help.
• I am very measured in approaching any level changes, however slight.
• I anticipate my dog’s every move. Both dogs took me down on the streets of Manhattan, on separate occasions. (I am thankful for the amazing New Yorkers who helped me).
• And together, they took me down during harmless rousting on our driveway in Los Angeles.
• I get dizzy getting up, sitting down. Turning over at night.
• I always feel a little, or a lot disoriented. Unfocused. Fuzzy.
• I cannot let myself get too exhausted. That’s a trigger. That’s a door that leads to disaster.

In general, my head feels like the scene in Titanic. Not the beautiful people embracing on the bow, cutting through the deep blue on a magical, starry night. No, the scene when the furniture is sliding across the dining room, and the dishes are flying off the shelves. Sometimes a quick slide, sometimes extended. I stop, pause, and wait for my mental ship to settle.

When God Takes My Right Hand

So, I can tell you… having God extend His hand to me, is imminent. His hand is always there to balance me. To catch me. Nothing happens in-between when I need Him and when He is there.

Isaiah 41:10

10 So do not fear, for I am with you;

    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Psalm 18:35

35 You make your saving help my shield,

    and your right hand sustains me;

    your help has made me great.

Having God take my right hand, steadies me. Mind, body and soul.

Isaiah 41:13

13 For I am the Lord your God

    who takes hold of your right hand

and says to you, Do not fear;

    I will help you.

Having God assure me that no matter where I am, no matter how I feel, God is there to stabilize me.

Joshua 1:9

9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Psalm 55:22

22 Cast your cares on the Lord

    and he will sustain you;

he will never let

    the righteous be shaken. (another translation… “be moved.”)

Pray Beyond the Healing, Pray to Do His Will

So, what is so important to me, and for you, human, is to praise how God stabilizes us, so we can do His will for His glory.  I pray every morning—because this is one of my diehard fears, that something like vertigo will stand in the way of His purpose for my life—so I pray that God will manage my health. That every health challenge I encounter—my vertigo, my asthma, and the inevitable that comes with physical aging—will not stand in the way of His purpose for my life.

That my suffering is parenthetical to how my life reflects His glory.

Steady me Lord, wherever I go. Because I go with You. Because I go for you.

With this I encourage you to pray beyond being healed. Pray beyond your suffering. Because you are praying to the One who reigns, the One who is sovereign, whose right hand will take you where He wants you to go. We are Christlike in our suffering, so we can be who we need to be to bring His glory to the lives of others.

Spiritual Vertigo – When Your World is Spinning Around You

And my postscript on this for now… it merits main script attention… but for now is this:  with every physical challenge I believe we can define a spiritual parallel. In this case, spiritual vertigo.

When you feel that your spiritual world is spinning around you.

I just went through a life transition, and as I expected, yet underestimated, I experienced spiritual disorientation. Like I was circling around God but couldn’t bring Him into focus. He kept falling just beyond my peripheral view. Like the beams on that ceiling in Connecticut. I didn’t feel lost, just that He was out of focus.

Like when we are spinning in our own spiritual battles, we feel unstable, and finding our divine footing is a simple, but moving target.

We only need to do one thing; reach for His hand to draw close to our Creator. Focus on the power of God’s nature: Pray, read His Word, and worship with Him.

Pray beyond the healing.

Pray for footing in His divine glory.