Live. Learn. Grow.

Grow- by giving thanksgiving and praise in all circumstances.

Friday morning, I wake up to four missed calls from two doctors and three voice mail messages. My heart begins to pound, and my mind and flesh begin to take over by planting seeds of fear and uncertainty in my spirit. I listened to the voice messages all saying to call the doctor back as soon as possible. My results were in. It had been a week and now it was time to reveal what had been going on with me. For the past year, I had been experiencing more headaches, vertigo, nausea, being off balance, hand tremors and numbness in my lower extremities and feet. I had missed work it seemed every month and sleeping proved to be a challenge. I was gaining weight rapidly and it was placing me in a state of hopelessness, because no matter what I did, I never lost, only gained. Thursday evening, before the call, I was in Wal-Mart shopping and it felt like my spirit was being taken from me. With each step, walking became labored, the heart palpitations increased, and my vertigo was nonstop. I knew that I was going to pass out, but God! Right when I could no longer walk at a normal speed, my phone rang, and it was my best friend. I told her what was happening and if she did not hear from me in the next 30 minutes, I had probably fainted and would be at Wal-Mart. I quickly left and headed home. My mother suggested we go to the emergency room, but I was having no parts of that. The “spell” came again and I started experiencing hot flashes. I lied down and prayed. I prayed for God to heal me, to restore my body back to its normal state and I fell asleep. Now, here it is Friday morning and all I hear is urgency in the voices.
I called the neurologist and I got the news. “Ms. Colston, we need to you make an appointment as soon as possible for a lumbar puncture. We are concerned because results show you have signs of intracranial pressure and we need to find out what the cause is.” My heart began to race. These terms were scaring me and before I knew it, I was on the edge of panic, but the Holy Spirit stepped in and I pulled myself together. I began to calm down, although tears had formed in the corners of my eyes. I cleared my head and wrote down the information I was given and then called the other doctor. This called yielded more information about my diagnoses from lab results and I received it much better because it was on a list I had made as what was possibly wrong. The nurse read off my results which were arthritis of the neck, carpal tunnel, B1 deficient, intracranial pressure, and my TSH levels high and I wept, not because I was afraid, but because my prayers had been answered. I had received confirmation that it was not all in my head, that there was something wrong with my body as I had been saying for the last 5-6 years to no avail with other doctors.
Now I had an answer. I had something to work from and I began to thank God and praise Him. I began to thank Him for not allowing me to give up. I began to thank Him for allowing my general practitioner to hear me and refer me to someone with more knowledge. I began to thank Him for allowing me to meet a doctor who was more concerned with getting to the truth, than just hustling patients in and out prescribing medications to band-aid the problems. I thanked God for hearing my cry and then I praised Him for being faithful! I praised Him for being my healer and victor! I praised Him for having my best interest at heart. There will be times when the world will seem to swallow you up with its many attacks, but in those situations, we must grow to learn that all will be well. We must learn to keep an attitude of positivity, because our natural reaction is one of negativity and pessimism. It took me a while to mature in this walk. I would receive “bad” news and cry and fret. I would try to figure out how I could change it or what the “bad” outcome would result in. But, as I continued to read and grow in understanding, I began to realize that giving thanksgiving and praise in the face of dire situations or upsetting news is an intentional action. It is a conscious effort to see the positive and not be taken down the “rabbit hole” of negative emotions.
Learning how to give thanksgiving and praise takes time and an intentional act of rewiring your brain to think in the positive. I remember when I used to get bad news and get scared. I would panic and work myself up into a frenzy about how things will transpire, not knowing I was already speaking against victory. But when I began to allow the Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts and actions, reside in me, and help push me through the hard times my reactions began to change. It will not be easy because your faith will be tested and meditating and arming yourself with scripture to speak to yourself in these times will be crucial. You will need to surround yourself with individuals who are strong in their faith and will be there for you to help direct your mind to the positive. You will need to arm yourself with scriptures to meditate on and bring to remembrance when the need arises. You will need to be intentional.