Source: Do You Trust Me?

When you were little, did you ever play the game with a parent when you were to fall backward and trust that the parent would catch you? I did, and even with some friends that turned out not to be a good idea. And now I would crush anyone who said to fall backward and trust them to catch me! But in a small way, this was the beginning of learning what trust was.

As we journey through life, many experiences along the way begin to shape how we view the word “trust”. Any human we have a relationship with can shatter our concept of trust, and we can also do that to another. However, there is One who we can trust with our lives. His way for us is perfect, and even if the outcome remains painful, we must open our hearts to be shown how the outcome is to be used.

My early years as a young mother were difficult for me, and it took several years to determine why. I constantly felt like I had drank too many cups of expresso, even laying in bed at night. My hands trembled and my emotions were all over the place. I would be in the grocery store, choosing which kind of tuna to purchase, and I could feel a crying spell coming on. Usually I would head out to the car. I loved my boys so much, but had little tolerance to the noise and activity of three little boys. My overall sense of well being was not there, and there were many visits to the doctor, finding nothing amiss.

Gradually my physical appearance began changing. My hair became very thin, my skin had an onion skin type of thinness, and any bump left a huge, dark bruise. Masculine hair started showing up in unfortunate places. Besides my chin and neck, I was getting dark coarse hair at my cheek bones. Still nothing wrong with me. I even overheard the doctor talking to a specialist I was going to see, and heard him say “She is kind of a hypochondriac”. Well, it was a gynecologist I was to see again, after a year had passed from the first time I saw him. He commented on my weight gain, my hair loss, and the facial hair. Still nothing wrong with me though. It appeared to be hormonal in nature, so perhaps a hysterectomy would take care of it. Even though nothing showed up as wrong with my female organs, I opted for that surgery. Anything to help! The hysterectomy did not help, in fact things got worse. It took forever to heal, and my fatigue and other symptoms were getting worse. I could barely climb a flight of stairs. I found myself praying that God would take me home. The boys needed an emotionally healthy mom! I thought I must be crazy if I could conjure up all these physical changes in me. I looked in the mirror and would hear comments of “it is all in your head” from well meaning friends and medical personnel. Rumors were going around that I had a nervous breakdown.

On Easter morning, a bone in my foot broke in the grocery store. I managed to hop and hobble out to the car and drove home. I had a cast on for 8 weeks, the cast was removed and when I stepped down on it, the bone broke again. By now, I was so depressed I literally hoped for the day I would open my eyes and see Jesus, not my bedroom ceiling.

God had other plans though. It was early December, and Scott and I sang a special number in church. I had so much pain in my back, Scott had to help me to the podium. In the congregation was a medical student who was about the age of my younger brother. He had not seen me for about 10 years and was shocked at my physical appearance. He was working with my doctor for a stint, and I had an appointment with my doctor Monday morning for the pain in my back. Coincidence? I know it was not. The student came in first, very politely commenting on my appearance and thought a blood test should be run to check the cortisol level in my body. I thought, “Go ahead, you won’t find anything.” By now, thousands of dollars had been spent on tests, and once when I asked the doctor about the hair on my face, he said with a laugh “That just happens sometimes. If it gets too bad we can get you a job with a circus.”

Little did I know that this blood test was the answer key to my years of illness. I had an adrenal gland tumor. The endocrine gland system was something I knew nothing about, but what a marvelous system in our bodies. The pituitary gland, at the base of our brain is the master gland for this system. When there is enough of any of the hormones present, it will send a chemical message to that gland to stop for now. My adrenal gland tumor was ignoring the shut down message and spewing excess cortisol into my system. The other adrenal obeyed and shut down, and actually atrophied during this time. Cortisol in our body is much like prednisone in the drug world. If you have ever seen someone on prednisone, the Cushing look is similar.

Living in a small Nebraska town and seeing everyone often is most likely the reason this disease went on for so long. It had to take someone who had not seen me for a long time, and may have just studied the endocrine system as well. Things were set in motion and I went to Mayo Clinic in February. They have a whole floor for the endocrine system, and the first doctor I saw said he could tell by looking at me that I had Cushings, but we needed tests to determine if it was the pituitary gland or adrenal gland that was the culprit. It didn’t take long to know with a CT scan showing one adrenal the size of a golf ball and the other one barely visible. To make a long story short, I had surgery to remove the tumorous gland, it was benign, and after 18 months of gradually weaning off of a prednisone supplement, the remaining gland began to work.

One important part I left out was one January morning when the sun was streaming in our bedroom window. I remember getting on my knees, crying, and praying that whatever the outcome I would have peace in this storm. At this point I knew I had Cushings Disease, but did not know if it was malignant or not. I had 3 little boys, and now the thought of me dying from cancer was scary. As I prayed, I will never forget the warmth that poured over my body, and “the peace that passeth all understanding”. I can honestly say that I had peace with whatever the outcome was. God had my back, be it on earth or with Him.

This could go on with more details,  but there were many silver linings to this storm. The most important one being the adoption of my 3 beautiful daughters. I was well, felt like my life was starting over, and really wanted to have more children. Having had a hysterectomy, this was impossible but in God’s plan, I was to be their mother.

Virtually everyone of us will have storms in our lives. Some of you have or are having far more painful ones right now.  If any of you are in need of a listening ear, please feel free to share with me and I would be privileged to talk to you and pray for you to the One we can trust.

After viewing so many images of the fire at the Old Market area of Omaha, NE., a memory from my past has been on my mind. Another time in life when a few minutes could have made a major impact on the future of the Harris family.

New Year’s Eve day, 1967, began for our family around 5am. My younger brother Phil had gotten up to get a drink of water because his throat was so dry. With his Boy Scout flashlight shining the way to the kitchen, he noticed it was “foggy” in the house and should probably tell my parents.

He went in their room, and I think his presence woke my father. The house was filled with thick smoke. My mother ran up to the second floor to wake my sister and I. Upstairs the smoke was so thick, I could only see the figure of someone as my mother woke me. I had turned my face into my pillow, no doubt to breathe better, but the shock of the situation made us all dash for the stairway.

The front door was at the bottom of the stairway, and that is the exit we should have used. However, we were going to go to the Peterson house across the street from our back door, so we all headed through the house to the back door. I remember thinking “What a mess this is going to be to clean up!” There was yellowish green smoke curling from below the fireplace hearth in the living room. My dad had tried to call the fire department, but the phone did not work. Within minutes, in our pajamas, we all stepped into whatever boots were by the door, winter coats and headed across the street. It was -17 degrees that morning, and the frigid air stung our faces.

At the Peterson home, my dad called the Holdrege Volunteer Fire Department, and we were amazed how quickly they arrived. Within 10 minutes trucks began arriving, and we were also now seeing flames through the windows of our home. The main floor had already collapsed. Minutes before we were all making our way to the back door across that floor. Little did we know of the inferno below us in the basement.

It is hard to describe the next few hours. We were all perched at various windows in the Peterson home, and little by little our house began falling in as flames s devoured it. It was a spectacular sight, as the overspray water from the fireman hoses froze on the trees in our yard, making it like a crystal forest. The fireman would have to take turns holding the hoses as their arms would freeze in the position of holding the hose as the overspray also covered them. I remember seeing one of them put his arm around my dad and say, “I’m sorry Russ. We are going to have to just let her go.”

All day it burned, and several days later little hot spots would start up again with flames. It looked like the house had been bombed. Strangely, losing everything but our pajamas seemed insignificant as we were all alive and together. Immediately the community began to offer help. It was a Sunday, but the local drug store opened up for us to come down and get tooth brushes, deoderant, other toiletries etc. When we approached the cash register, the owner shook his head, and then shook my dads hand. The owner of the JC Penney store had us come down and we each purchased 2 outfits and some underwear. Many people brought clothing and other things to help out the first few days.

My parents rebuilt on the same corner. A brick ranch style home on a street with many stately looking older two story homes, but that corner was home for many years. I have thought many times how things could have turned out so differently. The picture of our entire family, minus my mother and father, at my father’s memorial service would be non existent if we had perished that day.

One thing we were saddened about was losing all of the pictures of us when we were babies and in our younger years. But another bright spot was that the filing cabinent in the basement which held most of the pictures had tipped over in the 4 feet of water accumulated in the basement from the water. The water froze quickly, freezing most of the pictures that had dumped out of the drawers. A friend who was a local photographer helped to restore many of these pictures.

As a closing thought, make sure your family has a plan for escape should a fire ever happen in your home. Now with the smoke alarms, there is likely better opportunity to know something is happening than in 1967.

Source: Let Your Light Shine