Suffering and trials often bring us closer to the Lord.. I ran a mail route for 19 years, it consumed my time and drained me of my energy. It had it's advantages, everyday I listened to Christian radio and my walk with the Lord was a close one. I had a chance to be fed on the Lord's word on a daily basis. I spent a lot of time in prayer. I got so tired of the daily routine and I began to grow weary, so I started to pray a fervent and selfish prayer. I prayed it everyday and I repeated it over and over, it went as follows; "Dear Lord, I am so tired, I need some rest. It's not fair, I see all these other ladies staying home. I want to be able to stay home and not have to run these roads all day every day. Please make it possible for me to quit Father, please Lord, please, give me some time to relax and enjoy thy creation."
He answered my prayer. It was not in the way I would have chosen, but I have come to look at my epilepsy as my answered prayer. Be careful when you pray, God does answer prayer. More than once I've been granted my request in a manner that I would not have chosen, but the end result was definitely what I'd been seeking. The first time, I began to pray everyday over and over for the Lord to help me find time to give the house a spring cleaning. He answered that one in a strange way. In the spring of 1975, our house flooded, water was knee deep. With the help of neighbors we were able to get most of the furniture out. I took a week off from the post office and we cleaned scrubbed and repainted. Since then I'm careful about praying for help with the house work.
Now to share with you the inside view of epilepsy. Mine began with sleepy spells, they were so bad that I felt as if I'd been drugged with morphine. They became more and more frequent, then there were a few times that I left my line of travel. Once I'd driven eight miles and when I came to myself, it was as if I'd just woken up and didn't know where I was. I looked over and saw mail on the seat, it scared me pretty bad when I looked and saw that the last box I'd serviced was miles away. I knew then I needed help, but it wasn't until I blacked out, crossed over the other lane and ended up in a shallow ditch that I made an appointment with a neurologist. The ditch was just past a very deep drop off. By now I had begun to see lights and color flashes, my lips and the left half of my face often felt numb. There were times I felt so weak and often confused.
I was put through a battery of test. They found that I had a small aneurism in the left side of my brain. I elected not to have surgery but rather to reduce the stress in my life. Had I not started having seizure episodes, the stress would have killed me. Testing two years later showed no sign of the aneurysm, it had shrunk, this was another answered prayer. I am on medication and seldom have seizure activity now, only if I miss a lot of sleep or allow too much stress to creep back into my life.
I'd had mild epileptic episodes from the time I was a child, but was not aware of what was causing my problem. Epilepsy is caused from damaged, or scar tissue in the brain, transactions in the nervous system are conducted by electrical messages. Neurons in the brain switch on and off in an orderly fashion and the body functions as it should. During a seizure, abnormal electrical activity short circuits the process, much like an electrical storm. While brain functions are blocked, the person behaves in an abnormal manner. This could be nothing more than a blank stare lasting only a few seconds, to a convulsive seizure.
Mood disturbances and bouts with depression are common to the disorder. People behave differently, depending on what part of the brain is activated by the seizure. With medication, mine are now limited to a pulling sensation in the left side of my face at times, extreme sleepy attacks, weak spells and dizziness. I have in the past had the jerking, smelled strong odors that didn't exist, saw flashing lights of brilliant color, I also had attacks of overwhelming and unexplainable fear and there were times when I heard everything in multiple and extremely loud. On other occasions there were little beeping sounds inside my head.
I never knew the circumstances of my birth until these problems began. My mother told me to tell the doctor, in case it had something to do with the problem. She was in labor five days and attempts to deliver me with forceps failed. The doctor told her that I was dead. He sent her on to a hospital in New Orleans, sixty miles away, to have a cesarean to remove the dead baby. They sent for my dad who was stationed in Germany, he came to the hospital in a state of grief at the loss of his first born, but to his and everyone else's surprise, I was very much alive.
I was born with a large ridge the size of a man's finger that ran from behind my left ear to the right side of my forehead. It was caused from my skull being pressed against the pelvic bone for so long. It is apparently the cause of my seizure activity. Somehow the stress of working set off these attacks.
I had episodes growing up that I never understood until I found out about seizures. I saw bright lights that no one else saw, at times it felt like I'd just woke up and didn't know what the people around me had been talking about. In high school the family doctor treated me for nerve problems, he felt the pulling in my face which at that time affected my breathing was the result of stress.
The Lord blessed me with this illness. He let it lie quietly, never being bad enough to cause any real problems. When I felt that I had reached the end of my rope and prayed for rest, He used it as a vehicle to give my that rest. It has given me a chance to write and hopefully I have shared a few pearls of His wisdom.
I thank God for everything that has brought me closer to Him. For whatever reason, it seems that we are drawn closer to God when we are in despair. I look at my epilepsy as a tool that God has used in my life. God places his saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and if through this illness I can better serve Him, then I praise Him for the opportunity.
I'll close with this verse out of First Peter 4:9 …"Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good…"