I'm sitting in awe

Hi dear friends,

I write to tell you this for one reason only; God's grace has been given so evidently and I know so many of you have been large contributors in prayer with me in this and I simply long to show His glory. Well, I do every day, but more on that later. So I just got home from a little trip to find a letter. It's one of those "change your life" letters and in it, in two simple sentences, the hospital where I had my surgery told me that they have "adjusted my bill to zero" and I owe them nothing. I feel speechless for much words except to say that I am praising the Lord with so much joy tonight. I did not deserve this. I owed my fair share, but my slate has been completely erased and I cannot but think of how this fits into the greater gospel story.

So thank you all so so much for all your prayers and encouragement. I absolutely could not have made it through this alone and I'm amazed at how this year has ended so well. I cannot lie and say that only a few months ago just about everything in life was looking pretty dim. I had no school, no job, no health insurance and my health was degrading quickly. But by God's sufficient grace I sustained an added 6 month health insurance policy, got into an incredible nursing program, and found a great surgeon who has fixed my neck and left me in better condition than I've been in a long time. Some have suggested I could have had much reason for a lot of deserved self-pity recently, but I cannot begin to see with such eyes when I have been given so much. I am so grateful for the faith God's granted me to trust His goodness, dark days or bright.

I do continue to ask you to continue to pray for complete healing of my nerve function, my transition to Duke and even the dealings I have to figure out with the smaller bills still coming in. But in all of this too, I am fully confident that He will continue to show His glory, good health or not, debt or none.

Love Julie

My Friend "Ned"

Sorry for the delayed update! I've decided that time is very weird when you're in the long process of recovery, or any long period of down time for that matter. When all of sudden all structure, routine, and normal feelings of energy and wellness are taken away, it's like time goes into a warp and your days somehow fill and your schedule somehow remains fairly deplete. All that to say, I'm in that warp, but I'll share a little how this time has been spent.

So I'm very grateful to say that I've gained a lot more strength than I had pre-surgery and my pain is so much better. I was experiencing all sorts of symptoms including my legs starting to give out on me again like they did way back when (10 years to be exact!). So now I've got all the strength back in my legs and my left arm again... still hoping and praying that the right arm eventually does the same thing. Yes, I'm right handed, and yes, I've tried switching that multiple times, but it's just not natural or comfortable for my brain! And so I continue to hope and try to remain patient in the waiting. (I was forewarned that it could take a while but for some reason I always think I'm going to beat the odds!) And I'm also hoping that my friend, Ned, will leave soon too! That's what my friends and I named the nodule that sits in my throat every day and makes things difficult to talk and my throat sore and hard to swallow. I've moved on from soft foods but I'm not sure that I should have considering how many times I'm choking on my food every day. Medically they call this side-effect, sore throat and dysphagia, but practically, it just means you have a long term cold and you chew your food REALLY well. Some people get their stomachs stapled and others just get spine fusions I guess.

But apart from all my complaints, I must remain grateful. For the first time, we were able to DO something to fix all my issues and I think this was such a great decision. I'm finally able to dream about my future without so much anxiety about how my body will hold up. I am so excited to go back to school soon. January 5th is my first day! I'm working on finalizing housing and school requirements to make the big move to Durham, NC. People often ask me if I'm nervous about the rigorous program at Duke, but I'm honestly more afraid of the culture shock and transition to moving to the South more than anything! I consider myself a good traveler, somewhat of a third-culture kid, and pretty good at adapting in new places, but for some reason I'm more nervous about this one. Kinda funny, I know.

Well if any of my friends have to go through a long period of down time for whatever reason, I would love to tell you how to enjoy your time warp! I've enjoyed everything from reading some of those books on my big list, writing, great walks in this fall season, trying new recipes, and great time spent with friends who've been so gracious to come visit. I've never been good at relaxing well without guilt pains, but I'm really in the process of learning how to live contentedly with or without a schedule to run your day. Although I think I'll have to put myself through a bootcamp to transition back into the life of schedules, school and studying!

Thank you all for all your sweet encouragements and immense amount of prayer in this time. Please continue to pray for full healing, for the financial aid that is pending on my bills, and for continued peace amongst so many things out of my control.

Grace and peace to each of you!

And he said, "It Is Good!"

That is what my surgeon was able to say after my incredible surgery. It went very well. At least, that's what I heard he said as I was still out cold in those moments after he finished. But those were some of the first words I remember my dear brother trying to tell me as he desperately tried to wake me up. Apparently drugs have quite the strong affect on me, so come 2 hrs. post-op, I was still fast asleep, apart from the brief moments waking in pain and crying to my dear nurse for help. So Jeff finally grabbed my hand and started whispering sweet encouragements to me, trying to get some form of response. My first memory of all that is him trying to tell me he was there, I was alright, and everything went really well. And my first thought was to please go tell my parents I was ok- I made him leave for a minute to go make a call- but then I took him back to wake me again...

So all that to say, it seems the surgery was a success. Hallelujah! In fact, I was feeling stable enough by late that evening that they let my friends take me home to rest for the night. The first couple days have definitely been a bit rough including some terrible nausea. And let me tell you, vomiting for 12 consecutive hours after recent neck surgery is no fun, whatsoever. But after another trip to the hospital, they settled me down, and I've pretty much been on the mend since then. Now I just have to watch I don't get things lodged in my throat which has happened a few times. It's still pretty difficult to swallow so I'm trying to embrace the broth and smoothies and soups and accept this forced diet as a good thing. And although my voice is scratchy, I've still got one, and so I have to say I'm very grateful.

I've been so well taken care of by people near and far. In a great moment of appreciation, as a friend helped me shower today, I said to her, "Isn't this just how the church should be?! This is great!" I know my family has been very grateful for the friends that have stood in for them, but it's so nice to be able to tell them I'm recovering well. Today was my first really good day. So I pray that every day continues like this and I am up and running like a good 20-something year old should be doing in no time! All the nerve issues haven't healed yet but we all knew that it would take some time for those things to regenerate. But I did say that if I get all my function back, I might just give that surgeon a whopping kiss on the cheek for his good work!

So thank you all for your continued support and prayers. All your sweet encouragements go so far in these long days of recovery. And if any of you have any wonderfully inspiring books or such you think I'd be interested in as I settle in to cabin fever, please let me know!

Love to all,
Jules

Sweet "Muma M"/Peggy and I right before they wheeled me away...

This Day, too, the Lord Has Made!

As I wait for the sun to rise on this morning, I'm admittedly both a little anxious but profoundly at peace. I can't even imagine what people go through who have multiple surgeries with higher risks than this all the time. But the only thing that gives me peace this early morning is to remember the Lord's promises and His faithfulness thus far. He has been so good. I guess you could say God's sovereignty has a whole new perspective for me this morning. This day has been 10 years in the waiting and as I reflect on that journey, I could never have orchestrated it like He has. It's been wonderful. The road has definitely been pretty hard and for a long time I couldn't grasp God's goodness. But today my faith can cling to His promises and trust His love.

So as you pray today, please thank Him for his goodness and ask Him for His mercy. I already feel completely surrounded with love from all over the world, and so I pray this morning with so many, a great cloud of witnesses, ready to face the day.

Surgery is scheduled for 11am, eastern time. I can't wait to tell you how much better I feel after this is all over!!

May the peace of Christ be with you all today!

The Day of Anticipation

So I nervously and excitedly can say that I have a date scheduled for the big day. D-day, day of a new beginning, day of great anticipation and a small amount of trepidation is October 14th. But the beautiful thing is God has worked out the details so wonderfully and given me great peace about the end decision. I was able to get two of the surgeons I was seeing to communicate and come to an agreement on what to do. Let me tell you that I'm pretty sure that is a first since this whole journey started! And the other great piece is it's actually a lot less extensive than we all originally thought it was going to be. That is, we've chosen to do a smaller surgery at this point and wait some more before we're forced to do more. So for those interested I'm having a one level fusion at C3&4 going in anteriorally. I was able to find a great spine surgeon here in Indy so I don't have to make any trips to Virginia and I'll have the blessing of recuperating at home. And although it takes several months for the joint to actually fuse and become strong, I'll hopefully be up and around fairly quick. I am very motivated as I'm supposed to start school in January!

If there is a theme for this year I would have to strongly say, God is good. Not in that I've had the best year of my life and I'm so thankful kind of way. Rather, it's been a lot of trials, a lot of ah-huh moments where I've been given the grace of perspective on life. Everyone will always tell you that their greatest seasons of maturing and growth were in their trials, not in their triumphs. And yet how much do we want to run when we experience hardship? How much do we hate to be pushed so far that we think it unfair that we should have to go through this? I am not exempt from these feelings and yet if anything, I've been released from so much fear of those big risks and trials that seem too big... because of God's great goodness. And so I encourage you all to rejoice with me in God's mercy on my life. 

I would greatly appreciate your continued prayer and encouragement as I near this time. Please specifically be praying for continued peace, strong health leading up to my operation and reliance on the Lord when my fears of things going wrong and interrupting my future plans become oppressive.

Grace and peace,
Julie

The Long Awaited Surgery

So for the past several months I’ve been slowly becoming more aware of the fact that I am going to finally have to have a long awaited surgery done on my cervical spine. Although there are definitely more complicated surgeries out there, it’s definitely not a small one. I’ll let you know exactly what it ends up being when I know, but recovery will most likely be a couple months and I’m already trying to mentally and physically prepare for this time! It’s a surgery I’ve been putting off ever since my initial accident nearly 10 years ago! So, praise God I’ve been given 10 years of not too many complications, but the time has come to do something more. Ugh, everything in me wants to fight it, wish it away, but that’s a bit childish, I know. So the update as of today is I’m working on finding the right surgeon with the right opinion. Believe it or not, but I just have one of those conditions where you can line up about 10 different surgeons and they’re all probably going to suggest to me something slightly different. It’s rather frustrating for simple-minded me to then wisely decipher who to trust to cut me open, but I’m not in this alone. I’ve had some wonderful friends here in Indy that have been a tremendous help in making these decisions and of course my family is never short on giving advice either!

So at this point, I’ve been in contact and have an appointment set up with a surgeon in Charlottesville, Virginia that I had seen as a teenager when he was working in Seattle. And my other option is one here in Indy that I’m hoping to see soon. This latest one will be my fourth opinion and hopefully my last. So depending on which surgeon I go with, I’m hoping to make the surgery date somewhere between October 1^st and November 1^st. But logistics aside, I guess my main concern is that I am able to make a wise decision on the right surgery with the right surgeon. And although I do gratefully have health insurance, I will still have to foot a percentage of this whole ordeal. So there are many things I am forced to remain dependent on God for at this point. But I’m also writing all this because I think that one primary way He provides is through His Church, through you all. Your support thus far in my life has been invaluable in my life and I would thank you each so much for your continued prayer as I continue this path God has allowed for me.

Welcome Friends!

Hello dear friends! 

If there’s one thing I’ve come to realize this year, it’s that I have a wonderful blessing of having friends and family from the ends of the earth and beyond, and it’s quite a challenge to keep all those communities updated in one period of time. And usually that’s ok. My generation has been spoiled by the amount of communication we are able to maintain with friends and family who don’t live nearby. But in other cases, when big events arise, it’s nice to be able to keep everyone in the loop, and so here goes my attempt to bring something like that to fruition. As some of you might have heard, I've got a big spine surgery coming up soon and so this blog is my attempt to try to keep you all updated through the process.

I find it fitting to name this blog Taste and See for two reasons. After the amount of ups and downs I had already experienced after the first 5 months of this year, I came to a very fragile point with the Lord. I knew that logically and rationally I could trust His goodness, but emotionally and spiritually I was so afraid and felt so distant from that truth. And He did a beautiful thing with my faith, but part of that was a prayer that I haven’t stopped praying which is from Ps. 34:8 which says, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is He who takes refuge in Him!” I started fervently praying, asking the Lord, that I would be able to taste and see His goodness. This fragile and weak faith I had needed to be reminded of His steadfast love, and He has been so faithful. There’s nothing more beautiful than being so dependent on His love that you cannot help but see His works in your daily life.

And the other side of this Taste and See blog is, if anybody knows me for just a few months they will know that I have a special bond with kitchens. When I reach the kitchen, I have found my happy place, a place to think, a place to create, and a place to escape when the world’s problems just seem too big to handle. And so you should not only expect to taste and see God’s goodness in my updates but hopefully you’ll gain some tasty recipes of sorts as well and who knows what else… :)

And so I warmly welcome you to my journey this year. I hope to keep you updated as things progress with my surgery and as I begin a new life down in Durham, North Carolina as I get to start nursing school at Duke very soon! And I hope you don’t mind if I throw in some random blogs of my thoughts and meditations in between.

My latest update on surgery will soon follow…