When I thought about what I was going to title this blog, I decided to use a phrase from one of my favorite passages of scripture. It has become my life verse.
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
In March 2015, I experienced dizziness. I know everyone in their lifetime will probably have this happen to them at one time or another, but mine did not go away. From that moment, I have lived with a constant, every day, all day long feeling of being off balance. It feels as if I’m sitting in a rocking boat. Swaying all day long. Some days sitting helps, some days I just hold on. For some stretches of time, months and months, it is bearable and I’m able to do normal things. Other stretches have me sitting at home, all day, unable to do even normal household chores. Sometimes I sit very still, and wait for the worst to pass. Sometimes I do have room spinning episodes. I have been known to crawl around and do things that had to be done. Sometimes, I can’t drive. Sometimes I dread waking up and facing another day.
When it first happened, I lost my song. To understand this you must realize, I have sang all my life. I think I hummed before I could talk. And I love it. I love music. I love the way songs can express feelings that you can’t put into words. I love that music is universal. In any emotion you can possibly have, music speaks. And God speaks to me through music.
I love to sit at my piano and just play. I can’t count the times that I’ve been alone and just poured my heart out through my fingertips in worship. God has blessed me with a husband, and now children, who love to sing and I’m hard pressed to find an activity that I love more than sitting around a piano and just singing.
But since 2015, I’ve not been able to enjoy this. Sometimes I’ve been able to do it; but most of the time, it takes everything I have to just sit there and sing.
My life stopped. I know there are those who have suffered much worse and I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it was a hard blow that knocked us all down. The first year was actually easier, as hard as it was, as this past year has been. Because there was hope it would go away. But the longer I’ve dealt with it, the more I’ve heard “this will fix you” but it doesn’t, the hope has slowly dwindled. I could go on and on listing things that it has affected, the way it’s changed my family dynamics. But I won’t.
Because I don’t want my story to be about what I can’t do. I want it to be about what God has done. He started giving me songs, my own songs in the night. I had written a few over the years, but almost every month since my dizziness, sometimes 2 or 3 times a month, God would give me words and music to a song. I know for songwriters, this is not unusual. But I was not a songwriter. I never intended to be. I was always amazed at how someone could do it. How they could keep all the different melodies straight and think of so many words that rhymed.
And so I made the promise, that if God was going to give me the song then I was going to praise Him with it.
I started this blog to keep track of my journey through dizziness. Because I’m not so naive to think that something worse won’t come in the future. And I want to look back at the worst thing I’ve ever faced in my entire life and see that God was there. And maybe it will help me get through whatever sorrow the future might bring. That may sound like a pessimistic way to live. But I know as a Christian, I’m not promised sunshine. But this will be my rainbow after the storm. The promise I can cling to.
And so even on days when my song has gone from a joyous melody to one that is melancholy, I still lift it in praise to Him.
A recent update to my story can be found here and here.
The brook would lose its song if you removed the rocks.
