The LORD is my rock, my fortress, my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. —Psalm 18:2 NLT
I’m driving to my parents. It’s a typical Wednesday morning, and I look forward to catching up on their news and enjoying a cup of tea and cake with these two dear ones. And then it happens. One minute, I am perfectly fine, and the next minute, something is misfiring in my brain. I’m hot. Way too hot. I’m disoriented, slowing to a crawl in the car and thankful I am on a back road. Nothing inside my head is right. Can’t think. Can’t move. Can’t process. It lasts less than a minute, and the flush fades, the brain rights itself, and I am left at the side of the road, weak and trembling. I’ve just experienced an abnormally short but intense Meniere’s attack.
I had a normal time with my parents and did not mention the incident. I was to have four more attacks that day and ended up in the emergency room by dinner time. By then, I was pretty shaken, and it took four days to recover from these inexplicable episodes that explode in my brain and shake my foundations. And there is nothing I can do to stop or prevent them. They just … are.
Usually, when we read a verse like the one above, we celebrate God being a rock in an unstable world. We realize that even when the mountains fall into the sea, God is still safe, still stable, and still a shield about us. This verse takes on new meaning for me, however. Even when my own brain won’t work … He is still with me. He didn’t abandon me that day in the car. His goodness enabled me to pull over, to breathe calmly, and not make it “worse” by panic, and His steady love held me when all about me was spinning.
Nothing. Nothing. Can take us out of the wonderful, steady Father-hands that hold us! These truths keep me grounded when I am untethered by Meniere’s Disease. I love that God Himself is my place of safety. He knows what’s happening in my brain, even if doctors do not. He is there when I can’t tell up from down. He stays with me as I breathe and wait for the episode to subside. Oh, how wonderful and marvelous is He!
Whatever your particular trauma, remember this today: If you have chosen to be a follower of Jesus, yielded to Him, received His forgiveness, and called Him Lord, you have a Rock to stand upon and cling to no matter what happens to you. I sing with David this morning:
The LORD is my rock, my fortress, my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.
He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.
Heavenly Father, thank You. Like David, I shout my praise that You are my rock, fortress, savior, protector, and shield. You save me by Your infinite power, and I am safe with You. I love You, Lord! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
You are loved,
Sharon
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Beautifully written. Meniere’s disease has completely changed my life. Without God, I would be completely nuts by now.
Teri – thanks for responding. I’ll stop and pray for you, as you continue to cope with this disease and lean on the God who loves you so very much! I’m so thankful this life is not the “end of the story.” We’ll step out of these broken bodies someday and into new ones – whole and well – for all who have turned to the Lord Jesus and received His gift of redemption! In the meantime … He helps us cope and gives us a story to share.
Amen! I don’t have Meniere’s, but I do have a physical disability and am now facing trouble with my knees being vulnerable to dislocation, physical therapy didn’t help like I’d hoped, and I’m experiencing gut issues. Not scary like a Meniere’s attack, but it’s become pretty unpredictable, and doesn’t seem to matter what I do, except I still have to avoid certain things which I’ve had to avoid for years, so my options are limited. But even staying within that there’s issues and I don’t know why. Kind of like “there is nothing I can do to stop or prevent them. They just … are.” Almost. So far doctors have been very little help. I loved “I love that God Himself is my place of safety. He knows what’s happening in my brain, even if doctors do not,” and “you have a Rock to stand upon and cling to no matter what happens to you.” Psalm 18 is my absolute favorite Psalm and one of my very favorite passages of the whole Bible! And, yes, I’m so thankful this life isn’t all there is! Life will not end with broken bodies that don’t obey!! It won’t end still having a veil between us and Jesus, even though He is with us! “…The body that is sown…is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body…just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly Man!!” 1 Corinthians 15:42b, 43-44a & 49 And “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’ ” I’m thankful He kept you safe, Sharon, and I know He will use this for His glory! I needed this tonight! Thank you! (Check out the song Safe in My Father’s Arms by Sanctus Real!)
Oh Megan – Sounds like life is not all that easy for you, either! SO glad the Musing came at just the right time tonight. How kind of God to use it to bless you! Sending commiserative hugs your way and thanking God with you that He truly is our one safe Place. always!
Yup, that sounds familiar. Three decades for me in ‘burnout’. Here’s my take on it following.
It does occur to the person of faith that the word ’suffer’ carries with it the waft of permission. Suffer children to come unto me, for instance.
I have lost most of my hearing and all of my sense of motion. I am left with roaring tinnitus in both ears and persistent imbalance. Balance is now dependant on vision, touch, skeletal-musculature awareness and blind dumb luck. It’s like living in the engine room of an old ocean liner in a hurricane, and it never stops. So you suffer. With Christ, who suffered, holding us up, we can go on for another day. Pierre Telhard de Chardin wrote “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience ‘. Knowing that we are eternal beings is the key. God put us here, I believe, to suffer, to allow this outrageous indignity to our physical bodies so that we can, by our acceptance of the outrage and with Christ’s help we can suffer ourselves to survive, even thrive spiritually. Pain and chronic conditions have a wonderful way of focusing the mind.
How Meniere’s Works (allegedly)
You have to understand how the condition works. This is what I have managed to pull together from various sources, and my ENT agrees with it. I am not a doctor, just a careful observer of my interior. This condition kind of forces that upon you.
There’s a series of attacks seemingly of over pressure in the inner ear that cause intense and debilitating vertigo for sometimes hours, sometimes days. These attacks not only deliver the nastiest of nasty vertigo, they also destroy the cells that sense motion. A week of healing and six weeks of rest and getting accustomed to any sensory degradation from those attacks is the not easily do-able recommendation. There may be some years between clusters of episodes, and the occasional phenomenon known as a single “drop attack“. You won’t like that.
Because the sensory organ for sound is linked to the sensory organ for motion and uses a very similar biomechanical technology to sense faster motion, which is vibrations, which is sound… hearing is also affected to a similar degree. These lesions may occur in one or both ears, sometimes decades apart.
Over some decades this leads to a condition of burnout where there’s really nothing left to be destroyed, however, the sufferer will be left increasingly deaf with constant loud tinnitus roaring in the ears, and a similarly affected sense of motion that is loosely labelled persistent imbalance. The attacks seemingly continue, only now that consists of even worse roaring in the ears that can be debilitating accompanied by dizzy spells rather than vertigo spells and it never. ever. stops.
The increasingly relevant issue now is how to stay sane in such an environment where you feel both enmeshed in seaweed and imprisoned with iron bars.
In effect, each attack wounds the target organs and renders them less and less able to do what they are intended to do.
Because the actual underlying disease vector that causes these attacks is still not understood, there is zero chance for an actual cure. Once that underlying cause or set of causes is understood, there may be a way to sort out who is liable to get it and give them prophylactic treatments so that long-term effects will not be as debilitating. In the meantime research into the effects and ways to mitigate and perhaps even replace damaged sensory nerves by direct neural stimulation continues apace. Current state of the art engineering has given us the wonder called “cochlear implants” so all it really needs is engineering… and generous research funding. Anyone reading who happens to win a lottery should remember this and be generous.
Think of it like an amputation. Instead of a leg or an arm gone, the sensation of motion and sound is gone. Similar to being blind, a whole segment of your sensory equipment is now rendered ineffective. Speaking of blindness, someone has called it ‘glaucoma of the ear’ and that’s as close an analogy as I’ve ever heard and understandable by all who hear that phrase.
The trick is learning to live with it, and that is a trial of the will. It has been called by a prominent ENT ‘the worst disease you can have that won’t actually kill you’.
Then again, what doesn’t actually kill you should at least leave you with a couple of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dangerous sense of fun.
This puts my “suffering” into perspective, though I do agree that going through hardship has brought me closer to the Lord and I wouldn’t trade that. It’s like gold being refined in a furnace. I can only imagine the exhaustion and how overwhelming it must be sometimes. I’m glad you know the Lord!
Derek – I am so sorry you’ve reached the burn-out phase. I hope, along with you, that new techniques will be found to help us! In the meantime, I’m so thankful for God’s Presence in my life. We will have trouble in this world. We have a choice – go through the trouble with a God who will help us or without Him. I choose with Him! There’s much to be gained when He is walking with us. It was really interesting to read your description of the disease as well. Thank you.
Wow! What a description of this disease. I am so sorry for everyone
who suffers from this, and especially our daughter Sharon. God bless you
and all who have to face difficult times. Truly thanks to the Lord for
His care and love. He is our Rock and Savior.
Thanks, Mum. I’m so grateful that so far the disease is under control in my case. I ache for those for whom the disease has progressed and is a daily battle. But yes. God never leaves us no matter what happens. I am so glad!