This I Know

I got a late text from Sally last night.  Because Michael was neuro-storming and at the time they were unable to find the cause.  (For those who may not know what storming is please excuse my limited knowledge as I do my best to explain.  I know that it’s a common occurrence in patients who have traumatic brain injury.  For Michael, it usually means elevated blood pressure and heart rate and other physical symptoms, but most of all it causes quite a bit of discomfort for him.  It’s hard to see him struggle when he storms.  His general storming can be helped with medication, but lately it’s come as a reaction to other things that may be wrong like pain or an infection.)  And the history with this since Michael has been at Rehab is to have to send him back to Stony Brook Hospital if they can’t find the source of what is causing Michael to storm.

Last week, Michael was back and forth because of storming and thankfully they were able to find and treat the source, but as you can imagine, it’s hard on Michael to be back and forth and very hard on his family as well.

I think it’s always hard when things like this happen.  Because all of a sudden, all we see is the hurt or the pain.  We feel all kinds of emotions and it’s a huge struggle.  We focus on the “what if’s?” or even just question why this is happening to our friend Michael, who has been through so very much in the past three and a half months.

And reflecting this morning, this could be the way that we live our lives.  There is so much brokenness and pain out there in our world.  We could live in fear every day of the horrible things that are happening all around us and all over our world.

But I do believe that this is not the way that God wants us to live our lives.

He does not want us to be afraid.  I’ve heard it said that somewhere around 365 times in the Bible is the phrase “Do not be afraid” or other words similar to that.  God wants us to trust Him.  He wants us to replace fear with faith and our worries with trust.  Psalm 56:9 says so beautifully, “This I know.  That God is for me.”

I don’t know a lot of things when it comes to watching our friend Michael journey through his traumatic brain injury and recovery.  But I do know for fact that God loves Michael and that God is for Michael, just as he loves us and is for us as well.

Thankfully Michael was able to get through last night’s storming.  Sally, in her beautiful Mom and nurse wisdom had a few ideas as to what might help and I’m guessing that it was just what Michael needed.  She asked that I would share a request for this week so here goes.  Friends, family, community and those all over who are praying for Michael.  Could we please pray that Michael will get a full and strong week of therapy in?  Last week was a tough one.  But this week, we could pray that God would help control the storming and everything else so that Michael could finally get on his way to healing and to strengthening.

Thank you, as always for your continued love and prayers for our friend Michael.