A little bit about earthquakes and fire.

Sometimes I just say to myself "how did this happen???"
How can this be me?
The medicines. ...the medicines.

I am going to have to switch again. The nerve pain medicine (amitriptyline) is just not working out. It makes me intolerably exhausted. I am sleeping my life away. Besides that, I am getting break-through nerve pain which is so strong it's waking me up some times. (Hmmmm... maybe it's good that it wakes me up? Then I won't sleep. Nope, duh. Wrong line of reasoning.) If I'm not sleeping, I'm exhausted.  Oh, and ironically enough, this particular medicine is often used as a migraine medicine- to help keep migraines at bay. There are people who take it every day so they won't get migraines (Dev- thinking of your daughter). But with me, I am *getting* migraines while on it.

This is not me. Well, it is me, on medicines.

But it's not the me I envision myself to be. Do I have to change my vision, or keep trying new meds until something works out? I already have changed my vision of myself so many times. I mean, to go from pre-NF to post-NF was a huge continental shift. When does the shift settle in, though? Earthquakes happen with continental shifts. It has been five and a half years.

I am living my life through the earthquake. This *is* my life. The one I pine away for is not in my grasp right now. So I have to grasp this life. Meantime, seems like it is grasping me. (wow- I just looked up "pined away" on the on-line dictionary just to make sure I spelled it right, and - wow - take a look at the definition they wrote:

Verb

1.

pine away - lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief; "After her husband died, she just pined away" languish, waste weaken - become weaker; "The prisoner's resistance weakened after seven days"

Lose flesh?
Become weaker?
"Twilight Zone" music, please.

So here we go again to Dr. Z to figure out where to go from here. Try another nerve pain medicine. I go through them like a teenager goes through clothes. Every few months, a new one. Clothes don't have side effects, though.

It is a conundrum. My dear friend wrote this to me yesterday: "The meds make you weak and tired. But so will the stress caused by pain."

I am still struggling to accept the "new" Sarah, although it isn't so new anymore. I have hundreds of blog entries talking about it. Not new at all.

I'm just getting older... and so are my kids. Time doesn't stop to wait for you to work out the issues. Working out the issues is what time is there for. The days are long, but the years are so short.

I love this piece my friend sent me; it helps me feel better about being in this process:

God is the Refiner and Purifier for Silver

Published by Lee Andrew Henderson

"I was born, I wrote, I died."

In Malachi 3:3 the Bible tells us that, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." This is a very good description of God, unfortunately not many people know what it means. In order to understand the description someone must know what a refiner of silver has to do.
There was once a woman that wondered what a refiner of silver had to do with the silver so she set out to find an answer. The woman made an appointment with a silversmith so that she could watch the process. She didn't tell the silversmith that she had interest in the refining process because it was a metaphor for God. She simply told the silversmith that she was interested in the process.
She watched the silversmith as he held the piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. The silversmith told the woman that he had to hold the piece of silver in the middle of the fire where the flames are hottest in order to burn away all the impurities.
The silversmith continued that not only did he have to sit there and hold the silver the entire time but he also had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time. If the piece of silver was left in the fire for too long then it would be destroyed.
After quietly watching the process the woman finally spoke up. The woman asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" The silversmith smiled at her and answered "I know the piece of silver is done when I can see my image in it."
The process of refining silver is a perfect example of God. God will put us through a lot in our life, much like a piece of silver has to be put in the fire. Not only will God put us in the fire put he'll put us in the very hottest part of the fire.
God puts us through the fire for our own good though. Like a piece of silver, going through the fire will burn away all the impurities in our life. But God doesn't just throw us in the fire and leave us there to burn. Like a silversmith God holds us and watches us the entire time in order to be able to pull us from the fire at the right time so that we won't be destroyed.
Then once we've been refined, once we've gone through the fire and had all our impurities burned away, that is when God can see his image in us.

Beautiful. Exquisite. With this closure, I will go take my children clothes and shoe shopping. They grow so fast.