A New Season

My illness, at the beginning, made short work of me. I was rendered utterly unable to fight my own battle. I needed nurses and doctors, IV’s and pills, ports and props. Yet, only some distant part of me knew this—that’s how far gone I was. I would gladly have drifted into oblivion, given the lethal nature of my Rocky Mountain co-infection, but it just wasn’t my time.

After the initial crisis passed, I was left profoundly debilitated by Lyme disease, both mentally and physically. When the light of heaven receded and I drew again closer to myself than I had been while in the throes of acute infection, I was left to fight my portion of the battle. It was the part that only I could fight. The drugs were doing their part, the nurses and the doctors theirs, heaven was doing its part, and I had to do mine.

It was a constant siege for a long time, exhausting in itself, even apart from being ill. There was the fatigue of illness and the fatigue of battle. Physical, emotional, and spiritual warfare carried on without end for days and days which became months and months, which became years and years. To this day the battle continues, with a brief lull here and there, though I can honestly say, I can’t remember the last time there wasn’t an infection of some sort plaguing me, literally one after another, two at a time, sometimes three.

But I am here today to speak of a battle just won. For the first time since the initial infection, I have overcome a bout of spirochete proliferation without the aid of antibiotics, using my very own immune system to do the deadly deed. For about nine days I grew worse and worse and worse, the battle raging in me to destroy the flourish of Lyme bacteria, and then began the labor of clearing the field of the dead, which continues as I write, nine days after the crucial turning point, for a total of eighteen days, today.

In the words of Ecclesiastes 3:1: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Looks as though, I've entered a new season. And for days now, I've had this tune in mind... Enjoy!