Why Remembering Is Important

This June, I have been really hitting the MG Awareness thing HARD.  I think about it every day, I've been trying to post {nearly} every day, and I'm SO PROUD of all my MG friends and how they are spreading awareness as well.

Yesterday I posted part of my story...  I've been doing a lot of remembering these past few weeks:

In September of 2000 I was so ill. I could not walk more than 10 feet without resting. My skin was yellow. My face was void of any emotion. I couldn't breathe, I could sleep, I had panic attacks all the time.  My brain was so deprived of oxygen (from MG muscle weakness that had been ignored undiagnosed for 5 years), and the carbon dioxide levels in my blood were so high, there is no medical reason I should have survived. My aunt is a nurse, and she came right out and said, there is "no way, other than a miracle, that you were ALIVE at that point, let alone functional."

And that was the first of many miracles. While I do have SOME memory issues and I don't feel quite as sharp as I used to be, I don't have ANY real brain damage from all that lack of oxygen. Then in the hospital I got staph (MRSA) pneumonia...the list goes on and on.

While it is difficult to relive the painful parts of my past, I've been thinking all day about the following Scripture passage:

"Now the Jordan is at flood stage all...during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge,the water from upstream stopped flowing....while the water flowing down...was completely cut off.

So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground. When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight"....

Joshua...said to them...'each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.'"
Joshua 3:15-4:7

I NEED to remember the bad, scary times. That is a HUGE part of my testimony! God didn't tell Joshua to have them take stones from one side of the Jordan or the other, He told them to take the stones from the middle of the Jordan. From the exact place where God had performed the miracle that saved their lives, again (they had already crossed the Red Sea on dry ground). 

In a way, my trach is my pile of rocks. People see me today and don't really understand how I ever could have been that sick. But then they see the trach, and ask.... Other than my husband, family, and a few friends (and my old friends on facebook!) very few people in my life NOW know what I have been through. 

We have to talk (or in this case write) about the things God has done in our lives, or how will anyone know what He has done? I mean, people can read the Bible and learn about God, all the things He's done and the miracles Jesus performed, but NOTHING speaks to the power of God more than a personal story. 

Some folks don't think that God still does miracles today...I would like to challenge that theory, as I am living proof He does!  Some think the Bible is a nice story, even a good history book, but don't REALLY understand that God is alive TODAY!

We MUST remember. We cannot forget.  It happened for a REASON.  And that reason might just be the next person that comes into your life.  How we live with bad circumstances screams louder than anything we may say.