Biotoxin Illness

Back in September I posted about my CIRS and Lyme diagnosis: I’m a Leper in a Leprous House.

Yesterday I came across a blog that does a decent job of communicating what it’s like. My story with Mold Toxicity , Lyme Disease and MCS/EHS

Thankfully I have not been dealing with it as long as she has, so I have not developed MCS. The Lord has also graciously given me a safe place to live for the time being, but I can confirm her comments about reacting to spores on people’s clothes, restaurants, stores, and in my case mail from the moldy Post Office. As of last Sunday, I also can’t tolerate the community center our church began meeting at. This stuff sounds absolutely nutty and it took me a while to get over how bizarre it is. It’s also not rare.

Questions and Answers for the Afflicted

When sorrows surge, and strength has fled,
When streams become a flood,
When man is laid upon his bed,
And finds he’s flesh and blood,
Where will he run, where will he turn,
Where can a creature go?
When will he see, when will he learn,
What he should surely know?

“Why now? Why here? Why me? Why this?
Why us?” we cry aloud.
“Have I behaved aright? Amiss?”
We ask, with body bowed.
“Has God forgotten to be kind,
Will he not keep his vows?”
Such thoughts and questions fill the mind,
More than the soul allows.

Yet through his word, fit for my frame,
I find myself consoled.
“Recall my deeds, recall my name,
Recall my works of old.
Twas I who brought the Israelites
Out from their slavery.
Twas I who led them day and night
Through deadly land and sea.

Recall to mind, and then have hope,
That I do all things well.
When in the shadows, blind, you grope,
I will, the dark, dispel.
New, new, each morn, my mercies are,
Bright as the rising sun.
And whether you go near or far,
They cannot be undone.”

But greater still than parted waves,
Or manna from the sky,
Is God the Son, who came to save,
Who only lived to die.
He is the bread; he is the way
Through death and judgment’s path.
And he alone saves on that day
Of God’s unfailing wrath.

And in his death I start to see,
The clouds begin to clear.
The questions that were plaguing me
Begin to disappear.
In history, outside of me,
I see God’s working hand,
And find a true reality
That makes me understand.

For if my God through wickedness,
Can bring about his plan
To save from sins in righteousness
An undeserving man,
Then can he not in my life, too,
Cause good to come from ill?
And should I not, since this is true,
Resign to trust his will?

Who else have I, who else have we,
If not our God above?
Where can we fly, where can we flee,
If not to he who’s love?
We can, we may, we will, we must,
Find rest in God alone.
The creature’s sole and only trust,
Is he who’s on the throne.

And do I not have reasons great
To know that this is so?
Since he, in heaven, sets my fate
Here on the earth below?
And so the Father calms his child.
He wipes and dries my tears
And in his ever-loving arms
The Father calms my fears.

What vanities befall me now,
I know they work for good.
And though I often don’t see how,
I see the cross of wood.
And when my sorrows well within,
As sorrows well without,
I’ll take my Savior’s medicine,
And banish fear and doubt.

(These thoughts were drawn especially from Psalm 77 and Lamentations 3.)