all for bertha

Oct 10, 2013

What a roller coaster ride! I feel like I am going up and down and all around as I navigate the many curve balls my body throws at me. Yesterday was a great day! I taught my classes at iFamily. I felt strong and my foot hurt less than normal and my hip was in place. So I decided to go to the temple to do Bertha’s ordinances. Bertha has a special place in my heart. She is a Hannigan and I have fallen head over heals in love with the Hannigans. We are planning on doing the sealing ordinances for her husband, Ramsey Obadiah, and their eight children this weekend. All week long I have been thinking of who I could ask to go to the temple for Bertha, but I kept having the thought it should be me. Well, me sitting through an endowment session at the temple is a pretty daunting task given the state of my hip, but since I had such a great day, I decided to do it. I asked my friend Sheri to go with me and boy, howdy am I glad I did.

Halfway through the endowment session, my heart rate started going up, my brain got disoriented, and my lips and hands started tingling. Sheri and Sister Davis (a woman from my stake who handled the whole situation with such grace and calm – she deserves a pile of chocolate) could tell what was going on and went on high alert. Sheri had her arm around me to catch me if I collapsed. Through the miraculous hands of God and His angels, heavenly and earthly, I was able to finish the session and collapsed right into the arms of the man helping me move into the Celestial Room.

Yes, I have now passed out in the Celestial Room. Oh my goodness, part of me is mortified that my body fell apart in this most holy of places, but I am trying to let the mortification go and just focus on how grateful I am that I was able to attend a temple session and the peace and joy that filled my being.

After I recovered, they put me in a wheelchair and pushed me downstairs to change my clothes. Sheri came to the rescue again and got me completely undressed and dressed again while I laid on a cushioned bench. By this point I felt pretty good and I did not want to get back in the wheelchair as it was so irritating to my hip and I was afraid the bad position would make me pass out again. So I walked while the nicest woman from my stake pushed the wheelchair right behind me and Sheri had her arms around my waist.

And I almost made it.

But I didn’t.

I collapsed again right in the doorway from the inside of the temple to the lobby.

Oh my. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear. When I came back to the land of the living strange people were all around me with walkie-talkies. Once again, they put me in the wheelchair and pushed me out of the temple, loaded me into Sheri’s van, and I was safely delivered home by Sheri, the aforementioned super nice woman, and really, the hands of God.

I cannot even contemplate the possibility of not being able to attend the temple anymore. Being in the temple feeds my soul. I must stop passing out so I can go often to my refuge from the world.

Things I want to remember

• Sister Davis, the super nice woman who helped me, is in my Stake Relief Society Presidency, and I don’t think knew who I was until two weeks ago when I collapsed at the Relief Society broadcast. She was one of the ladies who checked on me that night as I lay on on the floor of the church hallway and found out all about my passing out and how to handle it. Somehow she was officiating at the temple last ngiht and recognized me immediately. She appointed herself my angel and tried her best to help me by giving me special chairs that would help my hip. She immediately sensed something was wrong when my heart rate started accelerating and thoughtfully came and stood by me in case I fell down. She was amazing. I am so, so grateful she was with me and able to calmly handle the whole situation.
• Sheri is now a pro in the whole passing out arena. She calmly helped me finish the endowment session, monitoring my heart rate and skin color. She got me laid down in the Terrestrial Room before I passed out. She helped the temple staff know what was going on and didn’t cause a panic. She listened to the Lord and helped me in every way possible. I am so grateful she was willing to attend the temple with me and take care of my body when it fell apart.
• Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the day I received my endowment. I didn’t realize that till we were already in the temple and it made it all the more special to be there helping Bertha make covenants with God on the same day and in the same place I made those same covenants so long ago.
• God loves me. He knows exactly what is going on with my body and He has a purpose for this whole situation. I don’t understand it all right now, but I feel trust in the deepest parts of me that I am in His keeping.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me. Please keep ’em coming. I can go from feeling terrific to lying on the floor with my clothes all skiwampus in a matter of moments.