Excuse me while I get a little dramatic

Wednesday marked a very big day in my timeline. The day before I had had the epiphany that I had been waiting for for a year now. The timing was odd and completely unexpected. Which is how I know it had nothing to do with me but all to do with a living God who knows me and has been there each long night holding my hand.

I guess it went how most pivitol moments in one's life seem to go. There was nothing unusual about the afternoon and it wasn't even what I would call rock bottom. I think I have hit that multiple times over the last half year and each time I thought, surely, the next day would be a whole new day...on a path to recovery. But like I would never have expected, something spoke to me on a normal Tuesday...like really spoke to me and I fully believe it will be the climax of this long saga over sleep.

I was walking with the boys and I got this feeling that I should follow my gut and get rid of every medicine bottle in my house. I've had this thought everyday but it never carried enough force to allow me to take the next step. It's not about the medicine as I fully believe God is the author of medicine and many people dear to me have been helped with medicine. It was about trust - a trust that I had never quite known. I had been listening to a sermon from my church on my ipod and Andy Stanley was talking about how smart society has become. We think we have figured out God, he was saying. I am paraphrasing but he was talking about infertility and how we have figured out how to mimic conception and now many children are born because of this discovery. He wasn't against modern technology he was just stating that it has caused us to not think so highly about God. If we can figure out how he does things then he doesn't seem that big anyway, right? This resonated with me at a level that only one other theory has in my life. That's another story for another day. This whole time I have wanted to have a real encounter with this God I talk about all the time. I didn't want to just report that I had found a medicine to wash it all away even though that isn't a bad option, too. I just really knew that God wanted to show off with me. This one belief had made every minute that I am awake at night and every minute that I have felt like a zero during the day worth it.

So Tuesday I literally threw away the 17 medicine bottles that had been floating around my house. Many of them had never been opened and most of them had only one less tablet. That was all it took with each one to push me closer and closer to true despair. There is nothing like losing your pride, trusting some doctors, hoping in a medicine, and then having it only exacerbate the problem and make you feel worse the next morning to deteriorate one's hope.

I didn't throw out the medicine knowing that I would sleep that night. I just knew I didn't care anymore about sleep. I have said this all along but I finally felt it - and it felt like no other physical or emotional feeling I have ever felt. I was feeling completely dependent on someone else for my every need. If I didn't sleep - God would give me the strength to handle the day. If I never got better - it was for a reason. And just like I thought - I didn't sleep great that night but I slept for 4 hours on my own for the first time this calendar year. The next night I got 4 more and then last night I got 5 under me. It doesn't matter......my mind feels so clear. I feel like myself again. I was dancing in the kitchen this morning to nothing better than the Wiggles while the boys ate oatmeal. This in itself is a huge feat. It has been months since I've caught myself dancing subcouciously or even humming to a song. I had been too preoccupied with finding a solution. Luckily the solution found me.

I don't expect the next several weeks and months to be all "and they lived happily ever after.....her and her big God." I really don't. Each night is still hard and I literally have to prepare myself for bed time like I am going into war. Earplugs - check. A fresh book that I won't finish in the night - check. Curtains fully closed - got it. The whole scene is pretty entertaining. But I am confident that each day that I get further and further away from having 15 different chemicals lingering in my body and each day that I give more and more of my fear over to the Lord I will begin to feel recovered. This sounds so crazy - but I can actually taste the night that I get back into our king sized bed at the same time with Brad and I fall asleep while he is praying like I used to. Believe it or not - our first two dates I spent asleep on his shoulder in a movie theater! I'm not sure why he asked me out again but obviously there was something about the old-relaxed me. She'll be back...I can picture it now.

I don't even know that this is how the story ends - she threw out her medicine bottles and was saved!Afterall, I don't take medicine for a headache but that doesn't mean I don't get them everyday. And like I said, this isn't about the decision to go drug-free in my fight for my life back - it is a decision about my genuine faith in our God. And thankfully, just as I made the decision to hand it all over - He had already made the decision to help me. It is all about timing and a year of waiting may have been all He needed.

I know this sounds needy, but please continue to encourage me and be excited with me when I get 3 hours of sleep. I have known this whole time that I was supposed to be pretty vulnerable with this whole battle and therefore I have been...even on the most public of places. This may sound arrogant but I feel like this journey has been a group-thing and I literally would not have made it out of January had I not the support of so many friends, family, and strangers alike. I hope you feel the power of your prayers because they have been heard...

I can't wait to fully enjoy the first weekend in many months with my three boys. I have been waiting to be able to say that...