I've put this off long enough, here we go: It began several years ago. I'm not sure what happened but I noticed a change in my second to last semester of college. (I went to college after I was fully-grown, not right out of high school.) I don't recall now what I noticed, but I knew something was different and progressively getting worse. I made it through my classed and student teaching, but something was just different.
Now I've graduated. I am teaching eighth grade. I loved it. But something is not quite right and I can't put my finger on it. After a couple of years, I guess, one of the main things that I noticed initially was that I was forgetting things. I could begin a sentence and then . . . ummmm what was I going to say? I had to try to play it off and act like wasn't I was just changing the subject. Admittedly, I was probably not very interested in what I had to say. But this was ridiculous. It was one thing to search for a word, but quite another to lose a train of thought in conversation.
Because I didn't know what was going on with me, I stopped working with the preschoolers in children's church. I guess I was concerned that whatever I had might be spiritually contagious, if there is such a thing. I didn't want to be around the little ones when I felt so unsure of myself.
One thing that we would do at the beginning of children's church was to put on the "full armor of God." In Ephesians chapter 6, there is a list of six pieces of spiritual armor then it tells us to add prayer with it. I had developed the habit of naming the armor and saying all or parts of scriptures related to each piece of armor. I had taught it to the preschoolers and every Sunday, we would put on the armor of God together by saying those scriptures. Putting on the armor was a habit like getting dressed in morning. I'd step into the shower and name (the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, etc) with the scriptures. I had been doing it for years. Now I could not remember which part came next. I knew I could find a three year old who could tell me which piece came next. This was getting scary.
I was really fed up when I forgot someone's birthday. At that point, I went to speak with my pastor's wife, the co-pastor of our church. She is a spiritually discerning woman and she speaks with wisdom. She told me that she didn't believe what was going on with me was Alzheimer's or anything like that, but that it was related to my sleep. Yeah, I had noticed that my sleep patterns were off. Looking back on it, I realized that I had seasons of borderline insomnia. Ok, so I'll try to sleep better.
A few months later . . .
The next thing I noticed was that I would go to work and then come home and go to bed. I was just so sleepy all the time. I used to stay at work pretty late. Not anymore. Get up; go to work; come home; go to bed. Repeat. Now it was the end of the school year – the time of year when they have award banquets. I never missed a time to recognize students' achievements, if I could help it. I didn't go to the honors banquet. I went home and went to bed.
Finally, it was June and school was out. I had had enough of whatever was going on with me. At this point it had been seven years. Enough is enough already. I made a plan. I made a special place for myself to pray at home. A place for God and me to meet. On our first meeting in that place I told Him, "I'm not going anywhere until you show me what is wrong with me."
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