Author: Jane Foard Thompson

Jane Foard Thompson is an inspirational speaker and award winning author and poet. A former Montessori teacher in Texas and Utah, for eight years Jane and her husband were missionaries in Honduras, Central America. After working for the American Red Cross in Idaho, they now live in Florida, where she writes, leads music and women's Bible studies at their church, and enjoys nine grandchildren and her Golden Retriever, Lily.

Hold me tight!

I’m happy to leave 2015 behind. After almost paralyzing grief at my mother’s death in 2014, I expected 2015 to be a great year, time to downsize and simplify, organize my home, finish editing my books and get them published, and spend more time with family and friends. Instead, I spent the first half of the year semi-invalid, one infection after another leading to a week on IV antibiotics. In February I was advised to begin a strict, no sugars/grains, anti-mold diet. When I thought I’d whipped it all, ready to charge into a wonderful Advent and Christmas, I broke my hip. Life came to a roaring stop.

From appearances, God had deserted me, or didn’t care, and chose not to be involved in my life.

Nevertheless, throughout the year I’d felt God’s nearness at my bedside. My trust had deepened, to simply let Him be God, accept my life from His hand, no matter the circumstances.

As I lay on the floor waiting for the ambulance, I cried to Jesus. Not many words. Too much pain. Simply gasps and, “Jesus. Help. Jesus.”

When the EMTs prepared to scoop me up, anticipating a painful journey to the hospital, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Jesus, hold me.”

Oh, love me—and right now!—hold me tight!
just the way you promised.
Now comfort me so I can live, really live;
your revelation is the tune I dance to. Psalm 119: 73-75 MSG

He did.

Jesus held me as I was lifted off the floor onto the gurney, bumped out the door and across our lumpy lawn. In the sways of twists and turns on the road, and thumps of railroad tracks, I felt cocooned in love.

My oldest daughter rode with us, and in chatting with Ken, the EMT, found he’d done mission work in Honduras, where we’d served as missionaries for eight years. It was a sweet connection.

In the most painful ordeal of my life, tiny details began to spell out the difference between absolute horror and God’s providence.

The EMT gave me personal care all the way into the room in the ER, and didn’t leave until he was certain I was being attended to.

My orthopedist took charge of my care to be sure I got into surgery that day, no matter how full the hospital said the OR was. (He slept in the doctor’s lounge until the OR opened at 10:00 pm)

My daughter and her family had just moved close by from the northeast and was able to support me on a daily basis.

Throughout my two weeks there, individuals appeared at precisely the moment I needed help, or encouragement, or care.

And biggest of all, my family supported and loved me in amazing ways.

My list is long.

I am very grateful.

That is not to say it was a grand time. It was the worst, body jarring, deep and ongoing pain I have every experienced.

And the most humiliating and completely dependent time.

In spite of excellent individuals, especially in PT and OT, the facilities and atmosphere with staff in the hospital rehab generally left a huge amount to be desired. I haven’t lived a cloistered life, but I was often jarred by the lack of hope, light or love around me.

Given my own physical helplessness and emotional vulnerability, I could have been completely over-whelmed. Engulfed. Depressed.

However, when I’d cried out to Jesus on my floor, waiting for the EMTs, I knew I had a choice. I could cry and rage, alone. Or, I could trust Jesus.

It remained a constant decision, day and night.

I looked for Jesus in the persons he sent at crucial times.

And I chose to reflect his face in the dark places with so many desperate people around me.

It amazes me now how that simple choice changed everything. In spite of the pain and nausea, I was able to bless roommates, attendants, nurses, even the sweet lady who cleaned our room and was desperate for hope. It became my daily challenge to brighten the lives of those around me.

Laax mountain by Jack H Thompson, Jr w Psalm 16_11

The pain has diminished, but is a constant, and never gives me more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Therapy goes on. I’ve graduated from a walker to a cane. I look forward to being able to drive a car again, to go to the grocery store all by myself.

I still struggle to find words, largely thanks to the effects of anesthesia. (I’m a slow metabolizer anyway, and the older we get, the longer the effects last. And, of course, aerobic exercise is a little hard to come by to clear the brain.)

Sitting remains painful. I will only be at my desk a short while, a large reason for not writing sooner.

Throughout this ordeal, I have found great comfort in the words of Jesus.

Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Matt 6:33 MSG

During those prior months at home, I’d had time to be still. To really trust when there was little I could do. That had prepared me to relax into the love of Jesus when nothing else stood between me and incomprehensible agony of body and spirit.

During many long nights, snatches of Bible verses floated on my mind, along with hymns and songs based on scripture, easing my pain and settling my soul.

All that I could do was affirm my love and trust in God. He cared for everything else.

Not easy.

Certainly, not fun.

But there is joy in the morning. Always joy.

And there is abundant joy to share.

Matt 6:30-34
Matt 6:30-34

Has God made a difference in your challenges?

More than a bump in the road

Several weeks ago I shared a little of what I’ve learned in the sickroom, and planned more lessons from this past year. However, still dealing with the chaos of mold remediation at home, I never made it back to my computer. Last Friday I experienced an abrupt alteration of my pathway–way more than a bump in the road. Right after DH left for work I tripped and fell on my left hip. I knew it was broken. Writhing in pain, I listened to DH’s car accelerate around the bend. Our golden retriever, Lily, licked my face and cried with me.

I spent the better part of the day in the ER, was admitted to the hospital and had surgery late Friday night to pin my hip back together. (In the x-ray, the pins look more like stakes to me!)
x rays

head and neck massage from DH
head and neck massage from DH
spaghetti squash from home
spaghetti squash from home

After several days filed with pain and nausea, I was transferred to the Comprehensive Rehab Unit for an estimated two or three weeks of physical and occupational therapy. (Translate: torture with smiles) I’ve struggled to find a medication that controls pain without making me nauseous to the point of immobilizing me.

I am working hard to regain the use of my left leg, no matter the pain.

learning to walk again
learning to walk again

What do you do when life throws you a sharp curve?
When you barely get up, and get knocked down again?
When you can’t even see the sky?

The only place I can go is to the one who loves me, who calls me by name, and who is there with me no matter what I encounter.

Who died to set me eternally free of this world of sin and death, disease and accidents.

The One who is Enough.

Sarah Young said it so beautifully in this excerpt from Jesus Calling.

In this age of independence, people find it hard to acknowledge their neediness. However, I have taken you along a path that has highlighted your need for Me: placing you in situations where your strengths were irrelevant and your weaknesses were glaringly evident. Through the aridity of those desert marches, I have drawn you closer and closer to Myself. You have discovered flowers of Peace blossoming in the most desolate places. You have learned to thank Me for hard times and difficult journeys, trusting that through them I accomplish My best work. You have realized that needing Me is the key to knowing Me intimately, which is the gift above all gifts.

And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
–Isaiah 58:11 ESV

Lessons from the sick room

Sidelined. Alone. Fogged. Weak. Wanting. In the days and nights that ran into weeks, then months, as my body grew weaker instead of stronger, when no amount of trying would produce an alert mind to use “down time” for writing, it would have been easy to entertain self-pity. To give up. Or blame God. Wasn’t he listening? Didn’t he care?

When nothing else could stir my body or stimulate my brain, he woke me to pray for a warrior in danger on the other side of the world, or a single mother struggling to provide love and nourishment for her sons, or a young woman who lost her child to a brutal death, or for the one who wanted so desperately to mother a child. I prayed for friends whose mates suffered from physical or mental ailments, and whose hope was close to evaporating in the morning light. For struggling families, and for those alone. For widows, those who lost loved ones, young ones waiting for forever families, and for adoptive families climbing mountains.

As I lay in bed and prayed, following the urgency, I entered a rarely trod pathway of heart ache that held me with the Peace that passes understanding.

Odd, unexplainable, I often felt the pain of the one pictured before me. I agonized with that person and prayed as I felt encouraged to do. Then, as the compelling to pray lifted, I knew peace was restored to the one I was interceding for, that my work, for now, was done.

And I, too, was wrapped in that peace.

Phil 4 7
So, when friends wrote or called to encourage me from discouragement I was often surprised.

Somehow, not being physically healed was okay.

Sometimes we have work to do that does not involve mind and body. No hands. No feet.

Simply a willingness to listen and pray. Sometimes for minutes, at times hours. One session continued almost non-stop for a week, as I felt a dear life hung in the balance.

Certainly I missed participating in activities with my family and friends, and was sorry to have to pull back from church, leading Bible studies, from writer’s groups and social events.

But I was not alone.

Ever.

And the more I responded to the call to pray for others, the more my room filled with a holy presence, with sustaining grace.

It runs in the face of the Western way of life, especially for Americans. We must be active, work hard, try harder.

Some even see unrelenting illness as a sign of sin or lack of faith.

But, I’m sure if you go to Christian refuges from Syria or to persecuted Christians in Pakistan or Cambodia, they will tell you a different story.

This world is not our home.

We were created for eternity with God.

And anything in our lives that drives our hearts to Him is worth it.

Any. Thing.

Now that some functionality has been restored, every time I hear this song, I have to stop and listen.
Take it in.
And remember.


What has driven you closer to God?