Friday, October 9, 2009

"HEAL ME", OHH GOD....

I woke up with the same tormenting headache I had gone to bed with, and struggled to the bathroom. I grasped the sink with both hands and reluctantly raised my pounding head to the mirror. The face reflected in the glass was a fiery red mask of tiny bumps and large acne like sores. Hundreds of them.




The horrible rash covered my face like the Egyptian plague of boils in the Bible. The unending headache and rash comprised the mysterious condition I had lived with for 12 long, unbearable years. Here I was, a middle-aged woman with two teenage sons and a husband and I could hardly raise my head and look in the mirror.



Tears blurred my vision as I tried to remember the smooth, milkwhite complexion I used to have. My fingers twitched, longing to claw at the fiercely itching skin on my face.



I had tried everything - special diets, oatmeal soap, baby oil, vitamins and enough creams and ointments to fill a small drugstore. And the long line of doctors I had seen had passed by like a dwindling parade of hope. The rash had only grown worse, and my face swelled, itched and turned tomato-red at the slightest stimulus.



Suddenly the pain behind my eyes tightened as if someone were packing cotton into my sinuses. I reached for a bottle of pain medication and quickly swallowed a couple of pills. I took the maximum of eight pills a day. But they only forestalled the worst of it - when the pain crept down my neck, making clear thinking nearly impossible.



I felt consumed by despair, by the long years of this strange affliction. I had prayed so many times for it to go away. "Oh, God, why don't you help me?"



I dabbed at my eyes and dressed for work. My head ached so much I could hardly pull a comb through my hair. I thought about crawling back into bed. But, of course, I couldn't. I liked my work as a third grade school teacher. I had to keep going.



As I entered school that morning a little girl peered up at me, her eyes wide with surprise and dismay. "How come your face looks like that?" she asked.



I raised my hands over my cheeks and tried to explain. But I fell silent. I had no answer.



Not long after, someone told me about a dermatologist. I had seen half a dozen specialists already, but I made an appointment, ready to grasp at anything. I sat slumped on his examining table after long series of allergy tests.



"Well, maybe we have an answer," the doctor said. "It appears you are allergic to yourself."



I stared at him disbelievingly. "You must be kidding!" "I know it sounds strange, but these allergy tests show you are allergic to your own bacteria." Hope blew away like the last autumn leaf. Allergic to myself. How could I escape that?



"We'll make a special serum, using your saliva," said the doctor, "and teach you how to inject it."



And so began the next three years of giving myself shots. The headaches were not quite as severe, nor the rash quite as red - partial relief. The doctor did everything he could, prescribing medicines, creams and consultations. Still, the ever-present plague was agonizing, embarrassing.



So I followed my old, exhausted pattern and found yet another doctor. This time an outstanding allergist. More tests. More money. He decided I was allergic to a long list of foods, and put me on a diet. For a year I existed on nothing but peas, potatoes, carrots, lettuce and lean meat. My weight plummeted to 102 pounds.



"You're wasting away, Mama," said my son one morning as I packed my lunch of canned peas. He was right. Something dreadful was happening to me. And despite it all the daily headaches persisted and the humiliating rash and acne were splashed across my face as big and as red as ever.



This is no way to live, I thought dismally as I draped a scarf across my head and left for work.



Then one Sunday as I struggled to teach my Sunday school class, I heard myself saying, "God, is the answer." I paused, the echo of my words thundering in my head. As the class continued, the words burrowed inside me like a splinter.



At home after church I lay on the sofa with a warm cloth across my forehead. I gazed out the windows at the silent woods across the road. The words I had spoken that morning nudged at me. I am a Christian, I thought. I tell other people God is the answer, that they can find wholeness through him. Yet I've been a prisoner of this condition for nearly sixteen years.



Suddenly the familiar old story of the woman in Mark 5:25-34 focused in my mind. The woman who touched the hem of Jesus' robe and was healed. I was so much like her. I too had suffered a condition for many years, gone to countless physicians, spent nearly all I had and was not better, but worse. The difference was the woman in Mark had finally gone to Jesus with faith - and was healed.



Did such healings still happen today? I wondered. If so, could healing really happen to me? There on the sofa, the idea of real healing from God spun in my head. It almost seemed too ancient to be real. If only I could be sure.



The weeks passed and winter melted away. The incredible idea of healing lingered in my mind like a held-over Christmas present. I toyed with the ribbons, afraid to open it, afraid it might turn out to be empty. . . but strangely unable to turn away.



Then one Sunday something happened. I lay in bed trying to find diversion from my headache by watching television. On the screen stood a beautiful young woman - Cheryl Prewitt, Miss America 1980.



"God healed me," she said. "I prepared myself to be healed, and God healed me."



My heart began to pound with a strange excitement. She was speaking to me! He did still heal people today.



"Come quick!" I called to my husband and boys. As they hurried to the bedroom I pointed to the TV, where the radiant young woman still spoke. Tears poured down my face. "If God can heal her, then He can heal me," I said.



Finally, after 16 desperate years of trying everything else, I was ready. Again I relived that biblical story in my mind. What was it Jesus had said to that woman after she had brushed her fingertips across His robe? "Your faith has made you whole." And what had Cheryl Prewitt said? "I prepared myself to be healed."



Faith, there was the key. There was what had been missing before. My faith had grown flabby, like out-of-shape muscles. I knew intellectually that God is powerful and can heal. But somehow I had to get that knowledge from my mind down into my heart. I had to believe it as absolutely as I believed the sun would rise tomorrow.



On May 1, I began to prepare myself for healing like an athlete training for the Olympics. I sat down in the kitchen rocker with a pad of paper and my Bible. I flipped to the concordance in the back, to the heading of "healing, health and faith." I picked out verses, then looked them up, writing each one down word for word. It took a couple of days, but I finally compiled a list of 36 Scriptures - sort of a training manual for my faith.



The next day I tucked the papers into my purse. While driving to work I pulled them out and laid them on the seat. At the first stoplight I focused on Psalm 103:2-3. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. . . Who healeth all thy diseases," I whispered. I closed my eyes, saying it over and over, letting it sink down inside me. At a stop sign my eyes fell on another: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. . ." Jeremiah 17:14. I said it over and over.



All day I kept it up - before getting out of the car, walking along the school corridors, sitting in the playground at recess. Not a spare moment was lost; by the end of the school day my Scripture papers were dog-eared from wear.



In the weeks that followed this became my constant routine. The papers were as inseparable from me as my shadow. And by some inexplicable process the 36 Scriptures were slowly sinking into the core of my being with roots of belief. I was actually beginning to believe - really believe - that I could almost feel my faith stretching and rippling with new strength.



I circled July 12 on the kitchen calendar. "Lord, this is the day I'm asking for complete healing," I said.



Then I added another exercise. I began to visualize my complexion as pink and clear as a newborn baby's, and my sinus passages free and well. I imprinted it on my mind day and night. This exercise became rather a strenuous one, because the mirror was such a contrast from my image. The mirror is wrong, I told myself. Soon it will reflect my inner image.



Late that spring I hurried past a mirror at school. Suddenly I stopped, backed up and peered into it. I ran my fingers across my face. Was it my imagination or did the fiery-red rash seem a bit faded? And my headache. Didn't it seem better? "Oh, thank you, Lord!" I cried. "You are healing me."



July 12 dawned warm and shiny through the bedroom window. I tiptoed to the bathroom mirror, took a deep breath and looked into it. The rash still lingered in the lower part of my face, and a faint sinus headache tugged behind my eyes. I will not give up, I thought. With a sudden burst of faith I said, "Well, Lord, this is the day! I know it will happen."



When the sun set in an orange glow I went to the mirror again. Again I stared at my reflection, tears sparkling on my face. A face completely smooth and clear! It was the face I had imagined. The headache of the morning had drifted away as well. God and faith had made me whole.



For almost a year now I have not experienced a single headache, and my skin remains clear. I've gotten rid of all the old ointments, medicines, allergy shots and diets. The only thing I've kept are my precious dog-eared papers - those powerful Scripture exercises that brought my faith to life. For there's one thing I've learned: Though it's important to keep physical muscles well-toned, it's even more important to keep "faith muscles" strong. For they are the ones that churn the spiritual energy, that move the mountains in our lives. Even a mountain like mine, which had towered over me for 16 years.



A few weeks ago at a meeting a stranger tapped my shoulder. "Your complexion is so beautiful," she said. "Oh, thank you," I said, breaking into an unusually big smile. A smile, I'm sure, no one there really understood, except me and God!



Marilyn Ludolf

Thursday, October 8, 2009

ഓപ്പറേഷന്‍ "മൂഷിക്‌ ഉന്മൂലന്‍" - എലികളെ തുരത്താന്‍ എളുപ്പ വഴികള്‍


എലികള്‍ മൂലം എന്തൊക്കെ പ്രശ്നങ്ങളാണ് ഉണ്ടാകുന്നത്? വിളകള്‍ തിന്നു നശിപ്പിക്കുക, രോഗങ്ങള്‍ പരത്തുക തുടങ്ങിയ ലീലാവിലാസങ്ങള്‍ അവയില്‍ ചിലത് മാത്രം. ഇതാ എലികളെ ഉന്മൂലനം ചെയ്യാന്‍ ക്രിയാത്മകമായ ചില വഴികള്‍ ഇവിടെ പ്രതിപാധിക്കുകയാണ്.




ഇല്ലം ചുടുക - ആശയം കുറച്ചു പഴയതാണെങ്കിലും ഫലപ്രദമാണ്. ഒന്നില്‍ കൂടുതല്‍ എലികളെ ഒറ്റയടിക്ക് ഉന്മൂലനം ചെയ്യാം എന്നതാണ് ഈ വിദ്യയുടെ ഗുണം.



കണ്ഫ്യൂഷ്യസ് മെതേഡ്‌ - ഒരു പ്ലേറ്റില്‍ ഒരു കഷണം കപ്പയും ഒരു കഷണം കിഴങ്ങും ഒരു ഉണക്ക മീനും വയ്ക്കുക. എന്നിട്ട് നിങ്ങള്‍ ഒരു വടിയുമായി പതുങ്ങി ഇരിക്കുക. എലി വന്നു കപ്പ തിന്നണോ, കിഴങ്ങ് തിന്നണോ, അതോ ഉണക്ക മീന്‍ തിന്നണോ എന്നാലോചിച്ചു കണ്ഫ്യൂഷനായി നില്‍ക്കുമ്പോള്‍ നിങ്ങള്‍ പിറകില്‍ നിന്നും എലിയുടെ തലയില്‍ അടിക്കുക. എലി തല്‍ക്ഷണം മൃതിയടയുന്നതാണ്.



ക്ലിനിക്കല്‍ മെതേഡ്‌ - ആദ്യം നിങ്ങള്‍ എലിയെ പിടികൂടുക. എന്നിട്ട് കൈകാലുകള്‍ ബന്ധിക്കുക. അതിനു ശേഷം ഒരു ബക്കറ്റ്‌ തണുത്ത വെള്ളത്തില്‍ എലിയെ ഒന്ന് മുക്കുക. ഉടനെ തന്നെ എലിയെ വെയിലത്ത്‌ കൊണ്ട് നിര്‍ത്തുക. ഇടയ്ക്കിടെ എലിയുടെ തലയില്‍ വെള്ളം ഒഴിച്ച് കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുക. അങ്ങനെ എലിക്കു കഠിനമായ ജലദോഷം വരുമ്പോള്‍ എലിയെ വലിയ ഒരു പ്രൈവറ്റ് ആശുപത്രിയില്‍ കൊണ്ട് അഡ്മിറ്റ്‌ ചെയ്യുക. ബാക്കി അവര് നോക്കിക്കോളും. ബില്ല് കാണുമ്പോള്‍ എലി ഹൃദയാഘാതം മൂലം മരണപ്പെടുന്നതാണ്.



ഡയല്‍ അപ്പ്‌ മെതേഡ്‌ - ബി എസ് എന്‍ എല്‍ ഡയല്‍ അപ്പ്‌ കണക്ഷനുള്ള ഒരു പീസിയില്‍ ഇരുന്നു എലിയോടു ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ്‌ ബ്രൌസ് ചെയ്യാന്‍ പറയുക. കണക്ഷന്റെ സ്പീട് കണ്ടു എലി മിക്കവാറും മൌസിന്റെ വള്ളിയില്‍ തൂങ്ങി മരിച്ചോളും.



സ്വയംവര്‍ മെതേഡ്‌ - എലിയെ പിടിച്ചിരുത്തി "രാഖി കാ സ്വയംവര്‍" പരിപാടി മുഴുവന്‍ കാണിക്കുക (പണ്ടായിരുന്നേല്‍ മധു മോഹന്റെ സീരിയല്‍ മതിയാരുന്നു). എലിയുടെ അടുത്ത് ഒരു "S" കത്തി വയ്ക്കാന്‍ മറക്കരുത്. പരിപാടി കണ്ടു തീരുന്ന മാത്രയില്‍ എലി "S" കത്തിയെടുത്തു സ്വയം കുത്തി മരിക്കുന്നതാണ്. "രാഖി കാ സ്വയംവര്‍" കാണിക്കാന്‍ പറ്റിയില്ലെങ്കില്‍ എം ടി വി "സ്പ്ലിട്സ് വില്ല" എന്ന പരിപാടി കാണിച്ചാലും മതി.



മെഗാ സീരിയല്‍ മെതേഡ്‌ - ഇത് പെണ്ണെലികള്‍ക്ക് മാത്രം ബാധകമാണ്. എലിയെ വൈകുന്നേരം 6 മുതല്‍ 11 വരെ ദിവസേന യഥേഷ്ടം മലയാളം സീരിയലുകള്‍ കാണാന്‍ അനുവദിക്കുക. എലി കരഞ്ഞു കരഞ്ഞു തളര്‍ന്നു മരിച്ചോളും. ഇനി അഥവാ ചഞ്ചല ഹൃദയരും വിവാഹിതരുമായ ആണ്‍ എലികളാണ് ഈ സീരിയലുകള്‍ കാണുന്നതെങ്കില്‍ അവര്‍ അവിഹിത ബന്ധങ്ങളില്‍ ചെന്ന് പെടുകയും ജീവിതം ആകെ മൊത്തം കുളമാകുകയും എലിയുടെ നിലവിലുള്ള ഭാര്യയും മക്കളും ഗൂഡാലോചന നടത്തി എലിയെ കൊല്ലുന്നതുമാണ്.



വിസ്റ്റ മെതേഡ്‌ - 256 MB റാം ഉള്ള ഒരു പീസിയില്‍ വിന്‍ഡോസ്‌ വിസ്റ്റ ഇന്‍സ്ടാള്‍ ചെയ്യുക. ഇതിനു പുറമേ ഫോടോഷോപ്പോ 3D മാക്സോ കൂടി ഇന്‍സ്ടാള്‍ ചെയ്തു എലിക്കു നല്‍കുക. എന്നിട്ട് എലിയോടു ഫോടോഷോപ്പിലോ 3D മാക്സിലോ ഒരു എലിപ്പെട്ടി ഡിസൈന്‍ ചെയ്തു തരാന്‍ ആവശ്യപ്പെടുക. എലി കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ ടേബിളില്‍ തല തല്ലി ചാകുന്നതാണ്.



സിനിമാടിക്‌ മെതേഡ്‌ - ചിരഞ്ജീവി, രജനീകാന്ത്‌, വിജയകാന്ത്, ചിമ്പു എന്നിവരുടെ തെരഞ്ഞെടുത്ത സിനിമകള്‍ എലിയെ കാണിക്കുക. എലി ചിരിച്ചു ചിരിച്ചു മണ്ണ് കപ്പി അന്തം വിട്ടു കുന്തം വിഴുങ്ങി മരിക്കുന്നതാണ്.



റയില്‍ ആഹാര്‍ മെതേഡ്‌ - ട്രെയിനില്‍ കിട്ടുന്ന ചപ്പാത്തിയും വെജിടബിള്‍ കറിയും ഒരു പ്ലേറ്റിലും കുറച്ചു എലി വിഷം വേറൊരു പ്ലേറ്റിലും വയ്ക്കുക. യാതൊരു കണ്ഫ്യൂഷനും കൂടാതെ എലി ആ എലിവിഷം കഴിച്ചു മരിക്കുന്നതാണ്.