You know those cute otters on social media, floating on their backs and reaching out to hold…well, paws?  Have you seen that one?  It’s adorable.

Then there are the social media stories by parents of children with epilepsy talking about several days of administering rescue meds.  Rescue meds are valium-type drugs given to stop seizures that have no intention of stopping on their own.  Seizures that become a medical emergency.

I hate epilepsy.

I HATE epilepsy!

I HATE EPILEPSY!!!

But I’ve had to forgive epilepsy this week.

See, I can’t keep carrying around that much hate.

I don’t get to put epilepsy down and walk away from it.  But I can forgive it and put down the hate and anger and walk away from that.

I actually heard that this morning before I saw the social media story:  “Forgive epilepsy.”

I was reading my daily devotional talking about how and why we pray.

“Think of your request as a wish, because a wish often represents something we deeply want but know we need help to get.  The idea of wishing on a star carries that sense of hopeful humility.  But unlike wishing on a star, you’re going before the God who created the stars and sprinkled the heavens with them.” 

Overcoming an Anxious Mind, YouVersion Bible App

We lay down our requests before God and then wait for His response.

“Because God might say yes.  He might say no.  He might say maybe, or wait.”*

I’ve waited for 10 years for epilepsy to go away.  It hasn’t gone away.  So, I continue to wait.  Or maybe we’ve received “no” and I just don’t know it yet.  Either way, I realized that I needed to forgive it so I can keep living.

That calm acceptance lasted maybe an hour, until I saw the story about rescue meds…so many rescue meds.  And felt another broken heart from another epilepsy post.

Yet, how can I say to God, “Break my heart for what breaks yours” and mean it if I’m not willing to have my heart broken every day?

Then the question becomes how do I hate something and yet not carry around that hate, not let it turn me black inside?  As I read the devotional, it seemed to mean forgive epilepsy for the last decade.  Then I saw that story, and, with a heart broken again, I realized I had to forgive epilepsy….again.

How do I not hate something that makes me cry on a weekly if not daily basis?  I lay it down weekly – or daily.

I’ll publish this post in February but I’m writing it in January.  You maybe already know this, but January gets its name from the Roman god Janus.  He had two faces, one facing back looking at the past and one facing forward looking at the future.

I guess that makes it a good time to look back at my history with epilepsy and forgive.

Forgiving epilepsy doesn’t mean it goes away though.  So, maybe each new time epilepsy breaks my heart and I think, “I hate epilepsy!”, I need to lay the heartbreak and the hate down before God and wait for Him to bind my broken heart…again.

Because I don’t want to be so consumed by looking back at our long battle with epilepsy that I miss seeing my goofy child wearing Minions glasses and dancing in the kitchen while eating a banana.  Those are two faces of the same child.  And I’ll miss one if I’m only looking at the other.

*https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/28527-anxious-mind-seven-day-devoby-skip-heitzig