Joseph's brothers held hate and malice in their hearts toward their favored brother. They threw him in a pit and planned to kill him. But just in time, some foreigners just "happened" to be passing by, and their greedy hearts led them to make money off of their brother instead, so they sold him as a slave. Thus, Joseph was thrown into a dreadful fate over which he had no control. Through a series of events (many of which looked like coincidences), Joseph became second in command under the king of Egypt. He saved the country from death and utter ruin in extreme famine. Ultimately, he saved his family- his very brothers who hated him and sinned against him in the worst way- from death and ruin. And because God put Joseph in this place of power, with a righteous heart full of love and forgiveness, his family was brought to Egypt to ride out the remainder of the famine and father the nation of Israel.
This is my favorite piece of bible history. There are so many lessons and reminders and promises woven throughout the story. The most obvious and comforting of these is that God will work all things to the good of those who love him. Joseph's brothers acted in malice and sin: God turned even that to an enormous blessing for Joseph and even his wicked brothers, and ultimately the nation of Israel, God's chosen people. It is an awesome lesson, reminder, and promise from God. I'm always blown away when I think of it.
Today I was reminded that the Lord does these works in even what seem like the minutia of our lives. Two days ago I utterly forgot to give Melanie her morning meds. It completely slipped out of my brain for the entire day, until the evening when I was cleaning and dealing with a wailing and limp Melanie in post-ictal pain. I told Nick to throw me in the bad-mommy dungeon. Of course he didn't, and instead comforted me, but I threw myself in there anyway. It was my bad.
This morning I called the neurologist's office to discuss a couple things, and I said in my message, "In the past, Melanie has been able to miss a dose of meds and be fine- no seizures. The fact that this caused her to seize tells me that her current med doses are near their minimum: right at the door of her seizure threshold. Maybe we could increase [wonder drug] before tapering [yucky drug] any more." We were due to taper yucky drug another step yesterday... Of course I have held off on that.
What does this have to do with Joseph?? Well, I realized this morning that God brought some good out of my forgetting M's meds on Wednesday- a rare oversight- so that I could have a clear sign that she was teetering pretty close to the bottom of therapeutic in her med levels. So now we can approach tapers and increases with more wisdom and knowledge. Even as I write this, it seems almost petty. We could have seen the same thing if we had just continued on our taper schedule... but, without going into the details and subtleties of what we know of Melanie and her seizurey brain... trust me, this was a much more definite, clear, and perhaps even less painful answer. God's good.
She is fine now. The seizure wasn't even discovered until after it was over- so it was short and self-ending. Nick didn't even recognize that she was post-ictal when she was hot, limp and wailing, with wet pants. She woke up chipper, sassy and defiant the next day. Her preschool teacher barely recognized her and even had to put her in a chair after too many No's. This is normal day-after behavior, so she was given much grace (but not too much!). I'm seeing more seizureyness lately, so I'm waiting to hear back from the neurology nurse, expecting her to tell us to increase diamox before a further taper of depakote. ...I am totally a Dravet M.D. (Mommy Doctor).
deo gratias
