I had an epiphany the other night as I chatted with a fellow PD’er online.
Paul Martin… You have to read this guy’s poems. He will be our featured MVP in the next couple of months but for now, I’ll share a little of what I know about him.
He has Parkinson’s Disease.
He is very transparent.
He adores his kids.
He refuses to give up.
To combat what was going on inside his head (in more ways than one), he wrote poems. While we chatted, for some reason a humongous thought came to me.
Ever since I can remember, I have loved to write. I wrote all the papers for my classroom that I taught when I was eight years old. I wrote poems and short stories in my free time as a teenager. I took creative writing classes in college. I kept diaries for my kids as they grew up (or tried to) and kept several journals of my life throughout the years. I started seriously writing again when my kids weren’t putting their fingers in the light sockets anymore, in between baseball and softball games, basketball and volleyball games, football and more.
It was sporadic at times and irregular. I put it on the back burner more often than not, due to other things that always appeared more important.
Then as I was ‘listening’ to Paul as he spoke through his poems, I thought to myself, “If for no other reason, God allowed this guy to have PD to touch the hearts and lives of others with his words in a heart-wrenching way. You cannot, whether a PD’er or not, walk away unmoved.
As I read, I felt as if God was trying to get through to me. And then I got it when I was chatting with him. I’m not even sure what specifically turned on the light, but it was bright.
Without having been the recipient of this disease, I might be finding things to do (and I do still) that keep me from writing. Having PD has brought me back to what I have loved doing all my life. Without it, I might still be cutting out little useless pumpkins from scraps of pine. Not that they weren’t cute, useless pumpkins.
Sometimes (okay, often) God has to knock me upside of the head to get my attention. Sometimes He has to hit me hard. Like hitting me with YOPD. Yep, that was a hard hit. However, it was a good hit because now I am not only extremely focused (as much as someone with PD can be), but I have a tremendous purpose and that is, to encourage others through this journey God has allowed.
It is not a curse. It is a blessing and truly, I have been blessed in the journey.