Suffering Words, Healing Words
By Connie © 2003
My physical health began to deteriorate in my late twenties when we moved to a
new town. I had increased pain in my head and neck, and some difficulty concentrating
at times. I began having strong negative reactions to prescribed medications meant to
help these symptoms. I also had sores in my nose that would not heal easily, and kept
returning for the last two years we lived there. My thinking was fogged, and I often had
difficulty recalling things. Although I conferred with very good doctors at a well-
known medical center and a Christian mental hospital, doctors found little they could
fix.
One Sunday morning two years into these mixed feelings that seemed neurological and
physical, I felt God saying I should go to the pastor for anointing with oil. I felt
desperate for help. It was a quiet experience as he prayed for me in the morning
worship service, and the next week my Sunday school class asked me what had
happened. At that moment I felt God saying to me, “You obeyed me, so tell them that
you went in obedience asking for healing.” I did not receive a miracle that day but I
was able to go on.
For a year or so the word obedience grew in my heart and mind to be a reassurance
to me that God was in all this with me. We moved after three years, and my health
began to improve. I was busy caring for three small children and running a licensed
family day care home. At this point I was unaware how critical those three years of
overexposures to chemicals were to my overall health.
I was still feeling ill from time to time and for the next ten years, I begged doctors to
help me find energy and just feel normal. I discovered a direct link to headaches—our
van was leaking gas fumes, and I improved some more after we sold it.
Then after seeing the improvement from not having car fumes in my life, I saw the
relationship between evergreens, candles, and cloves at Christmas Time. I was having
headaches and a month of all over body pain usually followed in January. Soon I
began to see that smoke from campfires and the pesticides, which they sprayed from
foggers for gnats in campgrounds, gave me incapacitating neurological symptoms and
pain. I would come home following a fun vacation very upset and crying and not know
why.
We stopped camping as a family and I avoided all wood fires from that time on.
Through this time, I was having GI difficulties and saw a specialist who prescribed
common remedies that only increased my symptoms. I had been tested many times for
thyroid as many symptoms reflected possible problems there. But tests were always
negative.
During this time, I had asked my new pastor to anoint me with oil for healing and the
word “perseverance” came to me afterward. That word grew with me as obedience
had. Then as my health continued to be uncomfortable over the years, I went again for
prayer and this time the word “patience” was given me. Then a fourth time I asked for
prayer, which was now ten years from the first anointing for healing, the Lord gave me
the word “longsuffering.”
I began to hear the Lord speaking to me in a newer sense. I was more than just
hearing the word longsuffering. I had some very special times with God in my
devotional times. I felt Him saying, “You understand how I have spoken to you these
past years so from now on just listen to me”. My faith had grown—and yet I was still
puzzled as to why I was in some ways feeling better and yet other ways more ill. I
really strived to obey what I felt was God’s will for me.
God did not allow more than I could bear.
Then in about 1983, a Christian woman from our church, who was working on her
doctorate in psychology, approached me and encouraged me to keep a calendar of
how I felt and to document the foods I ate. Shortly after that another woman from
church introduced me and my doctor to Dr. Theron Randolph’s book, An Alternative
Approach to Allergies, and to a wonderful alternative environmental clinic. I went to
Woodlands Healing Research Center for testing and that was a new beginning for me.
I found I had food sensitivities and began a food elimination diet, and over the
following years slowly eliminated most places I went which had gas, oil, coal, or wood
heat.
At this time a well-known immunology clinic diagnosed me as a latent reactor, and sent
me to a medical center for further screening by neurology, pulmonary, cardio, and
allergy specialists. This clinic served me well in screening true allergies to things as
cotton and dust mites, but stopped short of finding my hidden food sensitivities. I had
learned from my testing at Woodlands those hidden foods that must be eliminated from
ones diet to gain wellness. I improved overall when all grains and or other hidden
foods were eliminated from my diet. My mind seemed to open and my concentration
levels improved. I could now see that I had been suffering with a type of brain fog.
Most of the muscle spasms I had in my legs left when I eliminated wheat and all left
two years later when I eliminated rice from my diet.
I learned that when I was exposed to car fumes and homes with gas or oil heat or
buildings with formaldehyde, toluene and cleaning chemicals, I had heavy reactions that
inhibited me from functioning well. The brain fog and muscle and nerve pain kept me
sedentary for a number of days. I have learned it is best to not add these exposures to
my body, as each is a true injury to my central nervous and immune systems.
Did we know all of the answers yet?
As I look back I can see that God brought these improvements at the same time he
was leading me to close my day care and work away from home for the following eight
years. After the last anointing in the early 1980’s, the Lord began to give me more
words from time to time. He blessed me and was showing me he was in control. They
are forgiveness, love, gentleness, goodness, mercy, meekness, peace, joy, and grace.
Of course these words were brought to mind when I was most desperately in need of
understanding and applying them.
In 1982, after the death of my parents, I began to see more of what God was doing in
my life, and he revealed himself to me in a special way. He knew what I needed and
showed me that he was there several times when I was at a grieving crisis. They were
reassurances of his presence, and my faith grew in trusting Him. Those times were the
times He was carrying me and we would have only seen Gods footprints in the sand.
He never failed to show me that he was there. Also in 1984, when I saw the first four
suffering words had been a part of my life until then, I felt a sense of security that God
was really watching over me.
Beyond my relationship with God though, I began to feel alone, as no one seemed to
understand what was happening to me. Most of us with invisible illnesses know how
difficult it is for family to accept and understand us when we have chemical sensitivity
and tests just don’t show enough proof. I could feel a separation from society creeping
into my life. I was looking and feeling well if I stayed away form people and places, so
understanding how I was not injured and needing acceptance in my avoidance was a
constant concern and difficult to balance.
People often think it is an emotional or mental problem we have developed and
brought on ourselves. One can see how society can also bring emotional stress to
those with invisible illnesses. I was often grateful that I had seen a mental health
professional the second year of my initial injury. It gave me greater confidence later
when others comments may have caused me hurt, that chemical injury origins are not
from emotional cause.
There are times when chemical reactions affect the brain, spinal cord, and the entire
central nervous system, causing neurological symptoms such as spasms, jetting pain,
dropping things, and brain fog. These make coping with simple routine things of life
difficult for a day or up to a week. Having this reassurance early on that I was mentally
sound, also made it easier for me to forgive others who carried much doubt about
cause and effect of chemical injury.
At last we found the answer we had sought for all those years. In 1995, via a
government document that defined methyl bromide poisoning we learned how it
displays its symptoms over many years and the central nervous system is damaged
over time, and that also each time one is exposed to petrochemicals some degree of
damage occurs. We also found the source of the methyl bromide— a food industry
just a mile and a half from our old house.
I thank God for showing us the sources and giving wisdom over the years to get what
help we have received from wonderfully understanding doctors and through Christian
friends. Had I all that information in the beginning, perhaps I would not have felt the
need for God as much in my life. It was in 1995 as well that I looked back and saw
those words were the fruit of the Spirit.
He had been feeding me spiritually all along.
In the late 1990’s, I was once again heavily injured by chemical overexposure, and
am starting over in detoxifying the chemicals. I had a phone consultation with Dr
Sherry Rogers, Md. who helped me understand more about adjusting some foods in
my diet and her books helped me understand how important alkaline pH is to
chemically injured people's well-being. Dr. Harold Buttram at Woodlands retested me
and gave me much help in understanding what my injury levels were and that slow
detoxifying is best. He prescribed Oxygen Therapy for my difficulty with elevated
blood gases.
This year as I am seeing Dr. Grace Ziem, M.D., D.R. P.H., Occupational and
Environmental Medicine. She is teaching me more about safer treatments in forms that
injured people tolerate. God is bringing faster healing this round. I feel he may have
permitted this so I would be more patient to remain home and focused on sharing what
I have learned with others. Any of us with this injury would head out into the world
immediately if we didn’t receive much pain and discomfort from doing so.
The one thing I had asked God for, in the early 1970’s, was wisdom. James 1:5
says: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all
without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” I thank God for the many times he
guided us to do things that were helping me heal when we were unaware of them. He
had provided me with energy to raise my three children as well as energy to run a
licensed home day care. He gave me eight years of working out of the home and
teaching Sunday school after we discovered the foods were causing the brain fog. I
have a wonderful husband who has helped with household chores and support through
these years.
Though my chemical injury has affected my total life style, I have been able to maintain
a rather active one. I attribute this only to the Lord and believe it is his healing touch on
my body and life. I give him all the Glory.
I am ever grateful for the service opportunities my church has provided for me since
my injury in recent years. I was able to cook and manage the Eat and Run program the
first year before having to remain home more. Being able to work with the Children’s
Church program for a few years and bake desserts once a month for their Wednesday
Evening Eat and Run meal, as well as have some women come to my home for Bible
Study for two years, have all helped me to feel a part of my church. Sometimes we
don’t think our prayers are being answered, but God hears them all and in HIS way
answers our prayer and need.
II Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.”
Forgiving others and understanding grace as undeserved favor have helped me so
much in experiencing the freedom of the Holy Spirit working in my life. Forgiveness is
vital for spiritual, mental and emotional health. God’s grace to me has allowed me to
practice this with others. With God’s help I hope to continue to grow in my spiritual life
as well as experience wellness as he provides it to me. God is awesome! He has given
me strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. To God be the glory for all He
has done.
Connie is married, and mother to three grown children. For several years in the early
1970’s, she was overexposed to various chemicals that gave her chemical injury. This
is the story of how she came to understand the results of this injury. Through all of
those years, God has walked beside her. She writes, “Sometimes I was aware of His
presence and sometimes I was not but he never failed to be my gentle shepherd and
guide.”
Connie moderates an email list called Strength for Today, and welcomes new
members.
All rights reserved. To reprint in any form or to send this article via the Internet, please
contact Connie for permission.
back to Hope Stories
By Connie © 2003
My physical health began to deteriorate in my late twenties when we moved to a
new town. I had increased pain in my head and neck, and some difficulty concentrating
at times. I began having strong negative reactions to prescribed medications meant to
help these symptoms. I also had sores in my nose that would not heal easily, and kept
returning for the last two years we lived there. My thinking was fogged, and I often had
difficulty recalling things. Although I conferred with very good doctors at a well-
known medical center and a Christian mental hospital, doctors found little they could
fix.
One Sunday morning two years into these mixed feelings that seemed neurological and
physical, I felt God saying I should go to the pastor for anointing with oil. I felt
desperate for help. It was a quiet experience as he prayed for me in the morning
worship service, and the next week my Sunday school class asked me what had
happened. At that moment I felt God saying to me, “You obeyed me, so tell them that
you went in obedience asking for healing.” I did not receive a miracle that day but I
was able to go on.
For a year or so the word obedience grew in my heart and mind to be a reassurance
to me that God was in all this with me. We moved after three years, and my health
began to improve. I was busy caring for three small children and running a licensed
family day care home. At this point I was unaware how critical those three years of
overexposures to chemicals were to my overall health.
I was still feeling ill from time to time and for the next ten years, I begged doctors to
help me find energy and just feel normal. I discovered a direct link to headaches—our
van was leaking gas fumes, and I improved some more after we sold it.
Then after seeing the improvement from not having car fumes in my life, I saw the
relationship between evergreens, candles, and cloves at Christmas Time. I was having
headaches and a month of all over body pain usually followed in January. Soon I
began to see that smoke from campfires and the pesticides, which they sprayed from
foggers for gnats in campgrounds, gave me incapacitating neurological symptoms and
pain. I would come home following a fun vacation very upset and crying and not know
why.
We stopped camping as a family and I avoided all wood fires from that time on.
Through this time, I was having GI difficulties and saw a specialist who prescribed
common remedies that only increased my symptoms. I had been tested many times for
thyroid as many symptoms reflected possible problems there. But tests were always
negative.
During this time, I had asked my new pastor to anoint me with oil for healing and the
word “perseverance” came to me afterward. That word grew with me as obedience
had. Then as my health continued to be uncomfortable over the years, I went again for
prayer and this time the word “patience” was given me. Then a fourth time I asked for
prayer, which was now ten years from the first anointing for healing, the Lord gave me
the word “longsuffering.”
I began to hear the Lord speaking to me in a newer sense. I was more than just
hearing the word longsuffering. I had some very special times with God in my
devotional times. I felt Him saying, “You understand how I have spoken to you these
past years so from now on just listen to me”. My faith had grown—and yet I was still
puzzled as to why I was in some ways feeling better and yet other ways more ill. I
really strived to obey what I felt was God’s will for me.
God did not allow more than I could bear.
Then in about 1983, a Christian woman from our church, who was working on her
doctorate in psychology, approached me and encouraged me to keep a calendar of
how I felt and to document the foods I ate. Shortly after that another woman from
church introduced me and my doctor to Dr. Theron Randolph’s book, An Alternative
Approach to Allergies, and to a wonderful alternative environmental clinic. I went to
Woodlands Healing Research Center for testing and that was a new beginning for me.
I found I had food sensitivities and began a food elimination diet, and over the
following years slowly eliminated most places I went which had gas, oil, coal, or wood
heat.
At this time a well-known immunology clinic diagnosed me as a latent reactor, and sent
me to a medical center for further screening by neurology, pulmonary, cardio, and
allergy specialists. This clinic served me well in screening true allergies to things as
cotton and dust mites, but stopped short of finding my hidden food sensitivities. I had
learned from my testing at Woodlands those hidden foods that must be eliminated from
ones diet to gain wellness. I improved overall when all grains and or other hidden
foods were eliminated from my diet. My mind seemed to open and my concentration
levels improved. I could now see that I had been suffering with a type of brain fog.
Most of the muscle spasms I had in my legs left when I eliminated wheat and all left
two years later when I eliminated rice from my diet.
I learned that when I was exposed to car fumes and homes with gas or oil heat or
buildings with formaldehyde, toluene and cleaning chemicals, I had heavy reactions that
inhibited me from functioning well. The brain fog and muscle and nerve pain kept me
sedentary for a number of days. I have learned it is best to not add these exposures to
my body, as each is a true injury to my central nervous and immune systems.
Did we know all of the answers yet?
As I look back I can see that God brought these improvements at the same time he
was leading me to close my day care and work away from home for the following eight
years. After the last anointing in the early 1980’s, the Lord began to give me more
words from time to time. He blessed me and was showing me he was in control. They
are forgiveness, love, gentleness, goodness, mercy, meekness, peace, joy, and grace.
Of course these words were brought to mind when I was most desperately in need of
understanding and applying them.
In 1982, after the death of my parents, I began to see more of what God was doing in
my life, and he revealed himself to me in a special way. He knew what I needed and
showed me that he was there several times when I was at a grieving crisis. They were
reassurances of his presence, and my faith grew in trusting Him. Those times were the
times He was carrying me and we would have only seen Gods footprints in the sand.
He never failed to show me that he was there. Also in 1984, when I saw the first four
suffering words had been a part of my life until then, I felt a sense of security that God
was really watching over me.
Beyond my relationship with God though, I began to feel alone, as no one seemed to
understand what was happening to me. Most of us with invisible illnesses know how
difficult it is for family to accept and understand us when we have chemical sensitivity
and tests just don’t show enough proof. I could feel a separation from society creeping
into my life. I was looking and feeling well if I stayed away form people and places, so
understanding how I was not injured and needing acceptance in my avoidance was a
constant concern and difficult to balance.
People often think it is an emotional or mental problem we have developed and
brought on ourselves. One can see how society can also bring emotional stress to
those with invisible illnesses. I was often grateful that I had seen a mental health
professional the second year of my initial injury. It gave me greater confidence later
when others comments may have caused me hurt, that chemical injury origins are not
from emotional cause.
There are times when chemical reactions affect the brain, spinal cord, and the entire
central nervous system, causing neurological symptoms such as spasms, jetting pain,
dropping things, and brain fog. These make coping with simple routine things of life
difficult for a day or up to a week. Having this reassurance early on that I was mentally
sound, also made it easier for me to forgive others who carried much doubt about
cause and effect of chemical injury.
At last we found the answer we had sought for all those years. In 1995, via a
government document that defined methyl bromide poisoning we learned how it
displays its symptoms over many years and the central nervous system is damaged
over time, and that also each time one is exposed to petrochemicals some degree of
damage occurs. We also found the source of the methyl bromide— a food industry
just a mile and a half from our old house.
I thank God for showing us the sources and giving wisdom over the years to get what
help we have received from wonderfully understanding doctors and through Christian
friends. Had I all that information in the beginning, perhaps I would not have felt the
need for God as much in my life. It was in 1995 as well that I looked back and saw
those words were the fruit of the Spirit.
He had been feeding me spiritually all along.
In the late 1990’s, I was once again heavily injured by chemical overexposure, and
am starting over in detoxifying the chemicals. I had a phone consultation with Dr
Sherry Rogers, Md. who helped me understand more about adjusting some foods in
my diet and her books helped me understand how important alkaline pH is to
chemically injured people's well-being. Dr. Harold Buttram at Woodlands retested me
and gave me much help in understanding what my injury levels were and that slow
detoxifying is best. He prescribed Oxygen Therapy for my difficulty with elevated
blood gases.
This year as I am seeing Dr. Grace Ziem, M.D., D.R. P.H., Occupational and
Environmental Medicine. She is teaching me more about safer treatments in forms that
injured people tolerate. God is bringing faster healing this round. I feel he may have
permitted this so I would be more patient to remain home and focused on sharing what
I have learned with others. Any of us with this injury would head out into the world
immediately if we didn’t receive much pain and discomfort from doing so.
The one thing I had asked God for, in the early 1970’s, was wisdom. James 1:5
says: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all
without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” I thank God for the many times he
guided us to do things that were helping me heal when we were unaware of them. He
had provided me with energy to raise my three children as well as energy to run a
licensed home day care. He gave me eight years of working out of the home and
teaching Sunday school after we discovered the foods were causing the brain fog. I
have a wonderful husband who has helped with household chores and support through
these years.
Though my chemical injury has affected my total life style, I have been able to maintain
a rather active one. I attribute this only to the Lord and believe it is his healing touch on
my body and life. I give him all the Glory.
I am ever grateful for the service opportunities my church has provided for me since
my injury in recent years. I was able to cook and manage the Eat and Run program the
first year before having to remain home more. Being able to work with the Children’s
Church program for a few years and bake desserts once a month for their Wednesday
Evening Eat and Run meal, as well as have some women come to my home for Bible
Study for two years, have all helped me to feel a part of my church. Sometimes we
don’t think our prayers are being answered, but God hears them all and in HIS way
answers our prayer and need.
II Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.”
Forgiving others and understanding grace as undeserved favor have helped me so
much in experiencing the freedom of the Holy Spirit working in my life. Forgiveness is
vital for spiritual, mental and emotional health. God’s grace to me has allowed me to
practice this with others. With God’s help I hope to continue to grow in my spiritual life
as well as experience wellness as he provides it to me. God is awesome! He has given
me strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. To God be the glory for all He
has done.
Connie is married, and mother to three grown children. For several years in the early
1970’s, she was overexposed to various chemicals that gave her chemical injury. This
is the story of how she came to understand the results of this injury. Through all of
those years, God has walked beside her. She writes, “Sometimes I was aware of His
presence and sometimes I was not but he never failed to be my gentle shepherd and
guide.”
Connie moderates an email list called Strength for Today, and welcomes new
members.
All rights reserved. To reprint in any form or to send this article via the Internet, please
contact Connie for permission.
back to Hope Stories
© 2004 Dave and Merry Marinello, all rights reserved.
Welcome! Thanks for visiting our little "harbor" amid life's storms. We hope you
will find rest and encouragement in your struggles, big or small. Here you can:
will find rest and encouragement in your struggles, big or small. Here you can:
Suffering Words, Healing Words
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Hope is My Anchor
Strength for your soul amid life's storms
Strength for your soul amid life's storms