Lying down on the job

On Sept. 1, I was walking through a lounge at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport—and very slowly, as the elderly gentleman ahead of me was clearly suffering from a debilitating palsy. With his wife beside him, the man struggled bravely forward on legs stiff with spasticity, his arms extended slightly for balance, hands ­flapping as if for lift.

The couple crept along, and I kept having to stop and wait … as did the spry, silver-haired woman who was also walking behind the couple, slightly ahead of me.

As our little formation inched through a maze of café tables and foot traffic, Silver Hair angled left and right, eyes peeled for a passing lane around this inconvenient couple. After several failed flanking maneuvers, she glanced back at me with an eye roll and put-upon half-smile: Don’t you wish these people would get out of our way?

I did not smile back. Not only had I thought her rude, but I’d started imagining myself in the place of that disabled man, and in that very week had begun ­coming to terms with a disability of my own.

The affliction, to paraphrase a Hemingway character, caught me gradually, then all at once, beginning with a head tremor I could feel but others couldn’t see. This was maybe five years ago. In time, the invisible tremor became visible, but even then, hardly anyone noticed. Then by 2022, the strangest thing: My head began turning to the left—involuntarily. I went to see my doctor, who diagnosed me with a rare ­neurological disorder called cervical dystonia.

By May 2024, my condition had crept from annoying to challenging, and then in the space of two months, August and September, it leapt from challenging to disabling. Which is why I was at the Paris airport, flying home from a planned sojourn in Spain, and likely into an entirely new future.

Cervical dystonia (also called spasmodic torticollis) affects only about 0.0007 percent of Americans. It’s a movement disorder that, while it doesn’t affect the brain or life­span, is extremely painful and debilitating. Unless my head is braced, I cannot keep it still to focus on anything at close range. This includes looking at another person during conversation, eating food from a plate, working at my computer, texting, and even completing my own signature. I fight neck spasms all day, and at times my neck muscles simply fail through pain, and I have to lie down.

The sudden deterioration this summer shocked me. God yanked me off the path I was on and placed me suddenly on a different one, an unwanted one. So, I’ve been grappling with Him in prayer and tears, as well as (I’m loath to admit) lots of, “Why, Lord’s?” As someone sold out to God’s sovereignty, “Why, Lord’s?” have always seemed to me a colossal waste of time. This time, though, I’ve indulged them, I’m sorry to say.

The other night while I was feeling weepy and lost, my son Christian came into my room for a chat. For his 34 years, he said, he’d watched me place my trust in God when things got tough. Christian reminded me that God hasn’t changed and neither has the solution:

“Trust God now just like you always have,” he said.

There are times (such as when a good pity party really gets rolling) that you regret teaching your children well.

But, of course, Christian’s counsel was just what the Great Physician ordered. The next day, glimmers of gratitude cracked my gloom: Things to be thankful for spilled from my mind like fruit from a cornucopia … and it turns out there are so many!

My loving, supportive family tops the list. And—wow!—at least a dozen people I can call close, praying friends. I’m thankful for the mighty prayer warriors in my Bible study. And, dear reader, this is incredibly important for you to know: WNG is the best, most supportive place to work in all the earth.

My colleagues have rallied around me, even as there are others at WORLD who need even more support than I (see WORLD Notes in this issue). And yet I feel wrapped in agape, philos, and prayer. How many people can say that about their place of employment?

And I wouldn’t have that support, dear reader, without your support. So you, too, are on my gratitude list.

Going forward, I will be writing and editing while reclining in a zero-gravity chair with my computer monitor suspended above me. The position takes the pressure off my neck muscles and reduces the neurological misfires. So, chalk up two more things to be thankful for: a cool, space-age chair and a boss who won’t fire me for lying down on the job—­literally. Perhaps there’s even a Golden Retriever service dog in my future. Name suggestions are welcome!