Archive of ‘Music’ category

Holding It All Together. A Team Danica Update

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Gauntletphoto

My Danica girl woke this morning and shuffled her way to my lap. She knows she will always find me sitting in my corner chair wrapped in a cozy throw with a cup of coffee in my hands. I put my steaming comfort aside, and make room for her. Her lanky legs stretch almost as long as mine now. She’s so tall it’s hard to kiss her head, especially with my fused neck, but I always try. Our fingers entwine, and I squeeze her hand as if to say, “Good morning, my dear. No matter what today brings I am here for you. I love you. Jesus loves you more.” Some of my favorite talks happen as she shakes off her sleep and begins to think out loud. Today her words took me off guard, “Mom, If God is in control of everything why did He even let sin and sickness happen?” I stumbled as I backtracked to Eden. Things were perfect, but there was this one tree. All God asked was for them to remember He was God and they were not. I see her reaching to make it more personal. Life is pushing her outside her mother’s faith and asking her to claim her own. Her next question knocked the breath from my lungs. “Mom, why did He take my miracle away?”

“It feels like an ocean of sorrow is under my skin…”

I haven’t been able to find words to tell about our trip to Cincinnati on July 26th. We left with incomplete information that has been filtering in since. Today we have more questions than answers. Danica’s rare and messy case has been escalated to new surgeons. We have been asked to return to Cincinnati quickly, on Thursday, August 18th, to discuss a joint effort with neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery.

“Even the ocean eventually meets with the sand…”

Since our March trip, when the scans showed the shocking views of broken hardware and broken fusion from Danica’s skull base to C1, we knew this was coming, but we thought we had months to watch.

“Sorrow on sorrow I’m waiting. Heavy I’m anticipating…”

My mama gut, made much more wise from years of reading X-Rays, CTs, MRIs and radiology reports in addition to dozens of neurosurgical and fusion surgeries of my own, told me the hardware was not the most concerning problem. Yes, it’s broken. It’s broken unevenly and moving on flexion and extension, but Danica’s own words told me instability was the greater issue. “Sometimes when I wake up my neck is stuck, and I have to reach up my hands and put in back in place. I hear a click.”

“Trusting the current will carry me.”

I finished my plasmapheresis before our trip and began my first of four chemo treatments on Tuesday. I’m worn so thin I’d swear you could see right through me. My dear friend came to sit with me at the cancer center. I told her how I was feeling. I cried. It’s as if those closest to me…closest to Dan, Delaney and Danica, don’t seem to understand this could be the thing that breaks us. It’s been almost a full decade of hard that can never be quantified. Dan is numb. Delaney is sad. Danica is scared. I’m completely and utterly broken. She told me I don’t wear it that way. I put on a clean shirt and some makeup. I smile and deflect the conversation to you. I say words about God as if the speaking makes them true.

“You are my strength. You are my song. You are my salvation. You hold it all together. You hold it all together.”

He is God. We are not.

“We come with great expectations and fears in our hearts.”

I didn’t know how to answer Danica this morning, so I reached for my Bible and turned to her life passage. My life passage. I read Psalm 139 aloud.

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

“Send us Your light as we’re making our way through the dark.”

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

“All of the earlier troubles, chaos and pain they unravel”

He is God. We are not.

This afternoon we snuggled in the big bed and watched the movie Miracles From Heaven. There were so many similarities to our story. The mama bear fighting. The faithful daddy staying behind doing what needs to be done. The older sister who gets a little lost in the shuffle and sacrifices more than most know. The crushing cost of travel for care and out of network doctors. The lonely divide the physical distance creates between a community of support and hospital halls walked alone. The hurtful words from well meaning people about why this is happening or how just a little more faith might change the outcome. Once again my girl’s little hand found mine. She squeezed it at certain parts. Parts I knew she understood fully because she’s been there. She jerked it away to wipe the tears running down her cheeks. I asked her several times, “Is this too hard for you? Do you want me to turn it off?” She wanted to see it through. We hugged as the credits rolled. I didn’t need to tell her I was skeptical about visiting heaven and living to tell about it. I didn’t need to explain to her how against all odds God can decide to heal someone completely. She felt the power of the narrative, because she knows it to be true.

He is God. We are not.

Danica is sleeping next to me now as I peck away in the dark. She asked for the heating pad for her legs and the cold pack for her neck. Dan is gone working overtime all day and night. Delaney is at a bonfire with her girlfriends. I wandered back to the old Team Danica blog and read the posts from August, 2010. It’s unsettling how easily they could have been written this month, six years later. There is one glaring difference. We know for sure…

He is God. We are not.

We’ve seen His faithfulness in the land of the living. We’ve seen Him provide. We’ve seen Him make a way when there was no way. We’ve seen Him bind up our wounds and heal our broken hearts. We’ve seen Him preserve our marriage and our family. We’ve seen Him rescue us from the root of bitterness. We’ve seen Him shine through the darkest night. We’ve seen Him perform a real in the flesh miracle.

“Looking ahead we rejoice in You.”

He gives and He takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Danica, I believe this, my brave girl. I do. I want to mirror this to you. A thousand things are happening in this one thing.

He is God. We are not.

September 20th, 2009 we found out Danica had a Chiari malformation. Not knowing all that would mean, I wrote this:

Do I believe God makes no mistakes? Do I believe He lovingly formed this child’s skull and brain how we find it today to fulfill His purpose in her life and in ours? Do I believe we lack nothing God’s grace can’t give us including strength for today and the days ahead? My verse for this week has been Mark 9:24 “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.”

I’m afraid. I’m so very tired. I know that trusting God with my child is perhaps the hardest thing He will ask me to do. As He grows my faith and asks me to rest in His promises. I will fall. I will have moments of anger and confusion. I will want to quit and walk away.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason — a life of knowing him who calls us to go.” Knowing a God who is unchanging and will do everything He says He will do is the only way I will navigate through the next weeks and months. I believe.

“You are my strength. You are my song. You are my salvation. You hold it all together. You hold it all together.”

Tonight. This song from All Sons and Daughters upcoming album Poets and Saints is on repeat. My heart melody. Part lament. Part praise. Yes.

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An Inch Of Daylight. If I Want To Live

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inchofdaylight
“My heart is troubled, my strength fails me,
And the light of my eyes, even this is not with me.”–Psalm 37:11

It was a shadowy week.
Not just Ohio cold and grey.
Not just smudged with Lenten ashes grey.
Not just a big inky cloud I can’t explain away grey.
It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

Every morning I woke early with my family to move through our routine. As soon as they left for work and school I would make the girl’s beds, wipe the kitchen and bathroom counters and sinks, straighten the house for Better Homes and Gardens and then stumble to my own bed. Curled in the fetal position under six heavy blankets I was gripped with a paralyzing fear this would be the time I might not find my way out of the chasm of despair.

If you’ve ever tried to die before you understand there’s nothing worse than failing at it. If you’ve ever endured intake for an attempted suicide you understand the high stakes to get it right the next go round. I don’t believe in levels of hell, but if I did a hospital psych ward would be at the very least level one. This knowledge makes the slipping even more frightening. I can make a way of escape once and for all or I can hold on here. The lie is there is no real help to be found in the middle.

“On a scale from one to ten how likely are you to harm yourself?” The wrong answer to this question lights a fuse you have no power to put out. It’s really better to fudge the numbers. “Have you thought of specific ways to end your life?” Never, ever tell them how you would do it. People who love me and have sensed me slipping away say, “Call me. I mean it. Anytime of the day or night. I’m here.” They remind me I have to let them know when it gets this bad. If I’m faking being okay when I’m not they can’t help. I run through the short list. Lord, people have so many hard things to deal with. I can’t be one of their hard things one more time.

“My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.
Stay here and watch with Me.”–Matthew 26:38

Until a few years ago, when I was finally diagnosed with Autoimmune Encephalitis and Adult PANS/PANDAS, I could only explain the sudden onset of the episodes as if a demon was coming over me even though I knew I was ultimately protected from them. I was mostly happy and hopeful even in the midst of intense daily pain and extreme life stress. Out of no where it would rush over me. I wanted to die. My healthcare professionals continued to try to understand and treat me as some variation of Bipolar, the best diagnosis they could squeeze out of the DSM. I now know there are chemicals, bacteria and viruses able to hair trigger me into debilitating physical and neuropsych symptoms. These are things completely out of my control, and my autoimmune disorder sets me up for continuous infections and cycles of sickness. As soon as I begin to feel unwell physically I become disoriented by hissing lies about the worth of my life. I have never really fit the depression diagnosis. I’m just not a sad person. Serious, yes. Sad, no. Every time it happens there is a moment when my mind and heart fade to black. The physiological starting place is compounded by a life of what can only be described as continuous pain that is often excruciating. This means I am already always standing on the ledge.

You want to live a long life. You want a future and a hope here on earth. You are maybe even afraid to die. I want release. I know there are people who need me now. I believe God has a purpose for me or I wouldn’t still be alive, but I want to go. I’m ready to go.

“Then they cried to the Lord in their afflictions,
And He saved them from their distresses;
He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their corruptions.”–Psalm 106:19-20

This year I am working through the She Reads Truth Lent study. It’s good. The best part is it’s mostly just straight up God’s Word. When your heart is torn wide open and fleshy with need the living and breathing part of Scripture finds an especially perfect soil to take root.

I am crying to Him in my distress.
I’m LISTENING hard.
I’m pointed east.
I’m looking for the light.

Another Lent resource I have used for many years is a small book of daily readings by Emilie Griffin titled Small Surrenders. She suffers from chronic illness and tells of one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins, as an example of a man “plagued by frailty and weakness, not just physical but psychological. At times he would plummet into an abyss of darkness, what he called ‘cliffs of fall.’ The steep dropping-off places of the soul seemed worse than any physical distress. This, therefore, was Hopkin’s prayer, his hope: ‘LET HIM EASTER IN US. BE A DAYSPRING TO THE DIMNESS OF US.’“

The sun was shining this morning as I drove to my counselor’s office. I played the JJ Heller song “Daylight” over and over and over again on the way there and the way back.

There is an inch of daylight underneath the door.
It’s enough for me to fill up my canteen.

If I want to live
Your love is what I need.

Be near me.
Be near me now.
Be near me.
Be near me now.

There is an inch of daylight underneath the door.
It’s enough for me to fill up my canteen.

If I want to live
Your love is what I need.

“You do not want a sacrifice or I would give it; You are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.”–Psalm 31:16-17

Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.

JJ Heller’s “Daylight.”

(Thank you for praying for me in the “Shadowlands.” This is the first February in several years I haven’t been able to escape to Arizona. Those trips were times of retreat and healing but also reminders I could be some better. I’m missing the desert. For me it was a little like the Promised Land.)

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Love Is A Mix Tape. You Stay

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Every morning your alarm goes off at 6 am. I hear you slide out of bed and into the shower. I ease from my pharmaceutical induced sleep into first prayers. Danica pads in from her room and crawls into your still warm place under the pile of covers for snuggles. The sure whistle of the tea kettle ends our snooze. I force my aching joints and fuzzy head upright and shuffle to my nest chair. Within minutes I’m wrapped in blankets and warming my fingers around a favorite hand thrown pottery mug. I always close my eyes for the first sip of the life elixir you French press for me. I taste your care in the special mix of beans brewed with precision and the perfect amount of cream and sugar. We don’t speak. The familiar and comforting aroma and taste greet me gently and say, “Good morning, my love. I cherish you.” After you make breakfast for Danica you join me in the living room for ten minutes of together. You look across the room into my eyes and find the answer to the question of how you will feel for the day.

Last week I woke with a sharp pain around my shunt. You could tell I was wincing, and my breath would catch when the knife came. Tears welled up in your eyes as you told me what it feels like to watch me suffer. You said every time I’m hurting you are too. You said as hard as it is to be me, it is perhaps even harder to be in love with me. It is pain multiplied. You are powerless to make it stop or even a little better. You would take it from me if you could. I know this, but I would never suppose you could survive even a day of the ache I’ve learned to master over a decade. It is mine to bear and yours to watch.

Saturday night we sent our girls away to celebrate fifteen years of promises made. Delaney was disgruntled, and I told her she is old enough to understand just a little how a man wants a woman and a woman a man. I told her she is lucky her parents are still madly in love and wanting time alone. Our plans to dine at our favorite restaurant were cancelled because my brakes began grinding and scraping. We haven’t been there for five years, since our tenth. We swore we would always make these milestones count no matter how poor but with the unknown cost of mechanics we didn’t chance it. Instead we went down the road for a cheese platter and cheap red wine. It was a feast for us. We told our love story back and forth to one another. The waiter brought us a piece of chocolate cake to share. I’m sure he thought it odd neither of us wore wedding rings, yours needing sized smaller and mine with the big gaping hole where the diamond used to be. Broken traditions, symbols sold, no gifts exchanged or surprises planned, just our rare and enduring romance built on a foundation of precious things no money could ever buy.

We came home and danced heart to heart to the melodies of our personal soundtrack until there was no space between your body and mine. God talks about two being one. Most consider this hyperbole at best. Why would you ever give all of yourself to someone else? Why would you sacrifice every bit of power and protection over your own heart to be true to another? Why would you forgive betrayal? Why would you stay? Why would you keep staying when life would be easier almost anywhere else?

You buried your face in my war torn neck and told me I am the most beautiful woman in the world. You traced my many scars with your fingers remembering the hard fought battles they represent but also the Grace, the healing and the Hope. You say you love me for almost everything I am, not in spite of it but because of it. You stay because my heart is your home.

Seventeen years in love. Fifteen years married. And the band plays on.

(Photo by Grace Designs Photography. Used with permission. From our anniversary photo shoot five years ago. I love we are wearing our rings here.)

This is side A and B of a mix tape that tells our love story. There are many more songs, but this is a framework. Enjoy. (I apologize for the clunky YouTube links.)

Be inspired. Splurge on itunes to make a mix tape for your love. Sneak it on their ipod as a surprise or burn a CD for their car. (Am I the only one who still burns CDs?)
What are your favorite love songs?

Hero. Enrique Iglesias. (Our first song. Dan used these lyrics in my 40th birthday toast.)

Bless the Broken Road. Rascal Flatts. (What a terribly broken road we both walked until we found one another. No regrets. If even one thing had changed we might have never met or loved.)

I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing. Aerosmith. (Armageddon was one of the first movies we snuggled up on the couch and watched together. I still cry when I hear this song.)

Your Arms Feel Like Home. 3 Doors Down. (For the first time in years I was safe. Dan was home.)

All That I Am. Rob Thomas. (Dan’s vows to me.)

Making Memories of Us. Keith Urban.

Better Together. Jack Johnson. (Good years. So good.)

Love Remains the Same. Gavin Rossdale. (We were both lost and wandering apart, but at the root we were still oh so in love.)

You Stay With Me. Faith Hill. (I broke promises. Dan forgave. Dan stayed.)

Let It Be Me. Ray Lamontagne. (Dan asked me to marry him again.)

For You. John Denver. (Our five year vow renewal song.)

These Are the Days. Sugarland. (Grabbing sweet moments.)

Steady As We Go. Dave Matthews Band. (Danica was broken, and we didn’t know how to move.)

Dancing In the Minefields. Andrew Peterson. (We needed to love like Jesus to survive.)

I Won’t Give Up. Jason Mraz. (We couldn’t imagine life would get any harder, and then it did.)

Broken Together. Casting Crowns. (By His Grace alone.)

Thinking Out Loud. Ed Sheeran. (Our Tucson Song.)

Better Days. Goo Goo Dolls. (Our continued anthem and hope.)

Dance Me To the End of Love. The Civil Wars. (Fifteen years. Still Dancing.)

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Runaway. Advent Pursuit. Advent Rescue. And a giveaway

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Runaway

The Runaway Bunny was a favorite of both my girls when they were younger. Above is a photo of the well worn board book I now keep in their trunk of childhood treasures. Hundreds of times over I whispered the sweet story of the little rabbit trying oh so hard to flee from his mother. His persistence was ever answered by her patient pursuit of love no matter how far he ran or how deeply he hid.

Several years ago on a dark and frigid night I attended an intimate Christa Wells concert at a tiny stone church in Akron. I was not well and should have been in bed, but Christa’s music had been a lifeline of truth for me, and I needed to be close to her gift, meet her face to face and thank her. Performing with her was Jess Ray, an indie artist I’d never heard of before. I was sitting just feet away from the strum of her simple guitar and liquid voice infused with a hint of scratchy LP grit. I was completely taken in by a new song she had written around the framework of the children’s story I knew by heart. Her lyrics stripped me bare. On my way out I met Jess, and I asked her how I could find this song. I needed the words. I needed the music. She told me it wasn’t recorded yet. She had timidly played it for our huddled community that night. I came home and scribbled what I could remember in my journal. One line stood out. “I will leave behind the ninety-nine, oh that you’ll be mine.” Jess eventually recorded “Runaway” on her album titled Sentimental Creatures. It soothes on my peace playlist every night as I fight for rest in my pain.

Listen to it now.

I’ve been running hard.
I’ve been hiding.
There have even been moments I’ve made up in my mind I don’t want to be by His side.
I’ve been stomping and screaming.
I’ve been beating on His chest, because I just don’t understand.

Still, He is here.
Pursuing me.
Searching east to west.
Reminding me.

I will never see the bottom of His storehouse of love.
No choice I make,
No path I take will change His mind.
He will love me.
He will teach me to love Him again.

Listen again.

Sunday was the first night of Advent, but today, December 1st, is when we begin our walk and worship. Since 2010 our family has been celebrating Advent not just with weekly readings and candles but nightly ones using Caleb Voskamp’s handcrafted Cradle to Cross wreath. His rustic way of light takes us on a journey beginning with Advent and continuing through the Lenten season to the Resurrection of Christ. I think we bought one of the first 50 he made. Last year we added Ann Voskamp’s treasure of a book, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, a telling of the Biblical narratives from the Garden of Eden to the birth of our Savior leading us to His indescribable gift of salvation. In the mornings during my own quiet time I read and meditate on Advent poetry and reflections including worn editions of Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, WinterSong: Christmas Readings from my dear Luci and Madeleine and Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation from Luci. It is my favorite time of year for almost none of the reasons or feelings we are told or sold to celebrate. I have never needed the sacred discipline more than I do now.

I am plunging back into a grueling round of plasmapheresis treatments tomorrow. I will have a new port placed in the morning and head to dialysis for the first round. Over the next ten days I will have five rounds with days off in between to rest. I am too weary to remind you here of my complicated diagnosis, debilitating symptoms, past risks and rewards and why I’m doing this again now. I’m simply asking you to please pray for me. I know this works. I also know each time we access my main artery the odds of something happening increase. I’ve waited this long between treatments to try and let my venous system heal. I feel horrible during this process, particularly the evening after the pheresis. I’m thankful to have the opportunity to do it outpatient and locally, but it is a double edged sword. I need to be in bed and resting when I’m not at the hospital. This never happens as it should. In April, the last time I had treatments, there were complications, and I was hospitalized. Please pray for my husband. He took me today for an appointment with the overseeing physician and for labs. He told me he feels like he’s been kicked in the gut over and over again. Please pray for my girls. They are old enough to understand their mama will never be truly well. This is not an illness we get through or conquer but rather a way of living for all of us.

The past few weeks I have been increasingly frantic. My neuropsych symptoms war with my physical fatigue and the demons of infection cross my brain barrier and whisper lies about what my life is worth.

I’ve been running hard.
I’ve been hiding.
There have even been moments I’ve made up in my mind I don’t want to be by His side.
I’ve been stomping and screaming.
I’ve been beating on His chest, because I just don’t understand.

Still, He is here.
Pursuing me.
Searching east to west.
Reminding me.

I will never see the bottom of His storehouse of love.
No choice I make,
No path I take will change His mind.
He will love me.
He will teach me to love Him again.

He left the ninety-nine to search me and know me.
It is an Advent rescue of a runaway.
Friends, this is the Gospel.
He came to seek and save.
When everything else falls away I am safe in His arms, and He is rejoicing over me.

“So He told them this parable, saying, ‘What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.'”–Luke 15:3-5

First Day of Christmas Giveaway
Tell me about a time you ran away. How did God pursue you and bring you back into the fold? I am giving away a copy of Jess Ray’s Sentimental Creatures in my first of twelve days of Christmas giving. Share this beautiful song with someone on social media and comment here to be entered. I will randomly choose a winner on December 12th. Stay tuned for new posts with more giveaway goodies! Blessings to you and yours as you begin your Advent journey.

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In Everything You Do. Choose Life. Gauntlet Story Feast

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I have a beautiful new Gauntlet Story Feast story to share with you, but I haven’t quite finished getting it all together. My facebook memories brought up this quick post I made a year ago today on Team Danica. It left me in a puddle of tears. There is no way to number the minutes, the hours or the days when I have had to consciously choose life. It’s only by His Grace I’ve continued to say “Yes”.

Whatever you are facing today. Keep saying “Yes.”

“This day I call the heavens and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, that you and your children may live.” –Deuteronomy 30:19

This goes out tonight to every one of my warrior friends. We know what it is like to literally contemplate the choice with every dawn. How will we see this suffering, our own and that of our children today? Will we be paralyzed in the curses or move in the strength of the blessings towards the light and grace of this life . . . our life, the lives of our spouses and sons and daughters, our parents and sisters and brothers and friends???

CHOOSE LIFE.

SHARE YOUR STORY. If you are walking a Gauntlet or are close to someone who is and would like to contribute to our Thursday community please email me at mkayesnyder@gmail.com, and I will send you the instructions for submitting. Share with anyone you know who might like to join our Gauntlet Story Feast. (Please use the hash tag #GauntletStoryFeast when sharing so we can find and follow one another.) Our Hope remains.

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Even Giants Fall. Gauntlet Story Feast

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This week’s story is a flashback written by my friend Cindee five years ago. Many of us are not just walking the Gauntlet on our own. We have genetically passed the DNA glitches to our children and are navigating this painful journey with them as well. It is heartbreaking to see them suffer. In families like Cindee’s and my own, there may be a sibling who has been spared. All the guilt and gratitude the well child feels along with fear and sadness for their brother(s) or sister(s) swirls into a vacuum of physical and emotional pain we never could have imagined.

God brought Cindee and I together last fall in the most beautiful place at the perfect time in both our lives. Her kindred heart is treasure. She has faithfully covered me with her prayers and words. During my last plasmapheresis treatments she sent me a card with a poem every single day. Before my last surgery she filled an entire journal with handwritten quotes, poems and verses. They continue to be balm for the wounds of my soul.

Today Cindee is at appointments all day with her daughter Meg. They had PT this morning then four hours in the research unit this afternoon. Tonight they are helping genetics and their PT/OT clinic launch a brand new offering (Thursday Night Live) for teens with connective tissue disorders and their parents. This is what warrior moms do. We are not just fighting for our own children to have the most whole life possible but also for the ones to come after us. Will you please pray for my friend and her family today?

Even Giants Fall
By Cindee Snider Re

(This post was written about five years ago when Sam was 15 and about 2 years into diagnosis. Kyle was 17. The boys are now 22 (Kyle) and 20 (Sam). You may remember Sam shared his story here earlier. You will want to go back and read it if you missed it or are a new reader here.)

It was late Tuesday afternoon. My son Sam and I were driving home from Children’s Hospital. Traffic was heavy and although the radio was on, I wasn’t listening. Sam was. “It’s true, you know,” he said.

“What’s true?”

“That ‘you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’” he answered as the song’s chorus replayed in the background. “I never understood that before, never appreciated waking up and feeling good or being able to do whatever I wanted when I got out of bed. I just took it for granted, figuring it’d always be that way.”

Tears welled in my eyes as I struggled to find words to answer my son. In February, he’d been diagnosed with Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis, an auto-immune disease affecting his GI tract. He’d lost 22 pounds in ten weeks and spent time in the new acute care wing of Children’s Hospital. Sam’s illness had caught us off guard. He’d been a physically strong, able, active teen who regularly ate us out of house and home, and suddenly, overnight, he wasn’t eating at all and rarely left the house, rarely left the recliner.

Tuesday afternoon, four months into treatment, we were heading home from more appointments. “I’d give almost anything to go back to before I got sick and really appreciate what I had,” Sam continued.

His words sliced through my soul. “Oh Lord,” I prayed, “why does my son have to go through this? He’s only fifteen, such a hard age to be different, sick, unable to eat his favorite foods or go out to eat, and he never, ever complains. He just gets quiet and tries so hard to focus on something, anything besides the pain. This is hard, Lord!” I silently cried out. “And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to help him through this.”

My oldest son, struggling with similar emotions and rocked by the changes in his brother and their relationship, poured his heart out in song.

This is a song of my greatest friend,
The one whom I love and would die to defend,
Whose honor and loyalty have no compare,
A soldier in a battle, too much to bear.

(Chorus)
I thought that you were unbreakable
That my faith was firm and unshakable,
But now I find that I was wrong.
There’s only one Being who’s that strong.

I can’t stand that you’re in pain,
And I don’t have the power to take it away.
It’s just too much for me to take,
That even a giant like you could break.

(Repeat Chorus)

So hold on, Sam, this storm will pass.
Just hold on, Sam, this pain won’t last.
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
God’s got you in His Hands.

I feel like I’m dying on the inside,
And I’d rather run than face a lie, cause
When it comes to compassion, I’m hit or miss
But you stand and say that we’ll get through this.

And He’s watching, watching out for you,
Just have faith, and we’ll make it through
Together.

“Father, there are no answers, just questions and emotions and a family holding on in faith, knowing You’ll see us through, and that we’ll make it there together, hand-in-Hand, standing strong in You! Amen.”

Cindee

About Cindee in her own words:

I’m wife of 23 years to an amazing husband and mom of five creatives — Kyle, 22, Sam, 20, Sarah, 18, Anna, 17, Megan, 14. We’ve homeschooled for 16 years — kindergarden through high school. Quite an adventure! Our oldest graduated from college (with honors!) in May. Our home is often filled with teens/early 20s I’d claim as my own in a heartbeat. I love words, photography, nature, hiking, cotton, denim, and tea. And I crave quiet. Four of our five (and me) have Ehlers-Danlos, a genetic connective tissue disorder, through which I’m learning the deeper the valley, the greater the joy. I live in hope, grateful for grace.

Cindee’s blog can be found at http://www.breathedeeply.org

SHARE YOUR STORY. If you are walking a Gauntlet or are close to someone who is and would like to contribute to our Thursday community please email me at mkayesnyder@gmail.com, and I will send you the instructions for submitting. Share with anyone you know who might like to join our Gauntlet Story Feast. (Please use the hash tag #GauntletStoryFeast when sharing so we can find and follow one another.) Our Hope remains.

Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.

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A Quote. A Poem. A Song. On Hope

by

HOPErock

“The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow. Happiness lives where sorrow is not. When sorrow arrives, happiness dies. It can’t stand pain. Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief. Joy, by the grace of God, is the transfiguration of suffering into endurance, and of endurance into character, and of character into hope–and the hope that has become our joy does not (as happiness must for those who depend up on it) disappoint us.” ― Walter Wangerin Jr., Reliving the Passion: Meditations on the Suffering, Death, and the Resurrection of Jesus as Recorded in Mark

I wanted to write today, but my head hurts so badly I cannot form complete sentences. I need to take some pills and crawl into bed. Dan will leave work early to help with the girls. I do it rarely, but we both know when it hits like this I have to clock out.

On the way to my cool, dark room I got on my knees at my prayer bench. I couldn’t even muster a guttural plea. Not even a “Dear God, Please.” Nothing. Numbness. I held my favorite heavy gray stone in my shaking hands. It is engraved with my life word. HOPE. I thought of a song I’ve claimed as “mine” for eight long years. How do the lyrics go? I came back to my computer to find my folder on hope. It’s a digital scrapbook of anything I’ve ever read, watched or listened to on the subject. Next to the download of Natalie Grant and Christa Well’s song, “Our Hope Endures,” the above quote is saved in a text file. I listened to the song. I read the words, and I wrote this. It is only the second poem I’ve written since my early twenties. I’m going to lie down and soak my pillow now.

Pain.
I call him Sorrow,
Because there are no new words.
I’m crying out,
“How long, Oh Lord?”
Does He hear?

Happiness.
I miscarried her early on.
I don’t visit the grave.
I won’t miss someone I don’t know, but
She didn’t deserve to die.
Should I believe this?

Joy.
Born of suffering.
Endurance was the doula’s name.
Her mother was Hope.
I held her wet with vernix.
Would I clip the cord?

Grace.
The place we live together now.
Adoption is true religion.
Character is the swaddling cloth.
Suffering is transfigured.
Could this ever disappoint?

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How Can I Go On Like This? Abide With Me

by

tulip-tree-620x380-p1020668

“What surgery meant to *Monica and what it meant to almost anyone else were two different things entirely. For *Monica, a single surgery was more like a fitting for a dress, or the rearranging of living room furniture: it was only a step towards something else. She never gave up believing that there would be a final moment, a last surgery, a point at which her “real life” would begin.” Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty (*Lucy was Ann’s dear friend)

I need another surgery.
I am thirty-nine years old.
This will be my twentieth surgery.
This will be my seventh neurosurgery.

This IS my life.

In January I asked God to let me go just one year without a scalpel.
I made a list of 40 things I wanted to do before my 40th birthday on November 5th.
I created a beautiful vision board.
I planned out the finishing of Gauntlet With a Gift by April 30th.
I arranged Dan and I’s Tucson trip in February.
I booked a beach house in Corolla for a family vacation the last week in May.
I registered for a writing conference at Princeton in June.
I dreamed of a long July weekend in my Shenandoah Valley hometown with a childhood friend.
In August I wanted to make good on a five year broken promise to Delaney to visit NYC together.
I penciled in a Cleveland Indians game and a concert on the lawn at Blossom before summer’s end.
I booked a hotel in Columbus for my friends and I to attend the Country Living Fair in September.
In late October I intended take my girls to Fallingwater as the leaves turned.
And I wanted a birthday party. A big one.
More than anything I purposed in my heart I would not NEED you.
I would not fund raise.
I would not talk about our medical debt.
I would not blog about my day to day health struggles.
I wanted to do something new here.
I wanted to shine Hope.
I wanted to talk about healing.
I wanted to share other’s stories.
I wanted you to know all your praying, all your giving and all your caring tangibly changed something.

My trip to Maryland last week revealed the reason I cannot get through twenty-four hours without a debilitating headache. It makes a crescendo around 2 pm every single day, and I crumble.

I have all different kinds of headaches, and I am able to tell you about them in detail.

A pressure headache is the feeling my skull and brains will explode. This typically comes from weather changes. I have a lumbar shunt sewn in my abdomen that snakes around to my spinal cord. Theoretically it removes excess cerebral spinal fluid building up and empties it into by belly to be absorbed by my body but often it is not enough. This headache makes me cry. I hold my head in my hands while I curl up in a ball and beg God to make it stop.

A “brain on fire” headache comes from illness like Strep or a wicked mast cell attack from something like bleach or a lilac or your perfume. This headache makes me certifiably insane. I am mean. I am crazed. I am desperate. Praying is almost impossible.

A migraine is like an ice pick in the front of my head spreading pain all over. Any light or noise makes it worse. I am nauseous, and I often throw up. I know it will last for at least twenty-four hours but often I wake up the next day with it. This headache makes me sad.

The headaches above come and go but lately have been layered on top of a never ending, something is smashing my spinal cord, seizing from the back of my neck up my head and over the top of my skull, buzzing and numbing, I cannot live like this pain. I have not suffered this kind of headache since my brain decompression and skull to C2 fusion in November, 2011. It began in Tucson. I explained it away as travel and hiking and washing and flat ironing my hair every day. The popping and grinding of my cervical vertebrae not already fused escalated. I wake and think it is manageable but rotating my neck at all, looking up or down or lifting anything ruins me. This headache makes me cry, “How can I go on like this?”

A month or two in I knew. A scan was just the calling card for a sure thing. I wondered how much damage was being done. I worried about a syrinx forming. I flipped ahead on my calendar to see what would need to be canceled. I saw another season of my life and my family’s life swallowed up by a nightmare deja vu.

I need a fusion of C5-C7. There are two different options for this surgery, one going in the front of my neck, removing the hardware from my C3-C4 fusion I had in October because it is solid and then fusing the three vertebrae below with hardware and bone slurry. The second option is more invasive. I would be cut in the back of my neck and the C5-C7 would be fused posteriorly as well as adding extra stability with bone slurry from my C4-C5 and my C7-T1.

My surgery is scheduled at Doctor’s Community Hospital in Lanham, Maryland on Wednesday, June 24th.

Like every time before I have no idea how we will do this. There is a $5,200 deposit. There is more travel and more hotels. Dan will take off work. The girls will stay here with family. Their summer story will be held in place by the bookends of their mom suffering and trying to hold on until surgery and their mom recovering from and trying to heal after surgery.

This is their life.

I only wanted one year.

How can I go on like this?
How can they?

I’m sitting here in my “nest” chair with both great room windows open. The early evening sun and breeze move like skilled dancers in the woods behind us creating the backdrop and the lighting for a concerto of bird songs. A daddy and mommy cardinal are building their home in the orange blossom tree along side our deck. They take turns swooping in with new materials for their sweetly thatched hideaway. By the time the delicate flowers flourish their precious eggs will be be nestled safely to incubate and hatch new feathered babes. If I look long enough I can see our grass growing greener. I witness bright yellow dandelion heads morphing to puffy white seeds. If I listen closely I can hear leafy buds on our deciduous darlings opening fuller than even the moment before. The tulip tree outside my kitchen and sun room windows finally risked to bloom. The petals are a graduated palette of blush to rosy pink spun like the softest silk. It is the maid of honor to our flowering pear tree, a bride wearing the most intricate lace gown. This is our third spring in this miracle house. When you are gifted a view of seasons changing over and over again from the same looking glass you begin to let yourself feel at home. If you know our story you know my heart. I thank God every day for this place.

My dear Amy Carmichael wrote these beautiful words:

“We say, then, to anyone who is under trial, give Him time to steep the soul in His eternal truth. Go into the open air, look up into the depths of the sky, or out upon the wideness of the sea, or on the strength of the hills that is His also; or, if bound in the body, go forth in the spirit; spirit is not bound. Give Him time and, as surely as dawn follows night, there will break upon the heart a sense of certainty that cannot be shaken.”

Tonight I am asking God for certainty that cannot be shaken.
Again.
Without it how can I go on?
I will trust.
I will abide in Him.
He will abide with me.

This hymn sung by Indelible Grace has been one of my favorites since I was a child. It was written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847 while he lay dying from tuberculosis. He survived only a further three weeks after its completion.

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Who Do You Think You Are?

by

Monica10

It’s late.
My family is asleep, and I am awake.
Nights are the longest.
Nights are the hardest.
There is no one left to convince I am okay.
There is no one waiting for me to say the right and true thing.
There is no one needing me to shine a light on their own version of this difficult life.
I am alone.

I began a new round of plasmapheresis treatments last Tuesday. After Monday’s brutal attempts to get IV access before my catheter placement I was already beaten up. A large hematoma began to form where the doctor, through ultrasound, finally found a vein in the upper part of my right arm. This along with the pain and invasive nature of the plastic tube stuck from my jugular into my heart’s main artery had shaken me. I felt like the first three treatments went as well as expected. I had the usual exhaustion, headaches and nausea, and by Easter Sunday I was wiped out. I knew something wasn’t right beyond the treatment side effects. Dan took the girls to church and to my parent’s for dinner and egg hunting. I stayed in bed. My headache was gaining momentum. When I woke Monday morning I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow.

Dan drove to the emergency room Monday evening at 5:30 pm.
He dropped me off at the door in the pouring rain.
I was alone.

It seems strange every time I tell it like this, but it is not for us. Dan makes sure the kids are okay. I take care of myself. Something about my demeanor made the ER staff take me back quickly even though many were waiting. The pain was so severe I couldn’t lift my head from my hands. My right eye was twitching. Stinging tears were running down my face. I keep a typed medical history with me and a list of current medication. If I’m too sick to tell my story I hope they can piece it together somehow. If nothing else the long list of operations and insane list of pharmaceuticals give me some credibility. In emergency rooms this is gold. It’s been almost a year since I resorted to going there. I hate the process and the place that much. I will only go if my pain is a 10.5 on a scale from 1-10. I live at a 4 or 5. Every single day I hurt. This was so much worse. This was scary worse.

As I laid on the hard stretcher with no pillow, I waited and tried to pray, but mostly I listened to the stories happening around me. In the holding bay next to me a woman was wailing. She wasn’t in physical pain. She wanted to die. The security guard and nurse kept probing about how many pills she had taken and whether she had any alcohol with them. Did she hear voices? Was she on her way to the crisis center? She was in tortuous pain of a completely different kind. My heart was breaking. I had been that woman before. I could hear the complete loss of identity in her voice. They kept asking the same questions. “What’s your name? Who are you? Where do you live? Who can we contact who cares?”

The doctor decided I needed a lumbar puncture to test my cerebral spinal fluid, CSF, for meningitis. After two attempts to take blood and two IV tries I became filled with anxiety. I had been given 1mg of Dilaudid for pain. If you know anything about me or how EDS affects my body’s processing of medication you know this amount of medicine is nearly placebo. I asked for Toradol. I explained this non narcotic worked the best with this kind of headache. They seemed thrown by someone not wanting to get doped up in the ER. They did not want to give me anything with blood thinning properties before an LP. Because I had this small dose of meds they asked I call someone to drive over in the middle of the night and sign a consent. This has never happened before in my long medical life. My dear parents, just back from Spain and tired to the core, answered my call and came quickly to sign the paper. I was taken down to the empty radiology floor and put face down on the freezing cold table. The same doctor who placed my cath was called out of bed to do my LP. It had to be under fluoroscopy because of the unstable nature of my spine and the brain shunt tubing there. A long needle was placed deep into my back and pulled tubes of fluid from my spine. I couldn’t stop my tears. “How long, oh God?”

Around 2 am I was taken up to the fourth floor to be admitted. I was utterly exhausted and had no real relief from my head pain. Now I was now suffering from all the needles in my arms and back. Then the process began again. My new nurse came into my room, flipped on the overhead lights and asked me the same litany of questions I just answered hours before. I kept thinking of the woman downstairs. “What’s your name? Who are you? Where do you live? Who can we contact who cares?”

One of the overwhelming feelings I get every time I’m admitted is the helplessness and bizarre anonymity that comes with stripping off all your clothes and jewelry and anything that identifies you to put on a hospital gown. You are now just a chart on a computer screen, a case to be discussed, a room whose call bell they hope won’t be rung too often. Even with the best nurses and doctors there is a very real sense of no one knowing you. The longer you are there the feeling of being institutionalized grows. Your legs get hairy. Your hair gets greasy. Your hospital issue footies get filthy as you get out of bed over and over again to unplug your IV pump and drag it into the bathroom to pee which you have to do at least every hour because of the bags of fluid they are giving you. For me this is all compounded by the frustration of being stuck over and over again because my veins are so weak and damaged they will barely give labs and my IVs will hold for only hours. I questioned why they couldn’t use this beautiful access in my chest for blood draws and meds and fluids. Oh no, that port belongs to dialysis. We cannot touch it. Okay, but it is my port, and you are repeatedly hurting me. At this point my arms looked like I was the worst skilled IV drug user ever. They were covered in tracks and bruises. A new IV team finally found a vein in the top of my shoulder that was a virgin and held. I asked for Tylenol. We can give you more Dilaudid they said. It took four hours to get an order for Tylenol from the doctor and the pharmacy to send some to me.

By Tuesday morning I wasn’t any better, but I began to feel frantic and caged. At least once every hour I fantasized about ripping my IV out and escaping. Why in the world did I come here where no one knows who I am? I’m Monica Kaye. I am the wife of a prince. I am a mother to two beautiful daughters. I am chronically ill but refuse to quit fighting. I believe in Jesus, and He is the only reason my Hope remains. I wished I could wear a sign or hand them a copy of Gauntlet With a Gift to tell them my story. I wanted them to know this snapshot of a sick woman getting treatmeant for some weird autoimmune disorder called PANDAS who came in with an unbearable headache didn’t explain me at all. This list of weird disorders called Chiari, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Dysautonomia, Mast Cell Activation Disorder and more were not ME.

After being “released” on Thursday I came home to sleep until my final pheresis treatment on Friday. Over the weekend I slowly began to steep myself back in truth. I kept thinking about the woman behind the curtain in the ER. I continued to think about my own identity in all this brokenness. Sunday morning I opened Paul David Tripp’s New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional to find this message in answer to my heartache.

Who in the world do you think you are? I’m serious. Who do you think you are? You and I are always assigning to ourselves some kind of identity. And the things that you and I do are shaped by the identity we have given ourselves. So it’s important to acknowledge God has not just forgiven you (and that is a wonderful thing), but he has also given you a brand-new identity. If you’re God’s child, you are now a son or daughter of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You are in the family of the Savior, who is your friend and brother, You are the temple where the Spirit of God now lives. Yes, it really is true–you’ve been given a radically new identity.

The problem, sadly, is that many of us live in a constant, or at least a rather regular, state of “identity amnesia.” We forget who we are, and when we do, we begin to give way to doubt, fear and timidity. Identity amnesia makes you feel poor when in fact you are rich. It makes you feel foolish when in fact you are in a personal relationship with the One who is wisdom. It makes you feel unable when in fact you have been blessed with strength. It makes you feel alone when in fact, since the Spirit lives inside of you, it is impossible for you to be alone. . .

So if you’re his child, ward off the fear that knocks on your door by remembering who God is and who you’ve become as his chosen child. And don’t just celebrate his grace; let it reshape the way you live today and the tomorrows that follow.

Our family photographer just sent me the files from an anniversary photo shoot of Dan and I from February 2011. The above picture of me is from that day. Danica was still in her Minerva brace and wheelchair. I had come through my hysterectomy in August, 2010 knowing I needed a bowel resection, but I was literally breathing the 24/7 care my Danica needed not realizing how each day was breaking me just a little bit more in every possible way. Since this photo I have had ten of my nineteen surgeries. My body resembles almost nothing I see there. I barely remember who that beautiful woman was, but I know who I am today.

I am more than flesh and bone.
I am a daughter of the King of Kings.
The Spirit of the living God resides in me.
I am not alone.
I will never be alone.

(I am done with my treatments and had my levels tested yesterday. I am waiting to hear if they are low enough to have my catheter removed. I will begin the chemo drug for six months to suppress the antibodies from returning in hopes this invasive treatment can be slowed or avoided altogether. Please pray for my body to respond well to the new drug and for it to work as anticipated without toxicity or drastic side effects. Please be in prayer for a trip to Maryland on April 29th. I will fly alone (there’s that word again) and have a tough day of a flexion and extension MRI and then late appointment with my neurosurgeon. I will stay the night and fly home the next day. Like always the financial aspects of my out of network treatments here and these trips burden us. The emotional and physical toll are an even greater weight. My instability from C4-6 or 7 is causing a great deal of pain. I am wearing my collar more and more and praying the removal of inflammation from the pheresis will help with my symptoms. Thank you to each one of you who has been praying for my family and I, making meals, sending letters and cards, and especially those who mailed care packages to the girls during their spring break with a sick mama in bed. You are God’s hands to us. Bless you. Our Hope remains!)

What in your life causes you to lose sight of your identity? What sign would you wear so others would really see you and know you? When you begin to feel alone what Scriptures or songs bring you back to the truth of who you are in Jesus Christ?

Photo by Grace Designs Photography

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Taking up My Cross in the Valley of Vision

by

Cross

When I was young I was completely infatuated with my dad’s library of Banner of Truth books. One of my favorite books he owned was The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. He has a beautiful leather bound copy now, and I own his tattered and worn copy published November 1, 1975, the month and year of my birth. The top, bottom and side pages are stamped with his name in elegant script. All his books were marked in this way. The Valley of Vision was my first introduction to prayer as poetry which has become a very important part of my spiritual walk. I now have an entire shelf of books that are written prayers. Many of my personal journal entries and very old blog posts end with my own heart cries. Even during the years I spent far from God I kept this book with me. Imagine the prodigal daughter moving from place to place with whatever I could fit in my powder blue, two door, 1992 Chevy Cavalier with dancing bears on the back windshield and a pack of Camels in the center console. In a milk crate of books on the passenger side, in between Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, was this touchstone of faith. After the Bible it is the single most influential book in my life.

On Ash Wednesday I began my Lenten journey by reading the prayer titled “The Grace of the Cross” from page 172. I copied it and put it in my Bible to pray through daily during these 40 days. Monday I didn’t look at it at all as I forced my way through the motions of devotions and prayer. Yesterday I didn’t even open my Bible. This morning, after my family left for work and school, I sat here in my nest chair with my coffee and reached for the photocopy sticking out of my Bible. I only had words of lament in my mind and heart, but I knew it was time for this prayer:

O MY SAVIOUR,

I thank thee from the depths of my being
for thy wondrous grace and love
in bearing my sin in thine own body on the tree.
May thy cross be to me
as the tree that sweetens my bitter Marahs,
as the rod that blossoms with life and beauty,
as the brazen serpent that calls forth
the look of faith.
By thy cross crucify my every sin;
Use it to increase my intimacy with thyself;
Make it the ground of all my comfort,
the liveliness of all my duties,
the sum of all thy gospel promises,
the comfort of all my afflictions,
the vigour of my love, thankfulness, graces,
the very essence of my religion;
And by it give me that rest without rest,
the rest of ceaseless praise.

O MY LORD AND SAVIOUR,

Thou hast also appointed a cross for me
to take up and carry,
a cross before thou givest me a crown.
Thou hast appointed it to be my portion,
but self-love hates it,
carnal reason is unreconciled to it;
without the grace of patience I cannot bear it,
walk with it, profit by it.
O blessed cross, what mercies dost thou bring with thee!
Thou art only esteemed hateful by my rebel will,
heavy because I shirk thy load.
Teach me, gracious Lord and Saviour,
that with my cross thou sendest promised grace
so that I may bear it patiently,
that my cross is thy yoke which is easy,
and thy burden which is light.

The past two days I have been buried in the self love and the carnal reason. I have turned my mind and heart away from the Grace that brings the patience to bear this pain, walk this pain and even profit from this pain again. Knowing what He suffered for me how can I shirk this load?

Today I am taking up my cross, my appointed portion in this life, and carrying it through His amazing love and sacrifice for me. This is easy. This is light. This is GRACE. This is the essence of my “religion.”

May I rest in ceaseless praise for the minutes, the hours, the days and even weeks God gave me a higher view, a healing view, a hopeful view of where I’d been living.

May I rest in ceaseless praise for this return to the “Valley of Vision.”

(If you’ve never heard Sovereign Grace’s album of songs taken from this book you must find time to download it and add it to your playlists. This is the beautiful song taken from the title prayer. It is on repeat today.)

Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.

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