Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands,31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.
34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels!She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged youof your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”
38 “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry.39 After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.
From this comes the Israelite tradition 40 that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. ~ Judges 11:29-40.
Why am I starting this blog? To talk about my own life, my own experiences. To maybe teach what I know. To hopefully reach people for Christ. But mostly to share.
Here is the terrible reality of my life. I thought I had everything settled. Things going well. I was at the local university feeling led to seek enrollment. I was literally there looking for the right department to go talk to them, asked to use the bathroom.
I peed red in the toilet.
Great, peeing blood. Well hopefully a minor inconvenience. I let the people I was freelancing for know I had to see the doc but thought this was easily fixed and back at it tomorrow! I was annoyed and no more.
Clinic couldn’t see me, told me to go to urgent care. That didn’t work out. Used their toilet, looked like I was menstruating. That scared me some and I showed them. They told me go straight to the ER.
I was a little scared but no stranger to ER’s. Popped over there, breezily told everyone likely kidney or UTI infection, antibiotics will fix all, I will be out after awhile.
ER concerned about the mass quantities of blood I was peeing bad enough to get me a room quickly in spite of it being pretty crowded. But they also thought UTI, a doc even said so. Labs will tell, but they and I expected the outcome to be massive antibiotics, go home.
Labs were late. When they were finally done, doc comes in with a funny look on her face. They did NOT find an infection and they expected to. They DID find that the substance turning my pee sample the color of your favorite red wine WAS blood.
All of a sudden it was much more serious. You are peeing lots of blood and we don’t know why.
That is when I kinda got scared.
She said a CT scan was needed. I am like OK and feel much less confident about a good outcome.
Then the tech comes up to do vitals. She says, is your heart rate always slow.
I look and see 40, BP 145/91. I then advocated vehemently for myself seeing this is not gonna just happen. I say no, 40 is too low, 40 is bad bad bad.
She says, but you are calm. I said no, my BP is elevated this means stress. Heart rate should be also elevated but is low. This is bad. And I demanded she go tell the nurses.
I could say why did I have to instruct the tech how to do her job, but I did. This is why always advocate for yourself; health professionals ARE fallible!
Nurse comes in and vitals machine goes literally nuts. Heart rate dips into the 30’s, then jumps into 100’s. BP 177/100. Sine wave looks like the Rocky Mountains; it is an electronic mess.
The machine wasn’t the problem, unfortunately. It was making accurate readings. That was my heart.
Situation very serious so they moved me into another room where the monitors kept screaming. I found out later the one making the most noise was the arrythmia monitor.
Very tired and out of it, feel drugged, hands cold, they put me on oxygen.
I concluded maybe I was gonna die right there and prepared accordingly. Obviously didn’t.
Doc came in, told me about all these kidney stones, unhooks me, sends me home!
That I didn’t get. Then I found out the hospital was full and they were only admitting the worst cases.
So I follow up two days later. Trying to get appointments with a cardiologist and urologist. At first get standard appointments. Then say what is up with both departments, tell them what happened at the ER. Both panic and give me next day appointments.
Pop back up to Urology as they have scheduled within an hour of each other. Say, I feel lightheaded and dizzy. One says do you have chest pain. I say yes.
They bring out vitals machine. Results are bad and getting used to this. They call 911.
I joke with ambulance drivers. One asks, as we pass the cafe, if I want a coffee. I say yes, a six shot venti mocha. I assume you’re buying.
They wheel me in. I notice they turned on the sirens. Inside it is all business. Medic attempts IV, blows vein. They try on the other side, same result.
Get me in, they put me in triage. They pretty quickly realize things are bad bad bad and get me to a room fast.
This time they did a chest xray and put me on a heart monitor right away. Same results as other day: really out of it, feel drugged, monitors screaming. I lay there for hours unable to move pretty much.
Periodically people come in and do stuff. A doc asked if I lost consciousness. I said no but very close.
They do tests to rule out heart attack, pulmonary embolism, do basic treatment in case I had one. Then I hear they are admitting me.
It is a bad bad feeling to know you are being admitted to a full hospital turning everyone away they can get away with, that sent you home the other day but now keeping you.
I go upstairs eventually after letting people know what is up.
After a long process, and many pokes (thank the Lord I have no fear of needles) they decide hypothyroidism, put me on thyroid medication, send me home. Fortunately with a cardiology referral.
I also ended up in a medical research study.
But while I was there, speaking with a friend who enlightened me to the reality of the situation.
He said, where is everyone? He says you left all this information where you were. One person picked up the phone and called. You are alone.
And he went on to point out I really didn’t have anyone at all in my life, and realized he was right.
He said, where are your visitors? Calls? Who is taking care of you? No one. No one ever does. You have to get professionals to do it as no one else will.
He didn’t understand how I could be a kind cool amazing person, a lover and a giver, someone people were inspired by, and NO ONE would help me.
I listened and decided I would call the chaplain.
I thought about what my friend said. The chaplain came, was pleasant, then listened and I watched the blood drain from his face.
I said, there was a person in another room who had a lot of problems managing life. That person still had a family as that is who they talked about.
I said I turned to mine for help, and instead they plotted all this evil against me and I had to cut them all off. Why don’t I get to have a family like everyone else? I explained how horribly abusive my childhood was.
I went and talked about the local church/shelter I stayed in, how there were shenanigans with the pastor and I came against the evil there.
This place is Hotel California. You can never leave. If you even visit, shake the demons off your car. Your soul likely safer in a coven of witches.
The lowliest most messed up drug addict is welcome, and they will bombard you to get you back if you leave. I alone am unwelcome.
I never got the texts and calls. I asked to go to church and got $5 gas money please.
I ran into someone recently who completed their program. He didn’t talk about Jesus, had moved back in with druggie ex he went there to escape. He lied to me and pressured me to do stuff.
When it became clear he intended to bag me for a place to live and sex, I cut contact. Product of program a much bigger dirtbag than when he went there in the first place, and doing worse too.
He isn’t the only one; stories get around. Haha he still attends that crappy place too.
I talked briefly about fled for my life from abusive ex husband, how that was a 20 year marriage.
I talked about the ministry friends who for some reason didn’t minister to ME. They would accept my help but not return the favor.
I said this is literally their job, what their life is all about. They will talk to some miserable alcoholic on the skids but not me. They will help them, but not me.
I said I am a kind caring giving person. I serve the Lord. Why am I alone?
The chaplain’s face was white and he was still. He said, I don’t know. He talked about King David and he talked about me as a fellow minister and servant of the Lord. But he didn’t know.
I asked him to pray with me. I am accustomed to people being unable to deal with the reality of my life.
Just like needles. So many needles, no longer react unless it is particularly painful, then only a little.
And the Lord gave me a word. He talked about the place the Bible keeps opening to about the priests of Israel not being given possessions as the Lord was their possession. No portion with the world. The Lord their portion.
He made me to understand He had reserved me for Himself and so I was alone.
Oh. This made me feel a bit better. I thanked him. Back to helping others.
Got out of the hospital. Went to the urologist. Discovered I have to have surgery. Doc cannot figure out why I am not in excruciating pain, there is no explanation.
I have three kidney stones so large they require surgery. They are what is causing the buckets of blood. I talk about blood loss so he pulls up those numbers.
Numbers do show significant blood loss but not too bad he says, you don’t need a transfusion. I am not reassured.
I ask what kind of anesthesia and he says general, so I realize this is a major procedure.
He too invites me to study so now in two research studies. Being medically interesting isn’t desirable.
Go to pizza place. Think about the belly full of diverticula, how the CT scan says they are in duodenum and colon both and someone will have to treat that. That will have to wait.
Go over paperwork and notice the chest xray says I have a 7 mm nodule in a lung, please get a CT scan done, thanks.
Come home. Jesus has removed the pain, like utterly removed the kidney stone pain so I am not incapacitated.
As there is no one who will take care of me, He performs miracles like that. Because no one here will help unless paid to do so.
People are like yay you’re back and it goes back to Seren do. What can you do for me, how can you help me. They like barely acknowledge anything I have been through or how I might feel.
I tell one person what I have concluded about all these results and she agrees. She was the person who picked up the phone and called the hospital. The single phone call I got asking how I was.
My other friend knows, and as they are literally the only people besides Jesus with my best interests at heart, telling them only what my plans are. Bitter? You bet.
I need someone to stay with me for surgery. Probably will hit up the clinic and ask if they can help. I did say I had no one.
My friend said you are only 50.5, you look 30, but you have the body of a 90 year old. People abused you, used you, rejected you for years and years.
You survived it. Your body was literally cursed by every abusive, unkind act, word and deed. Every neglect. So now very ill as a result.
He concluded despite his own misspent life even he has friends who will help him and do stuff for him. He was really upset, went to the Lord. Why Seren? Why does Seren have no one although she has lived a virtuous life and helped so many people?
And what came back was the story of Jephthah’s daughter. The consecrated sacrifice to the Lord, basically. The person reserved for the Lord alone.
This story is, to me, about do not be stupid and swear vows. Sometimes you have to (weddings and taking office, for example), but in general don’t.
The guy made a rash agreement with the Lord. The Lord did His part and then demanded his daughter’s life.
He didn’t mean that. He meant an animal. Not his daughter, his only child.
But he had to keep his word as the Lord kept His. His daughter agreed, asked for two months to bewail her fate. Then came back “and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed.”
He had offered a burnt offering. The Bible is delicate. But afterwards they mourned her yearly, so thinking that happened although no one totally sure.
Jephthah’s daughter had a whole life planned and instead ended up on an altar because Dad was an idiot.
This honestly sums up my life pretty well. And not the Heavenly Father did this to me. People did it. Just like the story.
The Lord spent my life rescuing me from people basically. Performing miracles, intervening directly when necessary because He asked people to help but they refused Him.
That I am somehow consecrated to Him like Jephthah’s daughter, like Samuel, this is clear. So He took me away from everyone and reserved me for Himself.
I am dying. I have had hypothyroidism a long time and it never caused major heart issues. Major kidney stone issues requiring surgery. Diverticula throughout the whole digestive tract. A nodule in a lung. Really???
This is seen in really old people and is recognized what is going on. As I am 50 all in denial.
Each specialist will probably treat their own little body part and not see the systemic collapse in progress.
My friend encouraging me to make plans so I don’t just die and then they eventually find my decomposing body when someone finally notices it has been awhile since I checked in.
What will happen with this post is maybe some people may feel bad, but this will be short lived and they will go back to whatever they were doing. It literally always is this way.
I heard I am probably a scam don’t get involved. This is super typical. Don’t get involved is how 99% of people live.
I will make my own arrangements as no one else will.
Jephthah's Daughter 