I am bursting at the seams with things to share with you this week, but I’m not sewing a patch on my old wineskin.

I never really understood that passage, but I’ve found it in my file cabinet brain, and it seems to fit this situation (eye-rolling emoji).

Telling my jumbled thoughts to submit the best of what to say this time is difficult, not the good (like Martha) but the best (like Mary). My friend, Tina Parks, told me once sin to her is not doing the best but rather doing what is only good. What is the Lord’s best for you and me this column? Hopefully, and with great effort, my effort to obey Jesus will shine through.

I hear Dolly Parton singing that song "Here You Come Again" … just when I was about to get myself together, you waltz right in the door, just like you’ve done before. (Find the rest of the lyrics if you want. I need to stay under 10,000 words). The you in friend Dolly’s song for me is the enemy/enemies of my very soul fear, doubt, compromise. Oh, did I say fear?

Tiny electrical lesson: Layers of a cord

1. Outer layer – protective

2. Inner layer – actual conduction of current

Tiny multiple sclerosis lesson: Definition

1. M – multiple

2. S – sclerosis/scabs

Tiny anatomy lesson

1. Human body is electrical

*pathways

*itty-bitty sparking things carrying messages called neurons

Over the past two weeks, I have turned on the garbage disposal in my body, and the oven light has come on. I’ve opened my garage door. The computer updated.

When I push the accelerator, guess who rings the doorbell? Mr. Sandman, but I must tell you I went to answer the doorbell from my pantry. I tried to focus my blurring eyes on something only to find out my glasses were in my bra (honestly, really).

I’ve attempted to speak, and my hands have scratched my ear only to find out I cannot remember what I was trying to say. Being persistent, I tried to boil pasta. Waiting, waiting, waiting, checking the pot for bubbles, and my toilet is flushing. Emergency! I am misfiring all over the place, literally all over the place.

When MS flares/relapses/rears its ugly head, the protective covering of my electrical pathways is being relentlessly chewed up in response to my immune system, which thinks said covering is an attacking enemy with cannons.

Leaving in the wake of their feeding frenzy, bare wire and lost neurons just going nuts trying like me to find out what on earth is happening and what am I supposed to be doing about it. So these little sparking neurons just randomly do whatever they desire, whenever they want and how is the funniest way to accomplish what they want to do but forgot to do, so they just do something/anything.

My cord is frayed somewhere on my spine, in my shrinking brain or maybe on my optic nerve. Who can only know but God and my friendly Schneck MRI technician.

My neurons are running around aimlessly to make something work, somewhere, somehow, any time they think they are supposed to be doing something anything. This means I cannot walk. I can’t focus. I can’t eat easily without choking. I can’t find my words when I speak even if I did remember what I am desperately trying to say.

Honestly, that last fact is arbitrary because I have probably already forgotten what I was talking about. Yep, such are the tales of PegiPooh, self-isolated, fragile and scared.

I read this morning from my friend, Jennifer Mathis, a quote by my heroine, Corrie ten Boom, “Keep looking up and kneeling down.” I’ve not been looking up much, and I certainly haven’t knelt down as I should.

Why God? Such a common question of children, I pretty much know why already even though my heart asks. The reason is that he would be glorified so others will see reliance on the captain of the sinking ship of humanity and that he is the only way, the only truth, the only life to save us from an eternity without walking with him in the cool the evening.

Max Lucado wrote in "It’s Not About You" that God is not on some sort of odd power trip by wanting to be glorified all of the time.

On the contrary, he wants us to glorify him so others will see Jesus, the father’s only son. Isaiah 53 is really good at explaining this. I had a friend who was always praying word for word Isaiah 53:5, “ … the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.”

John 14:27 reads, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart by troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Good enough for me. What about you?

As I tidy up this draft, my granddaughter, Alejandra, giggles behind me while I the read silly mistakes from my misfiring fingers. Her innocent laughter reminds me of Proverbs 17:22, “A merry heart does good like a medicine…”

So I’ll just keep taking one moment at a time, one clumsy step at a time and one giggle over a pill every time in the hopes I won’t laugh too hard my toilet flushes.

Pegi Bricker is a Seymour resident who has lived with multiple sclerosis for the past 18 years. Send comments to [email protected].