We must be active in our pursuit of freedom. God delivered me from vestibular migraine, but I had to do my part too. Today’s Sermon “Great Escape from Vestibular Migraine” was preached by Pastor Pamela on Sunday 11th June 2023.
Sermon Transcript
Could we have that first picture please?
An online article by Allison Troutner called Great Escapes remarks –
“When a fisherman off the gulf of Texas spied a puff of light pink feathers perched on one leg, he couldn’t believe his eyes. As the bird unfurled itself it was clear: It was a flamingo. Flamingos are not native to Texas, nor is Texas anywhere on a flamingo’s normal migratory path. After tweeting a video of the bird, Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed that it was Pink Floyd, a flamingo who escaped a Kansas zoo in 2005. For 17 years, Pink Floyd has traveled through Texas, Arkansas, Wisconsin and Louisiana as, well, a free bird!
Pink Floyd might be one of the longest living animal escapees around today, but he certainly isn’t the only great animal escapee we’ve ever seen. Dozens of animals have broken free of their zoos, research labs and even slaughterhouses, showcasing amazing creature intelligence and opportunism.
Please show the next picture
In 2017, six steers in St. Louis were sent to a slaughterhouse, but they had other plans. Led by a huge steer named Chico, six of them busted out, supposedly agitated by the rumblings of an approaching thunderstorm. Likely scared by their freedom — and the ruckus they’d caused — they ran through the streets of St. Louis for hours. They evaded everybody and captured the attention of the media, animal lovers and the local community.
Authorities eventually rounded the crew up, but by then the public had also begun a campaign for their freedom. After several attempts from rescue organizations to negotiate with the slaughterhouse failed, The Gentle Barn stepped in.
Founders Ellie Laks and Jay Weiner had 24 hours to find them a new home. And that they did. The six cows were sent to a rescue until enough funds could be raised to build a new facility in Missouri especially for them.
Though one bull, Spirit, had to be euthanized, the other five now happily live as therapy cows at the third Gentle Barn location, just a short drive from the slaughterhouse where they escaped.
And the next picture please 😊
Meet Ken Allen.
Ken Allen was San Diego Zoo’s beloved orangutan who also had a penchant for busting out. He first escaped his home at the San Diego Zoo in 1985, scaling a wall and strolling down the zoo’s pedestrian pathway, taking in the sights before being walked back to his enclosure (which wasn’t so ‘enclosed’). Zoo staff increased the height of the wall by 1.2 meters, but that didn’t stop Ken. The great ape — and even some of his ape friends — escaped an additional nine times!
Ken Allen had a history of Houdini-ing his way out of his enclosures and was known to use tools to do it. One time he and his roomy, Vicki, used a discarded crowbar he found in his pen to open a window. He also was known to unscrew the bolts of his nursery at night when he was young, and then he’d put the pen back together before his caretakers arrived again the following morning. After several escapes, the zoo tried electric wire and even distracted him by adding two female orangutans to his enclosure. Nothing worked. Eventually, even his female counterparts, Jane and Kumang, caught the escape bug and made their getaway using a window squeegee. Ken Allen died from cancer in 2000 at 29 years old but not before becoming a local hero escapee.
There’s something about stories of busting out/being set free/great escapes that we all love to hear about.
And the Bible is full of its own great escape stories!
What about Lazarus, responding to the call of Jesus, escaping from a tomb of death all wrapped up like a mummy.
What about Paul and Silas whose worship literally made the jailhouse they were shackled in rock! Which resulted in their ultimate freedom.
What about Jesus who was resurrected from the dead walking right out of that burial chamber that was guarded by Roman soldiers!
All these amazing accounts are truly inspirational and the latter, of course, is why we’re all here today over 2000 years later. Jesus defeated death and purchased our own eternal freedom. Hallelujah!! And because of this, I’ve experienced THE greatest escape ever!
I’ve escaped the penalty of my sin which is death and hell.
But there’s another great escape account in the Bible that warrants our attention today. This account was read earlier on in our service.
It is the account of the apostle Peter in Acts 12.
Very early in the history of the church
the wicked King Herod Agrippa began to persecute Christians. He already had the apostle James killed with a sword and when he saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he arrested the apostle Peter. Placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each.
But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed earnestly for him. They obviously didn’t want him to be put to death the same as had been done to James.
So, the night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. The others stood guard at the prison gate.
Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel struck Peter on the side to wake him up saying, “Quick! Get up!” At this the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
Then the angel said, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did.
And then the angel ordered “Now put on your coat and follow me!”
So, Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t realize it was actually happening. They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. They passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him.
Finally, Peter came to his senses to realize that everything he was experiencing was real. Which would’ve been quite a shock!
Oooo wah I’ve just broken out of prison!
When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, where many were gathered for prayer.
And of course, you know the rest of the story which is quite humorous when the overjoyed servant girl leaves Peter standing at the unopened front door. And when she tells the praying church about the fact that Peter is standing at the door they don’t believe her even though they’ve been praying for his release! I love it!
But there’s something that really hit me this week about this great escape account that I have read many times and yet have only just come to realize.
And that is, Peter, in this amazing miraculous escape to freedom, was expected to DO HIS PART, he was expected to be active in his escape.
Let me explain, the early church was fervently praying for Peter when they heard that Peter had been arrested. They didn’t want to lose him for many many good reasons. Apart from the fact that they loved him, they needed him! He was strategic in the planting of the early church. As James had been. Peter had been a disciple of Jesus. Miracles happened at the hand of Peter.
The early church had enormous satanic opposition. The spiritual powers of darkness wanted Peter dead. And that’s why he was about to stand trial and follow in the same footsteps of the apostle James. Satan wanted to quash the church as quickly as possible.
But, because the church was praying God was able to work a miracle. You want to see miracles? PRAY HIS GOOD WILL!
Okay, so God responds to the prayer by sending an angel to deliver Peter.
That’s a pretty big response! God Almighty sends His own angel to deliver Peter.
Now the angel could quite as easily have lifted Peter while Peter was sleeping, and gently flown him out of that prison to safety.
True? Peter could’ve slept through the whole thing while the angel did the work.
But that didn’t happen.
The first thing the angel did was to strike Peter to wake him up. WHACK! OUCH!!
Peter woke up! He had to. The angel made sure of it. The angel wanted him to awake.
Then the angel said, “Quick, get up!!!”
Peter did exactly as he was told and in doing so, his chains fell off. (If he hadn’t got up, maybe his chains wouldn’t have fallen off.)
Then the angel said, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.”
Peter got dressed and put on his sandals.
Then the angel ordered (the bible says, “ordered”), “Now put on your coat and follow me!”
Peter put on his coat, left the cell, following the angel. Peter passed the first and second guard posts and then went through the iron gate leading to the city, that opened all by itself, after which he started walking down the street following the angel.
There was a lot of activity on behalf of Peter for his great escape to take place.
The conclusion I make from this…?
As Christians, we play a part in our freedom!
We play a part in our freedom!
God is no different today.
I am a Christian.
I believe in Galatians 5:1 where it says,
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free…”
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free…”
Jesus hasn’t set us free to be slaves to sin.
He’s set us free to be FREE!
But because we live in a world that is in the grip of evil (1John 5:19), we must actively play a part in staying free.
Now it won’t be like this in heaven, but it’s like it while we live on earth.
As we navigate life, Satanic powers will present many many occasions for us to become enslaved once again. But we must be active in our continual pursuit of freedom. To live as God intends us to live.
FREE
And this is where I come to share my own personal great escape miracle which has happened recently, and I really needed this miracle to happen. I was desperate.
It was exactly 5 years ago that I became a prisoner of vestibular migraine.
When it first hit. I had absolutely no idea of what was going on and neither did the doctors. I quit driving for 3 months. I went to numerous doctors; I went to numerous physio therapists (and I endured some unpleasant treatment); I even went to see a chiropractor. Until finally, I sat in a neurologist’s office, and after much testing (including MRIs), I was diagnosed as having vestibular migraine.
This constant migraine I experienced not only was accompanied by constant severe headaches, neckache and backache but it also gave me extreme nauseousness and dizziness which was made worse by bright lights, noises and smells. And it challenged me on all levels.
Sunday morning church was my biggest challenge. Any kind of excitement, whether happy or sad, incited a severe migraine reaction that took a whole week to get over. My ministry, my calling became my biggest challenge in life.
Every Sunday afternoon I would go home in extreme pain unable to do anything but lie in the lounge. And come Monday morning, when I had to write the next sermon, I would be wanting to throw up as I battled to keep my eyes fixed on the computer screen.
I originally thought the problem was the tumor wrapped around my vestibular nerve, but it wasn’t. Several brain surgeons had told me it wasn’t. It was something completely different. In my aging brain, I had developed vestibular migraine. And it seemed, by all accounts, there was very little I could do about it other than try some drugs.
Now remember, I was praying with pastor Vicki throughout this whole season. We were praying for no less than total healing because I do not believe for one minute that this affliction was the will of God for me. So, if something is happening to me that I believe is against His will. I will fight it, and I will live according to His will regardless of how I am feeling.
But oh man, it was hard. It was very hard.
Two years ago, I was offered a drug by the vestibular neurologist. It was supposed to be the queen of all drugs for vestibular migraine and for the first 11 months of taking the drug it was lovely. The pain in my neck disappeared, the headaches dropped by about 70 percent and the dizziness was minimal. But unfortunately, like most drugs, it wore off and I had to take more to get the same results (which wasn’t good because this drug was highly addictive).
At the beginning of this year, I told the neurologist that the drug was becoming less and less effective and I didn’t want to lift the dose and neither did he so, he decided it was time to try a new drug. The orders were to stay on the old drug while I began the new drug. But this new drug was a little scary because the side effects were not good. He said that there was a very strong possibility that I would begin to forget words, even if the word was written down in front of me my brain could go totally blank and not be able to speak it out.
Well, that’s not good for a pastor who preaches the word of God is it?
Never-the-less, I started to take the drug, but I felt the Holy Spirit within me resist it. Spiritually I wasn’t comfortable in taking it. The drug, very quickly, started to make me feel more nauseous than I already was, and my eyesight became blurry, and the headaches got worse. I was not at peace with what I was doing.
So, after a week of taking this horrible drug, the Holy Spirit led me (by my spiritual hand) to do a little research on this drug. And I found out that this drug was prescribed for people suffering from either migraine or epileptic fits.
I could remember the neurologist saying that migraine and epilepsy had similarities in that both afflictions had overshooting neurons in the brain (one resulting in pain and dizziness, the other resulting in convulsions). This new medication altered the communication of neurons in the brain. (That’s why you could find yourself forgetting words when you’re on this drug because the neurons may stop firing between themselves.)
So (with the prompting of the Holy Spirit) I began to do a little research on epilepsy. And it turns out that early last century, a wonderful doctor, who was helping children who suffered from epilepsy, heard stories from spiritual epileptic people which mentioned that God is happy when they fast because the convulsions become less frequent and even stop.
Well, this doctor took note of these anecdotes and decided to check it out. He put some of his patients on short term fasts and noticed that their fits stopped or at the least became less frequent.
But the trouble is you can’t continually put children on fasts because they would starve. So, he came up with a healthy diet that mimicked fasting.
This doctor for the purpose of helping epileptic children came up with a healthy diet that mimicked fasting.
And this diet was called the ketogenic diet. On the ketogenic diet carbohydrates are not your source of fuel, fats become your source of fuel and as a result, your brain runs on ketones for energy not glucose. It turns out that the brain runs much more efficiently, when you’re old like me, on ketones.
When I read all about this new healthy way of eating I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to get rid of the drugs and change the way I eat. So, I stopped taking the new mind-altering drug (offered by the neurologist) and I started eating a ketogenic diet.
Within 10 days my great escape began.
It was a Saturday morning (8 weeks ago), in the middle of cardio exercise, when suddenly the fog in my brain lifted and I experienced a euphoric moment of joyfulness. It was almost manic joyfulness.
And I felt God was telling me my journey of healing had begun, my great escape was happening.
I was so excited that I told Luke, and my family, that the ketogenic diet was working for me because something miraculous was happening in my brain.
A week later, I decided to come off the old heavy drug I’d been on for the last 18 months. This was a big deal because I knew I was about to face some serious side effects which could put me right back to square one with vestibular migraine.
But I felt the Holy Spirit say “No, come on Pamela, we’ve got this, we’re escaping this migraine, we’re getting rid of it”.
So, I went cold turkey – I cut the drug. It was an emotional week. I cried all the way through my sermon writing that week 😊
But by the end of the week, I was off all major drugs for vestibular migraine. Headaches were greatly diminishing, neck and back aches had gone, dizziness was dispersing.
Since then, each week I have felt better and better. Just in this last week, including last Sunday (the day of excitement), I have NOT taken one Panadol or Neurofen for pain or dizziness. This is the first time I’ve gone this length of time without panadol in over five years. I lived on Panadol for pain management but I’m not anymore.
I was even able to write this very sermon in almost one sitting. That was impossible with a vestibular migraine.
The truth of the matter is that –
I’ve been set free.
My great escape has been a success.
The Holy Spirit led me by my hand to freedom in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah!
Galatians 5:1 The Message
Jesus has set us free to live a free life. So, take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
That sounds pretty pro-active on our part doesn’t it?
Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you!