Tag Archives: pain

“Flood – Unanswered Prayers and Ongoing Tears” Op-Ed

By Tonja Condray Klein©03/21/2025

Mom Vada was two months from being 93 years old when she died in 2024. We had a cancer scare in 2018 when she had to have two different types of skin cancer places removed from her nose and ear. The ear cancer type came back on her neck a couple years later. Then Covid-19 battered us and surgery to remove cancerous mass that led to Mom Vada having a mini-stroke. In 2021 I lost my Sister-artist friend then my record producer Christian Brother too from Covid-19 complications five months later. Then the mass came back on Mom Vada, and she had radiation treatments in 2023. Ken had to go into hospital in ending of 2023 and his liver disease took a turn that lead him into being in hospital for ammonia altered mental state at the same time that Mom Vada fell and was taken to hospital too. Mom Vada passed 02/27/2024.

Ken was in the hospital up until time for her funeral, but after that he was back again for a total of five times. It’s been a very tough road for the last seven years. I have posted opinion editorials throughout all this time to offer hope and love to people and help me try to heal too. Mom Vada is in Heaven with those that have gone before her. Ken is now on a treatment that has helped him to remain at home working at a job he loves and wants to keep doing even if in another role should the opportunity arise. I keep reading all the books I can. Whether for research on my books I’m planning, or just to escape from everyday life, it has been my talisman against losing my mind as I was going through menopause at this time too. I’m being open, honest, and possibly stark, but I wanted to make this as realistically shared for a purpose for some.

I have part of my Mom Vada’s things I still need to sort to determine whether to box for storage or keep in living room. We have had to order in food and supplies online since our car still needs a new tire so our car can’t be driven. We have that being planned too with help from neighbors and friends. I’ve been sick for weeks now on and off, and Ken has too, so the boxes waiting to be used or broken down for trash are now stacked in our living room on top of everything to the ceiling. I’ve barely been able to get our shipments inside since I have to get dressed and try to help delivery drivers with stuff we have to have to live. I’m sick now but saw main doctor for the check-up that became a “Please help me, Doctor! I’m sick, I’m trying to stop grieving since Mom is in Heaven, and I need right medicine so I can go forward!”

Ken and I are still trying to put our home life back together. We had Mom Vada as part of our life every single day, so this readjustment has been hard on both of us since we can barely do what we HAVE TO DO for us TO JUST LIVE. I want to do more than JUST LIVE. I don’t know what the lesson for me to learn in all of this is, but I do know Jesus Christ is Lord and God Almighty is still on His Throne! I’m just tired, sick, and weary. I feel like David when he spoke about the water and mud like in song “Flood” by the group ‘Jars of Clay’ that the David Bible passage inspired. “Rain, rain on my face. Hasn’t stopped raining for days. My world is a flood. Slowly I become one with the mud. But if I can’t swim after forty days and my mind is crushed by crashing waves, lift me up so high that I cannot fall, lift me up!”

This is where I AM NOW. RIGHT THERE! I read to get away. I ignore everything but bringing in the food and getting out the trash. Crashing waves… no. BOXES, YES! “Lift me up, when I’m falling. Lift me up, I’m weak and I’m dying. Lift me up! I need You to hold me. Lift me up, and keep me from drowning again!” This is my ongoing plea. I’ve been a Christian believer in Jesus Christ as Personal Savior since I was eight years old and with Gifts of the Holy Spirit since I was thirteen. “Downpour on my soul, splashing in the ocean I’m losing control. Dark sky all around, can’t feel my feet touching the ground. But if I can’t swim after forty days and my mind is crushed by the crashing waves, Lift me up so high that I cannot fall, life me up!” Have you been there too? Are you there right now? WE ALL HAVE HOPE…JESUS!

“Lift me up, when I’m falling. Lift me up, I’m weak and I’m dying. Lift me up! I need You to hold me. Lift me up, and keep me from drowning again. Calm the storms that drench my eyes and dry the streams still flowing. Casting down all waves of sin and guilt that overflow me! If I can’t swim after forty days and my mind is crushed by the crashing waves, life me up so high that I cannot fall. Lift me up! Lift me up, when I’m falling. Lift me up! I’m weak and I’m dying. Lift me up! I need You to hold me. Lift me up, and keep me from drowning again!” I have known this personally for the past seven years! This struggle is real. Even a Spirit-filled Christ-believer for almost 47 years can GET HERE AGAIN. I’m not looking sympathy or pity. I’m trying to reach out with TRUTH for those who are going through stuff like this.

One of the most aggravating things I have endured at various churches are those that refuse to share their scars and act holier-than-thou when they could be a ministering messenger to those who need to SEE how someone gets FREE from SIN, HATE, MISERY, SUFFERING, DISPAIR, ADDICTIONS, LONELINESS, and LOSS by the Grace of God Almighty through Faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and the restoration of your soul by the Holy Spirit of God! This is an ongoing mending, healing, changing, reconstructing, and resurrecting of each person who will LET HIM DO IT! I have been dealing with the flood, but I am blessed to also have the Holy Spirit of God Almighty by Faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior, Lord, King, Messiah, and God Almighty the Creator! JESUS ALWAYS DOES LIFT ME UP JUST IN TIME!

So what does all this mean? What was the purpose of my writing all this? Why in the world would I share this tale of loss, sickness, despair, failure, inability to go forward, unable to ever go back, and plans that only be one day at a time? YOU ARE NOT ALONE. That’s why. I wanted to express my overpowering pain of being overwhelmed by all of that is still happening every single day because I AM STUCK IN THE MUD! I’m slowly emerging, swiping layer by layer away as I try to get my bearings and find my feet able to hold the weight of my failure to forgive myself and try to let God use me for HIS purposes. This song has been an ongoing help to me as a reminder that even David felt helpless at times. You can see the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfAhpX_wIBk and get it on iTunes like I did for my iPhone.

Ken did get an Uber to pick me up at 3:20pm for my 4pm appointment this past Monday. I was reading Christian Historical Romance set in 1890’s Wisconsin with fishing and railroad tracks being laid back then with the main male and female characters being entangled in more than one tragedy while they try to find love with the will of God Almighty in the midst of the machinations of business, revenge, and the Saving Power of Jesus Christ in spite of the wrong paths and pitfalls that happen. Check it out since I found my next author to read since I’m on Book 3 now! It’s awesome history, romance, intrigue, and Faith that we need now more than ever in these times! Link is below for you to get on Amazon. I know the books by Kathryn Springer, Linda Goodnight, Brenda Minton, Irene Hannon, and now Tracie Peterson do all help!

“Truth from a Real RRMS Survivor” – 11/23/20

By Tonja Condray Klein

I was diagnosed with Multiple Scleroses in 2004 after having a Grand Mal seizure. Migraine headaches happened the summer before the seizure, and some neurologists say it’s a continuum with neurological disorders. It was a sign that I didn’t know could mean something else was wrong. I’d dealt with allergies and respiratory infections since a child, so I’d taken medication for that all of my life. After several tests I was put on a MS medication, but I took it for only a year, I’m the kind of patient who researches any medicine I take to make sure it’s the best for whatever condition I have. Symptoms listed on reputable sites for regular MS didn’t match what I was experiencing, so I gradually stopped the MS medication in 2005. I still had allergies, respiratory infections, and viruses, but no symptoms like before and no seizures.

For seven years I went without any MS medications and didn’t seem to have any symptoms. Even the migraines never happened again. Then in 2012 I had two Grand Mal seizures the same day separated by hours and two trips to the hospital, where they kept me after the second seizure. I was diagnosed with Relapsing-Remitting Multiples Scleroses – RRMS – by a different Neurologist who became my new one until he retired in 2020. After I was placed on a different MS medication, I went without any problem for three years, so it had seemed I’d finally been placed on correct treatment. The MS went into remission until 2015 when the medicine injection developed a painful red rash. I went to the ER, but they said it was muscles spasms and sent me home with pain medicine. The ER doctor didn’t even check the site.

When the injection site got worse, I went to my primary care physician and she saw it was cellulitis, a dangerous situation for anyone with MS. She sent me immediately to the hospital with her referral and demand for proper care. I was there for a few days on pain medicine as they began antibiotics. They sent me home with antibiotics, but after the course at home the cellulitis again began to be so painful I was screaming and couldn’t walk. My supportive husband who is an amazing hospital IT Technician took me to the ER for the third time. Once they did extractions of the tissue in that thigh area, it turned out to be a flesh-eating infection. They began another round of antibiotics, but that wasn’t working so the physician who was a surgeon for this type of condition decided to do surgery to remove that part of my thigh.

17cm wide x 9cm high x 2cm deep was my mantra for the months after the surgery. I had to allow a nurse to then come to our place to change the dressing for my open wound that my husband and I had to change between her visits. If a catastrophe would happen in Dayton, Ohio then I would be well prepared to change wounds of anyone affected now. The fact that I had to change the bandages for the wound my husband had after surgery for a different infection also prepared me for the road to recovery of my own. What nothing prepared me for was the emotional trauma of it all, the feeling of a helplessness that I hadn’t felt as strong as I did through this. Let me try to explain. “I” am the “Go-To Girl” in my family. Though I’ve always been sickly I’ve been positive. This brought me to my knees to make me question all I believed.

Even while in the hospital I was part of a launch team for a fellow author releasing his new Christian Fantasy Novel that I texted positive responses as support. I also found out that my original song “Dancin’ on the Wind” that I wrote and sang as a recorded single was number 7 in the Fan Favorites 2015 countdown for the Sounds of the Valley radio program on local station WGNZ! In the midst of this mayhem, God Almighty was still using my music to bless others. It was humbling as I lay in the hospital bed, and I was so thankful for the blessings and talents my Creator has given to me, but I was still fighting for my life then and continued to after I got home to recover. Recovery was the dragging months of personal, mental, physical, and spiritual battles that I never would have won on my own.

While I had been in the hospital before my surgery, I had a couple of really bad moments of telling myself that I was failing because my body was weak and I couldn’t ever be what I was supposed to be as a Christian singer, songwriter, and novelist. In tears, I’d sat there one night berating myself over opportunities I had wasted and what was happening was my punishment for that failure. It was then when God Almighty, my Savior Jesus Christ had His Holy Spirit to remind me who I am by putting my own song that I’d written back in the 1980’s and released as a single in 2015 “My Captain” in my memory. My own words spoke comfort to me, and how do you deny a message that you knew was true that many decades ago? You can’t. You can try, but it will ring in your heart as the bell of victory over the lies of disease and destruction.

The moments of tears, frustration, anger, depression, uselessness, weakness, and fear can make you wish you could leave this world to be with God and those who have joined Him through Faith in Jesus already. It is such a hard temptation to resist when you know it would be so easy to give up and let the MS render you without any ability to be bothered to be used ever again. It would be so easy at times to lie down, take more pain medicine than you need, and to simply let go. It would be, but it isn’t supposed to be. Do you know why? Even if you end up in a wheelchair once you lose the ability to walk, if you can talk then you can encourage someone else. Even if you can’t see anymore, you can become a storyteller in ways you’d never imagined. “Even if” by MercyMe has meaning then and even now.

Am I always so positive? I already told that I’m not. Do I always see a way out of the moments of aggravation from not being able to do what I want or need to do but can’t because this disease stops me? No, I lose my temper, say or write things I have to ask God for forgiveness for, and try to remember that every breath I breathe is a gift from Heaven since this disease has not caused damage to my brain cells that control that. It’s the main point I’m trying to make – YOU are HERE for HIM. Even if you aren’t a Christian, YOU are HERE for HIM. Jesus knew you before you heard of Him. Jesus saw you before you were born. Jesus died for you even if you still doubt He exists. MS may take away parts of your life you will mourn, but Jesus can give life and life more abundantly to you if YOU let HIM. Even with MS.

The CIS (Clinical Isolated Syndrome), RRMS (Relapsing-Remitting), PPMS (Primary-Progressive), or SPMS (Secondary-Progressive) types of Multiple Sclerosis can destroy your life or give you a reason to fight for it. Each type has its own symptoms, treatments, challenges, and physical deteriorations that are different for each individual but can change between types. What I went through may not be what anyone else experiences, but the feelings this disease can cause can be the same for those who have any type of a disability because of MS. Before MS, I received almost a full scholarship for Computer Science major and teaching minor but had to withdraw due to missing class from allergies causing infections, but I got my Webpage Development Certificate in 1999 for business that I still use in 2020.

Since MS, I’ve published two Fantasy Novels and released my first Music EP Album of original songs I wrote and sing. I’m fighting MS all the way! I’m not some amazing exception to the rule of this disease’s horrors. This is meant to encourage those in physical battles against whatever type of this disease you have. DO NOT GIVE UP! Jesus Christ is still Lord, Savior, Healer, God Almighty as the Son, Creator, Redeemer, Forgiver, Restorer, and Source of our strength if we let Him take our burdens as we fight through Faith in Him and His Promises. Although I may eventually die from this, I will still keep fighting MS until then. Even if the feelings overwhelm me at times, and I feel like I have failed in all I’ve tried to do for Jesus and people around the world, I will still keep fighting MS. I’m in remission, but I will still fight MS!

Three MS medications failed me. This fourth one is working, but that can change at any moment. My only hope is truly in my Faith in Jesus Christ since He goes beyond anything to help with healing when we need Him. Sometimes God says, “No.” I will keep hoping that He won’t since I do believe I have more to do for Him. When the time comes for me to leave Earth for Heaven, I will be sad at what I will miss with those I love here that remain. My only Hope is that they will know Jesus as Savior and join me when it’s time for them. With the way things are in 2020, I don’t know how much time we have until ALL BELIEVERS IN CHRIST WILL BE RESCUED AND TAKEN TO HEAVEN. It will happen, and if things keep going the way they have been with the Covid-19 situation and contested election, we may leave sooner.

I have met other MS patients who have been in wheelchairs or otherwise disabled, and my heart aches for them. I can still walk, dance, talk, sing, move my hands and feet, hold things in my hands, carry things from place to place, and I otherwise have full control over my physical faculties. The only damage is that I sometimes don’t remember names like I used to be able to more easily or I forget things I need to take from one room to another before I take others and have to go back. Since I’m 48 years old, I honestly don’t think that’s too bad on the aging mentality level! I stay tired. That’s my biggest complaint, but I also have insomnia at times and use those moment to write instead of complain (if I can). My life has been good, and it still is good now. We have our good days and our bad, and I’d rather be alive and still fighting MS.

My hubby will be 53 in 2021, I’ll be 49, my sister will be 71, and my Mom will be 90. Depending on how these final Christian prophecies are met will determine if we will still be here when the ‘rescue’, ‘evacuation’, ‘catching away’, ‘Rapture’ of the Believers in the Blood of Jesus Christ will happen. We might die before millions to billions disappear at the same time here on Earth. It seems to be getting closer, and I’m hoping to go together, but regardless of that I hope that people will think about the reality of Jesus Christ, His Sacrifice on Calvary for our fallen state, and personal gift He has as Salvation by Grace and through Faith in Him so we can find the reality of eternity waiting for us. Even if MS or age takes us, we need to be ready when we meet Him once we leave this mortal body. I now have an MS-free one waiting!