Christine Jacobson-Ware: God's Love Can Get You Through Anything!
After several surgeries and losing part of her skull, Christine Jacobson-Ware shares how feeling God's love helped her through the darkest part of her life.
Talking Points
Why hugging is important
How she moved from "I don't want to die," to feeling peace and thinking, "I'm not afraid.
The reality of miracles
How God can carry us and be with us in our most intense suffering.
Why it is important to not get too busy to connect with God.
Remember God is in control.
Favorite Story
One of my favorite things that Christine does is she has a little bag full of inspirational books she takes with her when she goes and visits those who are struggling or in the hospital. Then, she can read to them and help them feel God's love.
Some of the books Christine keeps in her bag are:
Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
Hope for Each Day by Billy Graham
Max Lucado's books
The Bible
#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #subduralhematoma #faith #miracles #love #Godslove #healing
Learn More About Christine
You can connect with Christine on her website:
https://wasatchpharmacy.com/about/
You can read more about Christine’s story and see photos of her skull in this newspaper article here:
https://www.standard.net/lifestyle/faith/after-years-and-brain-surgeries-south-ogden-woman-staying-optimistic/article_177b1c68-2515-5b9b-9cfc-cf5ea6dd985d.html
Show Notes
Christine 0:03
People were rushing around like crazy. I didn't know what was happening. Nobody told me and they kept saying you have to sign all these papers. They were trying to take off my clothes and I'm like, “Excuse me!” I said, “I don't know what's happening.” And finally the neurosurgeon came in, and he said, “Christine, you have a subdural hematoma and the blood has accumulated, we need to go in and release the blood. Once we release the blood, your brain will bounce back. But if we don't do this right now, you will die in a few minutes.”
Tamara Anderson 0:39
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
My guest today was born and raised in Hawaii. She went to Purdue University for a pharmaceutical science degree and did a medical board certification in 2007 in anti-aging and functional medicine. For her it is all about healing each other and making the world a happier and healthier place for all to live with peace, love, and good health. She has been a pharmacist for more than 35 years, and is the mother of three wonderful children. I am pleased to present Christine Jacobson. Christine, are you ready to share your story of hope?
Christine 1:38
Yes, thank you, Tamara. Thank you for having me.
Tamara Anderson 1:41
I am so excited. So an interesting fact about you is that when you were little you wanted to become a nun. Tell me about that.
Christine 1:51
That is a crazy story. But you know, when I look back at now, almost 60 years old, I feel like I've made that happen in my career. But when I was young, I wanted to be a voice of Heavenly Father, of our God, our maker. I wanted to be like him, I wanted to walk his path. And I wanted people to see Him in me. I wanted to be able to give the love that He has, unconditional, to everyone. I wanted to have that to give to others here on Earth as His messenger. So as a young girl, that was what I was growing up, going to church every weekend. And I just love Him. I've known Him all my life. And so I felt like that was my path. However, my father had already planned to be a priest when he was younger, and he had gone into the seminary. But then he had met my mother. And that's when he got out of the seminary, and he did not become a priest. So he, at the age of 14, he discouraged me from going into being a nun. And so at that point, I had to think of something else to do. And I just thought of science instead.
Tamara Anderson 3:14
You ended up becoming a pharmacist. But you've gotten another reason in addition to that, and you've been able to bless and help people through your work as a pharmacist, right?
Christine 3:26
Yes. Like I said, Tamara, I'm almost 60 years old. Yet, I feel like I've changed my career as being a pharmacist to emulate exactly what I wanted to be as a young woman and be a nun, except I don't have to wear the habit. Of course, I have very many, many sins. I could never be as pure as a nun. Unfortunately, however, it's like, I still want my life to be a message of Him, I want my life to be His voice, so other people can see Him in me when they meet me every day. That's still my goal. The beauty about being a pharmacist was I got to open my own pharmacy and I got to make my world to be a message of God, where when you work in a lot of retail settings, you're not allowed to speak religion or politics or anything. It becomes very hard because we could still act our feelings and act the message and still be messengers. However, you can't always speak it because of what you're limited to in society.
eBut in my world that I have built, I can speak His name. Every minute, I can speak it to the people who come for care to me, because part of healing is Him. It's not about just medications and drugs. It's not about that. It's about healing, realizing the love He has for us is unconditional. He's always here. I think that, like you say people with hard times, when they come to the pharmacy, they're certainly not healthy. They want help, they want something. So, yes, they come for medications. But it's not about that. They may be lonely, they may be sad. That's what's leading to insomnia, that might be leading to other problems. Yet, they don't understand the love that is surrounding them, because they, unfortunately, cannot feel it at that very moment. That's when they come into our world, into my room, into my building, that I hope I can convey that message to them, that there is something else besides drugs, besides medication. There is a love of Him, that gives us faith, that we have hope and love in our lives, no matter what.
Tamara Anderson 6:00
That's so profound. It's almost like you offer them, not only the physical bit of healing, but you point them to a spiritual source of healing, which can help them with both.
Christine 6:10
Yes. That can be tricky. People are not always open to that. People don't always understand that. I can usually tactfully try to put that in there. So they understand where I'm coming from. I don't want to offend anyone, I just want them to realize that there is another door, there is another source of love that we haven't even looked at, and you might have forgotten in this bad time. That's what we need to do. Even that very small message, or just the fact that you can hug a stranger. In this time of a pandemic, nobody can touch each other. It's very, very hard. Touch is healing and God's love. It cannot always be felt through everybody, some people have to feel it through a touch, through a hug, unconditional hug to a stranger that might not be smelling good or look good. It's someone that you don't know, to be hurting so bad. They just need a hug, ya know. And that's where God's love is. But during a pandemic, we're not allowed to do that. And it's very difficult. I still hug, I still do. I tried to tell them clinically, there are all these studies, and if you look away, and you don't look at each other, you can you come in quick, you can still hug and it will be safe. So I will oftentimes tell my customers and patients, I say, “I'm going to hug you, but I'm coming in fast, and I'm not going to look at you.” And then I can hug them. Don't look at me. We're just gonna hug. I have to voice that because I don't want them to think that they might be sick. And that's why I said, “No, there's a study, you can really do that.” So just stand there and I'm not gonna look at you and hug you. People still need hugs and people still want them.
Tamara Anderson 8:21
Yes, there is a healing power that comes through physical touch. It's neat that you've been able to combine both science and the spirituality behind that, that we need that to connect with each other. That's how God often expresses his love to us is through other people.
Christine 8:37
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Tamara Anderson 8:39
Oh, that's awesome. So let me ask you this, your life has not always been so easy. In fact, several years ago, you had an incident which led you to like six surgeries and it was very complicated. Why don't you talk me through your story, and tell us how you were able to maintain your faith and hope during a really hard time of your life?
Christine 9:03
Well, it happened on January 23rd of 2013. I was skiing with friends on a nearby ski hill. I was skiing with their children, the younger kids, we were skiing on a green one. I had a helmet on. I've skied for about 10 years. I'm not a really great skier but I still love the outdoors. It brings me so much closer to God and it is very majestic and beautiful outside. But being from Hawaii, I don't really like the cold except if I wear a lot of underwear and it makes me very happy. On that day when I was skiing, apparently someone came quickly past me and I fell but I got up. I got my skis and I skied down the hill. When I got down to the bottom of the hill, I was getting on a gondola to get out onto another run. At that time, I was very dizzy. So I kept falling. When I took my skis off, I kept falling to the right. I don't know why, it was like my balance was off. I didn't have any headaches. I didn't have any head problems. But what happened was the ski patrol came and took me down the hill. I ended up going to the emergency room at the time. They ran a CAT scan. They looked at my helmet, they said, “You don't even have a concussion. Your helmet is perfect, everything is fine. Go home, you will be fine.”
It was 30 days from the day I fell when I experienced… The cerebral frontal lobe had caused a hemorrhage. I had a hematoma. It started accumulating the blood in the brain. Your skull, it's a bone. So it holds everything in. But the blood was just accumulating so much that they said my brain had formed into like a shape of a banana, it was squashed because the blood had accumulated. At the time of that day, within the first few hours of the day, my arm didn't work, my right arm wasn't working. Then someone said my face drooped on my right side. Then my right leg started not working. But my left side was fine. So I thought, well, maybe I better run to get a CAT scan done again and see what's going on. So I drove to a nearby CT scanner, it was like not even a mile away, maybe two miles away. Then when I got there, they did the CAT scan and everything. They didn't say anything. They said, “You have to stay here. You cannot leave.” And I'm like, “Okay, but I have to go back to work. I have people waiting for me. I have a patient.” Then within that very few minutes, the doctor had come out and he said, “We have to take you to the emergency right away.” That was just another block away. I said, “Okay, I'll just drive there.” I don't know what's going on.
But by the time I got to the emergency room, both of my legs, I couldn't walk into the emergency room. It was just minutes and I and I wasn't aware because I had no pain. I just was not aware of what was happening. Because I never looked at myself in the mirror. I'm busy. I would never know. So when I got to the emergency room, they rushed me right in, they were expecting me and everything. People were rushing around like crazy. I didn't even know what was happening. Nobody told me. They kept saying, “You have to sign all these papers.” They were trying to take off my clothes. I'm like, “Excuse me!” I said, “I don't know what's happening.” And finally the neurosurgeon came in. He said, “Christine, you have a subdural hematoma and the blood has accumulated, we need to go in and release the blood. Once we release the blood, your brain will bounce back. But if we don't do this right now, you will die in a few minutes.” I kept thinking, “Well, it was so quick.” I kept thinking, “I don't understand what you're saying. And none of that makes sense. I mean, I don't have time to die. I still want to take care of the world. I have people I want to love. There's more people I want to be able to take care of.”
I said, “This doesn't make any sense.” But he kept explaining to me and I said, “Well, can you just drill a hole in my head and take the blood out?” He was like, “No.” They kept going quickly. They said this is very serious. Then I just started crying. I said, “I'm not ready. I didn't get everything in order.” I said, “I'm not ready.” I started crying. But then within the next few minutes, I became at peace. I realized that if this is really my time, then I'm going to be okay. So I stopped crying and they were trying to push me into the operating room. Everything was so quick at the time. Then my husband at that time came rushing in to the room. I said, “You need to go home. On the second shelf in the library is a pink folder. There is a living will. I need you to bring the living well because I don't want to be a vegetable. I need to make sure that I'm not a vegetable. I want to make sure everybody gets everything.” He was like all frantic. I don't even know if he was listening to me. I'm rushing in and as they're pushing me into this operating room, I'm yelling at him and I'm saying, “Please, I want you to love. I want you to be loved.” At the time we were only 50. I said, “You need to love and be loved. I will be in a good place. I'm not going to worry about me. I worry about you.” He said, “You're talking nonsense.” I said, “Please.”
They took me into this operating room. It was the biggest white room I have ever seen. I'm awake the whole time. There's a sea of blue people. It felt like 20 to 30 to 40 blue people. I kept thinking, “Who are these people? What are they doing?” But they were acting so quickly. They lifted me on to this one small little metal table. Big white grown in the sea of blue people. They put me on the table. Everything was happening so fast. I said, “Please, my name is Christine Renae Jacobson. I am of sound mind and body. If I die on this table, please promise me you will take all my parts. I want them to go to people who need me. So do not waste time, please.” A woman's voice at my foot said, “I promise,” a man's voice to my left said, “I promise,” and another gentleman to my right said, “I promise.” Within a few minutes, like few seconds, everything was black. I knew at that point, I thought, “I'm ready. I'm going to go, I am ready.” I felt at peace. I was so happy. I said “It'll be okay. I'm not afraid.”
Then the craziest thing was, I woke up. It was a room that was black. I thought, “Oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? Did I forget to say hi to somebody? Did I forget to say thank you? Did I did I forget a stranger that was passing me that was hurting and I didn't acknowledge them?” Because that's important to me. I like to see every person and I kept thinking, “What did I do wrong? Am I in a waiting room that you're supposed to answer questions before you go to heaven? Why did I not go to heaven? I'm in the realm of darkness.” I thought in my head, all these things were happening. Then my eyes scan the ceiling. Up in the top right corner was a digital clock in red. It was 12 something. I thought, “How strange is that they have time in heaven?”
All of a sudden, all these feet came running in the room and people were running in the room and lights were kind of turning on dimly. All of a sudden I realized that I wasn't dead. Because all these people came in and they said when you have a brain injury that was as severe as mine, that they put all the machines behind you because there should be no brain stimulation when you're waking up in the ICU. So everything was behind me and then all the nurses and the doctors came in because they needed to assess what had happened. During that time, one of the nurses had told me that the doctor had gone out to see my family. What was supposed to be an hour surgery ended up being three and a half hours. What happened was, he said when he went in to take the blood out, he noticed that the frontal lobe was still bleeding. So it was a very slow bleed. That's why it took so long and it's very rare that anybody would have a subdural hematoma 30 days later. He says it always happens between 10 to 14 days from when you hit your head. But, of course, I'm very unusual.
So of course that made sense. He said that he had to go in and cauterize my frontal lobe and because he went in to cauterize my frontal lobe, he had to burn what was left in my frontal lobe and he said he erased my memory. So at the time he told my family and they were really upset because what was supposed to be an hour surgery was three and a half hours. They had all gathered out in the waiting rooms, friends and family, just waiting to hear. When the surgeon had come out, he said he brought the family into a private room, which my children said was very traumatic because they didn't want to go into another room. They just wanted to hear that I was okay. He couldn't say anything until they went into this other room with HIPAA. In the room, that's when he told the family, “She is alive, however, I had cauterized her frontal lobe. So I erased her memory. She will not be a pharmacist, and she will not remember who you are.”
At the time, my children said that it was very traumatic for them. They were very, very heartbroken for that. When I was in the ICU room and the darkness, the nurse had whispered in my ear, and she had told me that story. She had said to me, that there were so many people out there to see me. Would I like to see my family? And I said yes, I would want to. They would only let my family come in. I said, “There are other friends and stuff, and I would love to see them.” My vision wasn't very good at the time. But I said sure. So my family came in. when my son came in, I said, “How was your calculus test?” He just started crying. Everybody is crying. I said, “Why are they crying?” She said, “Because you were not supposed to remember who they were, or what they did.” Once again, that was a miracle. It was a miracle from God. I knew God was there with me the whole time. That journey just started from that moment on. From that surgery, subsequently, I had a total of nine brain surgeries.
So what happened was, when they removed part of my skull, they put it back together with these little screws and little plates. Talk about a screw in your head. But they put these little screws and everything. Well, apparently, something got infected in my head. They don't know what it is. So they put me on lots of IV treatments to try and stop the infection that was on the skull, that was going to go into my brain, and they kept saying, “If it goes into the brain, then you will die. So we need to kill off the staph infection, so it doesn't go into your brain.” So at that point, I had gone to a lot of IV treatments. That had made me very, very sick and caused liver failure. My liver was failing and stuff. But the antibiotics were just so strong. And it was something that they have to do to try and kill it. But they couldn't figure out why they had the infection. Eventually after like eight weeks, the infection got so bad that the pus started coming out of my skull. So they rushed me into surgery, and they took the plate off, because at that time they put in an artificial plate. They said my initial skull was so infected that they could not reuse the plate. It had just been a long period of time that the blood had accumulated. So they made up a prosthetic. That's what happened. They put a prosthetic piece in. When they put in that first prosthetic, we moved the skull. That was the second surgery because of the infection because of the screws. Then the third surgery, they call it a cranioplasty because they make a skull out of a 3d image. It's amazing how they do that. It's a plastic plate. They put it back and they put new screws and everything on my skull. It worked and actually it kept me good for four years that the skull never got infected.
Four years later, I started having pain in my head and I kept saying something is wrong with my head. So I went back to my neurosurgeon and he said, “Yes, there's actually something going on in the skull underneath the skull plate. It's underneath the skull.” Of course, it's always underneath. I knew it couldn't be on the outside. But I kept saying, “Why would that happen?” And they explained that what happens is your eyes are open from these tear ducts and your nose is open and your mouth and there is a passageway that goes to your brain. Of course we know that because we breathe. But there are these openings. What happens is if you get an eye infection, or if I get a sinus infection, or a mouth infection, then it's a possibility that it would have gone to my brain. I'm like, well, everybody can do that, except I have a foreign piece in my brain. So that's what happened when I was going through all of my first surgeries and everything. It was such a beautiful time, Tamara.
Tamara Anderson 25:34
You’re going to have to explain that because most people wouldn't consider all these surgeries and these painful experiences beautiful. Tell me why it was beautiful.
Christine 25:43
Oh, my gosh, God was with me so much. I mean, I never felt so good in my own life. I never felt so good. Every minute of every day, I felt Him. He was near me. When it got worse and worse, and my body was not healing, and my body was failing, I felt so good. I could feel His love. I knew that He was carrying me. He was carrying me the whole time. I had no fear. I had no pain. I felt nothing but happiness and goodness, nothing. When I look at today, and I don't have that suffering moment, I miss Him. I miss Him. But I know that He's near. I think that was my biggest thing about having Him so close to me. When I was healing, and I was finally on my way, I felt He was kind of gone, but yet not gone, because I knew He was near. During that time, it was a remarkable feeling of love, and hope, and faith.
I don't even know if it's faith. People say I have such great faith. I don't understand what that really means. Because all I know is how He loves me so much that I can love everybody else when I'm very, very sick. The crazy thing was I had staples, I had like 40 hard staples, iron staples in my skull. They had tubes coming out of my head. Like I said, I don't look at myself in the mirror. I'm very busy. So I want to hug everybody. I want to love and I want to welcome people. I had IVs coming out of my arm. Yet I went to work. I would carry an IV pole. Finally, they said, “You're scaring people with that.” So they made me up this IV ball that I could put the medicine in the ball and infuse it into a PICC line into my heart. They let me carry it in my lab coat as a pharmacist. So nobody would know I would be doing an IV treatment that was going on all the time. But you could still see my injury. You could still see it. It wasn't bad for me. It wasn't anything that was bad. It was painful because of the staples. But it wasn't anything that I couldn't handle. Because I knew He loved me. He is so great that He carried me and loved me even more when it was so bad. He loved me so much that my heart was so warm the whole time. I had so much love that I could give more love to people. I wanted more people to see and feel me. I would hug people and people would just start crying and I'm like, “Why are people crying?” And my staff would say, “You're scaring everybody. You look scary. And I said, “I didn't realize that I looked scary.”
There was one incident where a little girl had come into the pharmacy and I gave her a sucker. I tried to give them suckers. I tried to say hello. I went up to her and I bent down and gave her a sucker and I will never ever forget her face. That was because people, adults, don't do that. They just pretend that they don't see it. They pretend that there is not a bad thing. People are very good about, if you look crippled or deformed, that they don't express that. But children are the most innocent, honest people of God. They speak God. They know God the most and God speaks through them. This one little girl, when I got down on my knee and I was trying to give her a sucker, I had never seen such a horrific face in my whole life to this day. I still can see her face. I was so scared. It frightened me that she was so afraid. I immediately backed up I said, “I'm so sorry, I didn't realize.” She was just afraid. She ran and hid behind her mother. I didn't realize how ugly that it looked until that moment, because I didn't care. It was about God. It was about His love. It was about Him taking away everything that was painful or hurtful for me. I never showed any pain. I never had any regret or sorrow. It was beautiful. I just wanted to share that love with everybody.
Tamara Anderson 31:01
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, I'm going to ask Christine a really tough question: Why does she think she felt God's love in that situation, when so many people who are in difficult situations, don’t? Stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 31:16
Hi, this is Tamara K. Anderson and I want to share something special with you. When our son, Nathan, was diagnosed with autism, I felt like the life we had expected for him was ripped away and with it, my own heart shattered as well. It's very common for families to feel anger, pain, confusion, and anxiety when a child is diagnosed. This is where my book, “Normal for Me,” comes into play. It shares my story of learning to replace my pain with acceptance, peace, joy, and hope. “Normal for Me” has helped change many lives. I'd like to give this book to as many families as possible. We put together something I think is really special. My friends and listeners can order copies of my book at significantly discounted price and we will send them to families who have just had a child diagnosed with autism or another special needs diagnosis. We will put your name inside the cover so they will know someone out there loves them and wants to help. I will also sign each copy. You can order as little as one or as many as hundreds to be shared with others. So go to my website, tamarakanderson.com, and visit the store section for more information and to place your order. You can bless the lives of many families by sending them hope, love, and peace. Check it out today at tamarakanderson.com and help me spread hope to the world.
And we're back. I've been talking to Christine Jacobson about her experience having a subdural hematoma and how her skull had to be removed through several surgeries. She was able to feel the love of God within her very, very strongly.
Christine, we were just talking about this very tough experience. Why is it, do you think, that you felt God's love so strongly and so powerfully through this most difficult time of your life, when so many other people who go through this type of experience don't feel His love? Were there things you did that helped you feel His love more strongly? What did that look like for you?
Christine 33:39
I don't know. That's a very, very good question. I think at the time, in 2013, somebody had asked me that question. You're the second one that has asked me that, what is that eight years later? But I don't really know. I don't feel like I was chosen. Because I don't feel that way. I feel that God loves everybody. But why was He there more at that time? I don't think that it was only me. I believe that He would have done that for every single person. I think that what happens is we get so busy that we don't see Him, and that we don't feel what He's trying to do. Sometimes we have so much sorrow and are in so much pain, maybe even the people we love, that we forget that He is right there. His love overcomes all that. Yet we get so much into sorrow and we don't know that and that's why it hurts so badly. I don't know why it was so fabulous. Especially four years later when I had six more surgeries. Due to the interaction, once again, He was with me. It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I don't know why I would have, because I live for Him every day. I know He's near every day. Maybe I was just more receptive. Maybe I because I knew He was already there that maybe that just gave me even more joy and love. It was amazing. It's still so amazing to me sometimes, which is crazy, like, I will have hardship if my family is hurting, if someone I love is hurting. If I feel like something is wrong, then I say, “Where can I go back to have that?” I ask myself that all the time, sometimes when it's really bad. I said, How can I have that again? And I pray to Him, because I speak to Him all the time, all the time. He always speaks to me when I sleep. So I always hear Him when I sleep. But I oftentimes ask him, “Do I need to go through such a hardship again, for you to be that close to me?” His answer is no. He loves us no matter what. He goes, “I love you. I'm still here. But somebody else needs me right now a little bit more. So that's why you think I'm not holding you up.” But He still holds me up. Except now we're walking together and hand in hand, instead of Him carrying me. When I needed Him the most He carried me and that's the most important thing. That's why I felt so good.
Tamara Anderson 36:55
You know, I wonder if it's just your daily connection with him. Different people have different gifts that God gives them. Perhaps yours is just the ability to sense and feel Him close to you. As you share that with others, it helps renew their faith that okay, God really is with me.
Christine 37:14
Oh, absolutely.
Tamara Anderson 37:17
They can work towards achieving that same sense of unity that you feel with God. That's beautiful. That's really, really beautiful.
Christine 37:26
Thank you. It's so true, though. So true. Everybody has his love. He's really trying to love the people that hurt the most. But sometimes we get so mad, and we don't understand. A lot of people say there is no God, because we wouldn't have all this hardship and pain and the world wouldn't be that way. That's not true. Look at the beauty of everything. Man has the will to make the world... It is not God. God does all the beautiful things to make us go through this hard time. Because He loves us. Mm hmm.
Tamara Anderson 38:10
Oftentimes people do find Him in their hard times. It sounds like you felt an increase of Him during your hard time. That's definitely a takeaway. What were some other lessons you learned through all of this?
Christine 38:23
Well, I think that, especially when I had gone through my fifth surgery, the infection had gotten so bad. They said it had come through my nasal or my eye from another person who had an infection that was close to me. So I had received that and it went to my brain. At the time, they tried to pull fluids from my body so they could try and put in antibiotics to go to my cerebral spinal fluid to get to my brain. Nothing worked. Eventually my head blew open and with pus and blood. That's when they rushed me into surgery. Once again, He was there all the time. He helped me to feel Him even more because during that one time I had to be put into a hyperbaric chamber. They felt that that was important for me to heal my skull. They were trying everything because they'd never had a case that had lived through this. So it was very hard for them to try and fix it. I'd had so many neurosurgeons and so many doctors and so many different specialists. They finally sent me to University of Utah, and they couldn't fix it either. But during the time in the hyperbaric chamber you have to be in this chamber for two hours and they drop you into 1000s of feet. The hyperbaric is what kills the tissue. But you cannot have lotion or anything that can be combustible because it's easily flammable. Your skin can go on fire, your hair can burn, they say that the pressure will cause your eyes to pop out in your ears because the pressure is inside. that's what they try to do to heal you. So you have to lay there still for two hours. I did that for nine weeks every morning.
Once again, that was a gift. Because during that time, I would rehearse every part of the Bible, every part, every verse, in my mind, I knew about how God loves me. I spoke to Him and I prayed. I thought about all the people I meet every day, and I could pray for them. We need two hours every day to talk to Him. We're so busy. If we pray, we're lucky to get five minutes in. That's not right. But the beautifulness of all of that was two hours every day for six weeks, I got to be with Him. He was laying in there with me. Unfortunately, yes, it blew my ears out. The pain was really bad. So I lost the hearing in my right ear due to that. At the time, I had lost my left ear too, after nine weeks. Then I lost my vision also because my eyes had popped out. They said it was the side effect of the treatment. My kids were angry. They're always angry. Because why does this keep happening? Why does God's number one fan go through all this? That's what my son keeps saying, “What kind of God will do this?” I said, “No, it's not God, this is a miracle that I'm still alive.” They don't know how to fix, we do not see what's happening. I am here for you, I get to love you, I know you, I am still alive. Those are only two senses. It's my vision and my hearing, I have three other senses. I can still love you. I can touch you. I can smell you. And I told my son, “I'm your mother. If I want to, I can even taste you.”
Of course, he did not think that was funny. It was still a blessing. The side effects have gone away. My left eye and ear came back. I've lost a lot of my vision for my right eye and I've lost my hearing in my right ear, but nobody can tell. They want to put a hearing aid in and I said, “Why?” After nine surgeries, the very last surgery, my children had said, “Enough is enough. We can't do this anymore.” They kept shaving my head. I have so many scars that my hair doesn't grow. They removed my skull now. It has been two years now that I have not had a skull. I can feel my brain every day. But in the two years that they have removed the prosthetics, I've had several prosthetics. In the two years, I have never gotten sick, I don't have any more infections. Since I don't need a skull, my neurosurgeons come in all the time to see me and they're like, “Maybe it's time to put a skull back in.” They feel like my life will be shortened because my brain is exposed. I have a soft spot. So if I hit any part of that, they say I will instantly die. I said, “Okay, I'm fine with that.” Every surgery, they kept rushing in and they said it's an emergency, they said, you're gonna die. And I finally said, “You gotta stop saying that because it's not really true anymore.” I think you're going to die and I'm all happy because I'm going to heaven. And I'm still alive. I stop saying that because I don't think that that's true.
At the University of Utah when I was going through treatments with them and surgeries with them, they have a lot of students and they're awesome. Looking at my head, and they're all up here and all talking like, “How is it possible that she's still alive? How is it possible she could still be a pharmacist? This should not have done that? How is it not healing?” How is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting there. And I say, “Just so you know, I'm not totally deaf, I can hear everything.” And they say that this is not, it doesn't make any sense. And I look at the doctors and surgeons, and I tell them, “This is not about you. Please, you have to remember, this is bigger than all of us. We have no control of this. And I think you forget that the plan is not what you think it is. God is taking care of everything. That is the answer of all the questions you keep asking is because He is here.” And they look at each other, like, “What is she talking about?” Except there was one surgeon and he did say yes, I'm glad you reminded me of Him. Because they forget. The world forgets. Yeah, but He is here all the time.
Tamara Anderson 46:14
So maybe that is your role, since you're still here, is to remind us all that God loves us. He can help us through any struggle, and that we can feel His love.
Christine 46:27
Every day, every day. God loves you.
Tamara Anderson 46:32
Now you have some amazing books that you have used through the years that have helped you to keep your positivity up. What are some of those books? Do you remember?
Christine 46:42
So I did bring them, I brought a few. The one that I really used a lot, and still do when it's hard. I always bring it out. It's called “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young.
She has several, but this is the one I love the most because every day she gives you a passage. Believe it or not, Tamara, on the day you read it, it's always about you. It is always something that is about you. It helps us to understand. It helps us to know why He loves us. It helps so that we know what's really going on. Everything is fine because He tells me that it's fine. Sometimes we need people like Sarah to tell us that it's okay. We just keep forgetting.
This other very good one I love, and I've never known who wrote it, I just kept reading it.
Tamara Anderson 47:45
I think Billy Graham is on the front.
Christine 47:49
Yes! I never knew that. You asked me who wrote it and I'm like, “I don't know.” But it's good. It's all about the little passages and stories that helped me to realize… Because we can read the Bible, we can do that, you can read the book. It's not necessarily what can capture everybody. These are people that live it and can tell the story from the Bible and give you their interpretation. And it's true. It always comes true. It's crazy. But it's real.
Tamara Anderson 48:23
So that one is “Hope for Each Day” by Billy Graham.
Christine 48:26
Yes. Then my other one I really love is Max Lucado. It's a little bigger book. That's why I don't always carry it with me. My Bibles are bigger books. I do carry it when I really have to go somewhere and pray for other people. I have my little bag, my stash that I can run out and save the world. That's the time I will bring my books that I can read into their ears if they're unconscious, or they're not really there so that they can hear God's love.
Tamara Anderson 49:00
You're still spreading it. You said that one of the verses in the Bible that you love the most was in Corinthians. Tell us that verse.
Christine 49:07
Yes. I kept thinking about all the good ones. It's the one about love. Once again, it's about love. It's about how love is a gift, the biggest gift of all, and God's love is the biggest gift. When we receive His love, love is the biggest gift. So now each other. Love one another, everybody, every person but what you don't see is the ones that need more love. That's what we need to do is love and be loved. Accept the love and open your heart. So then you will feel just as good as He does for you every day.
Tamara Anderson 49:56
So maybe that's really the trick with love is being willing to open yourself to God and feel it. Because sometimes we get stuck being angry and bitter. It's just a matter of our choice and choosing to say, “Okay, I'm going to give you this anger. I'm going to give you the bitterness. I need to feel your love and just invite it in.”
Christine 50:23
Yes.
Tamara Anderson 50:25
Quick question. There are going to be people who hear your amazing story. They're going to say, I love Christine. I love her story. How can they connect with you?
Christine 50:35
Oh, my gosh, you know, my pharmacy is an open door. I have strangers walk in that want to hear my story. They just want to hug. My home is open. So they're always welcome to come in. They can always email me. People send letters. It's crazy. But you can always call the pharmacy. I'm always, unfortunately, I'm always here. But I built this. I built this so I can take care of every single person. And that's what I want to do. Part of it is sharing God's love with everything you do.
Tamara Anderson 51:18
So why don't you give us your pharmacy website so that they can connect with you? Oh,
Christine 51:22
yes, absolutely. If you go to wasatchpharmacy.com, you hit the contact me, there's an email and it will come to me.
Tamara Anderson 51:33
I'll put that link in the show notes. Christine, this has been so amazing. Thank you for sharing your story of love. Because that's really what it is. It is a story of love.
Christine 51:43
Thank you. And God bless you, Tamara, for doing this for everybody. God bless every single one of you, because you have to remember that He really, really is here, and He really, really loves you.
Tamara Anderson 51:57
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you'd like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website, storiesofhopepodcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript, and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared, or quote, or a scripture verse that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you are struggling, with hope to carry on, and with the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember God loves you.