0:02

Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you, and it is time for some self-brain surgery.

0:06

It is Wild Card Wednesday, and yesterday I brought you back an old episode about

0:11

a character from my book, Hope is the First Dose, who had a problem where he

0:15

couldn't stop seeing the massive thing that was happening to him.

0:19

And today I'm going to give you a second character from the book,

0:23

Hope is the First Dose, because a lot of people are writing in on the prayer

0:26

wall and sending us prayer requests and telling us about how they feel stuck.

0:30

And sometimes your life can just pile a bunch of stuff on you and you can be stuck.

0:34

You don't know what to do. You don't know how to move forward. And sometimes after trauma or tragedy or these massive things happen,

0:40

we can get stuck in a grief cycle or rumination cycle or fear or anxiety or

0:44

worry can pile up and we just don't know how to move forward.

0:47

And there's a story in the book about a woman named Tina Tisdale who got stuck

0:51

and it had a tragic outcome for her. And I don't want that to happen to you.

0:56

So this is a story about what to do when you feel stuck, some of the ways that

1:00

we can get stuck and some ways that we can get unstuck using a treatment plan

1:04

for changing our minds and changing our life.

1:06

So without further ado, here's a story from Hope is the First Dose.

1:09

I think it's gonna help you. I had a strong urge this morning that somebody needed to hear this.

1:14

So if that was you, send us an email, lee at drleewarren.com.

1:17

Let us know that you were benefited by this episode. Share it with a friend

1:21

if you think it'll help somebody. We're praying for you. We'll be back tomorrow with Theology Thursday.

1:25

I'm going to go to the operating room this morning. Lisa and I have a lot of

1:28

cool things going on that we'll be sharing with you soon.

1:31

And just praying for you. Don't forget the prayer wall, w1mb.com slash prayer. Let's get after it.

1:37

Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

1:43

You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the

1:46

neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything.

1:51

Starts to make sense. Are you ready to change your life?

1:54

This is the place, Self-Brain Surgery School. I'm Dr.

1:57

Lee Warren, and this is where we go deep into how we're wired,

2:00

take control of our thinking, and find real hope.

2:03

This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

2:06

This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

2:10

This is where we start today. Are you ready? This is your podcast.

2:15

This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.

2:20

Music.

2:25

But today, I'm going to do the second in a series of talking about some of the

2:29

characters and themes from the book. And today, there's a lady named Tina Tisdale that we're going to talk about.

2:34

A couple of weeks ago, we did an episode called Anthony Walker is Hammered.

2:38

And there's a guy in the book named Anthony Walker who got hit in the head with a hammer.

2:41

And it cost him the ability to move his face on one side.

2:45

And he couldn't close his eye. When you can't close your eye,

2:48

then your cornea will dry out. And you eventually will lose vision because you can't stop looking.

2:54

And we talked about how we do that in our lives sometimes. We can't stop looking

2:57

at the things that are hurting us.

3:00

And eventually that just focus and unrelenting gaze will cause the loss of the

3:05

ability to see anything else. And that's Anthony's story.

3:07

Well, today Tina's story is similar but very different in a couple of different ways.

3:12

And we're going to get into that in a minute. I just want to remind you that

3:15

you can't change your life until you change your mind.

3:18

And we're going to do that. Today, though, we're going to finish the episode after the outro.

3:22

I'm going to give you a little music just to spend a minute.

3:24

To think about if you can't learn to look away from a problem and look on to

3:30

something else, something bigger, something more hopeful, something more helpful,

3:33

then you're going to have a problem like Anthony did, like Tina did.

3:37

And so I'm going to give you an Alan Jackson song. It's an old hymn,

3:40

Turn Your Eyes on Jesus, and Alan Jackson did an incredible version of it.

3:43

It's just stunning, and it would be a great way to just worship and think a

3:46

little bit about some of the things that we might need to look away from and

3:49

look towards if we're going to learn finally how to start today.

3:53

I first met her in the emergency department, and my friend John had called me to come down and see her.

3:59

And Tina had had a brain tumor a couple of years before, a benign brain tumor called meningioma.

4:05

And the cool thing about meningioma is if you're going to have a brain tumor,

4:08

it's a great one to have often because if we can remove it, then you're usually cured.

4:14

It doesn't require chemotherapy. It doesn't require radiation.

4:17

It doesn't always recur, and it doesn't usually cost people their lives.

4:21

And so meningioma, if you have to have a brain tumor, is a good kind to have

4:26

because potentially it's curable. So Tina had had this surgery a couple of years before I met her.

4:32

And she came to the emergency department one day with a complaint that she thought

4:36

she could feel her tumor growing back. She felt a strange sensation in her head, some discomfort.

4:42

And she just was convinced that her tumor was growing back.

4:45

And we went under extensive workup. We did MRI scans, and I reviewed her records,

4:50

and we did all kinds of testing, and I spent hours with the radiologist looking

4:55

and looking and looking, trying to see if there was something going on,

4:58

comparing it to previous studies and all of that.

5:00

And at the end of the day, the fact was she was really cured of her disease. There was no tumor left.

5:07

There was nothing in her head that was any type of danger to her. The tumor was gone.

5:13

And you would think you'd be excited about that, right? But she had something

5:16

called post-craniotomy syndrome, and that's not terribly common,

5:20

but some people after brain surgery, they just never quite feel right.

5:24

They have a sensation from their incision inside their head,

5:28

and they feel kind of headachy, and they just don't ever kind of feel back to normal.

5:33

But most people are able to sort of account for the fact that they're not dying

5:36

of brain cancer or that their tumor's gone, and they're able to sort of move

5:40

on with the idea that, yeah, I've got some residual symptoms.

5:43

Symptoms, but I've got a cure for my underlying problem.

5:48

And that's okay for most people. But for Tina, it became this life altering thing.

5:52

She was convinced that there was something wrong and she couldn't stop thinking about it.

5:56

And it became the entire defining thing of her life that she was just absolutely

6:00

convinced that all the doctors were missing something that was going to hurt her.

6:05

And that thing became the defining focus of every moment of her life.

6:10

It just, It almost destroyed her marriage. It kept her from being productive. It kept her from moving on in her life.

6:15

All she could think about was this idea that there was something wrong inside her head.

6:21

And this is ironic because the problem was all in her head, as we say metaphorically,

6:25

which means that there wasn't a real problem.

6:27

There wasn't a physical tumor that was causing those symptoms.

6:31

But she was convinced that there was something wrong in her head.

6:34

So she spent the rest of her life being convinced that she was dying of something

6:39

that she wasn't dying of. And ultimately in frustration because she was so stressed out and so convinced

6:45

that everything was wrong and so focused on this problem that nobody else could

6:49

figure out, she took her own life. This is tragic, right? It's devastating because all of us can look at this and

6:56

say, Tina, you're cured. You should be grateful. You should be happy. Your problems are actually solved.

7:02

And yeah, you've got this leftover issue, but you're cured, right?

7:07

And her husband couldn't understand. It was causing stress in their marriage.

7:10

It was like, you want to be sick more than you want to be well.

7:13

And I counseled him, Rick, no, it's not that. She's just really convinced that

7:17

there's something wrong. It's not that she wants to be sick. She just can't stop. She can't accept the

7:22

fact that you can have life, but you also have to have pain because in her mind,

7:27

she believed that if she was cured,

7:29

the pain would be gone and she could not accept the and. We talked about that before.

7:35

Like if you're focused on the but, like I was okay, but I got a tumor and now

7:39

I have pain and I'm not okay anymore and I can never be okay again,

7:42

then that becomes the beginning point of a downward spiral that will lead into

7:47

you having a life that's not abundant because it's defined by something that you can't control,

7:52

that's unpleasant to you, that defines you outside of who you really are.

7:57

But if you can learn to pivot, like Anthony did when he got the ability to close

8:02

his eye back when his face was fixed and he could squeeze his eye shut again,

8:06

he could stop looking at the pain and start looking at other stuff and smile

8:10

when he felt like it. But Tina couldn't learn the and.

8:14

We had to learn it after we lost Mitch because it was a real problem.

8:18

It was a crossroads for me. Like I'm a happy guy, but I lost my son, and now I can't be happy anymore.

8:23

Or it could be a thing and not the thing.

8:28

I was a happy guy. I lost my son. I was really sad. I'll always be sad,

8:32

but I have many other things to live for.

8:34

And I can therefore find a way back to hope again. So you could find the and

8:38

in place of all those buts, right?

8:42

Tina couldn't find it and it cost her her life.

8:45

Listen, there's going to be some situations in your life, friend,

8:48

that you can't get rid of. You just have to say, God is telling me in this particular instance that I can't have that.

8:55

There's a thing that I want that I can't have.

8:58

And so in order to find abundant life again, like Jesus promised you,

9:01

he came here for you to do in John 10.10, in order for you to have abundant

9:05

life, you're going to have to accept that there are some things that you can't have.

9:09

There are some prayers that won't be answered the way you want them to.

9:13

Timothy Keller, I think it's him. I'm going to quote this, and it may or may not be Keller.

9:18

So if you know who said this quote and it's not Keller, then please correct

9:21

me. Comment on the episode and I'll fix it. I think it was Timothy Keller. It says, God answers our prayers either by giving

9:28

us what we want or by giving us what we would want if we knew everything that he knows.

9:35

That'll sink in in a minute. He'll either give you what you're asking for,

9:38

or he'll give you what you would ask for if you were as informed about your life as he is.

9:44

So for some reason, sometimes God finds it better to not answer what we're asking

9:49

him for in the way that we think would make us happy, because he knows more than we do.

9:54

And this reminds me of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12.

10:00

When Paul begs God to remove something. thing.

10:03

He says this 12, seven, second Corinthians 12, seven.

10:06

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of

10:10

the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to

10:14

harass me, to keep me from being conceited.

10:18

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

10:21

But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.

10:28

So listen, Paul, the apostle Paul, the guy who wrote Quote, two-thirds of the

10:33

New Testament had to accept pain as an ongoing part of his life.

10:39

He had to accept whatever the thorn in the flesh was. He had to accept the and.

10:43

Yes, I have this incredible life and God is allowing me to write the New Testament

10:47

and I've been saved by grace and I've been transformed and he even gave me a

10:50

new name and I had to live with the thorn in the flesh.

10:55

And he learned how to do that by embracing the fact that he could look at something

11:00

bigger, Jesus and his unchanging promises and the hope of eternal life and the

11:05

hope of a resurrected body and all those things that go along with the faith that we have.

11:09

He could look at that and focus on it. He could turn his eyes upon Jesus and

11:13

look away from the problem and towards the provider.

11:17

That's one of those Christian platitudes that sounds crazy, but it's really true. True.

11:21

If you have been given one of these things like Tina Tisdale's post-craniotomy

11:25

syndrome, like my grandfather's phantom limb syndrome that punished him for

11:29

his whole life after he had his leg amputated, he never stopped feeling pain

11:32

in his foot, even though the foot wasn't there anymore.

11:35

Phantom limb and post-craniotomy syndrome and all these things are reminders

11:40

of the fact that we're immortal bodies and we have some things that we can't fix.

11:43

We have some pain. I've got lots of patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy

11:46

and they're burning and tingling and their feet and hands, and they always will.

11:51

And they have to learn to live with that. It's just an ongoing part of life.

11:55

So listen, friend, if you want to become healthier, feel better and be happier,

11:59

if you wanna learn how to have an abundant life from John 10,

12:03

10, in spite of the hard life of John 16, 33,

12:06

you're going to have to learn to accept some thorns, to accept some pains, to accept some ands,

12:15

because there's some things you just can't have. And one thing you can't always have is a perfect answer, in your opinion,

12:21

to the things that you're praying about. But you can know that your Father, your Creator, is giving you the perfect answer

12:28

that He would give you if you knew everything that He knows about what you're really asking.

12:33

He's there. He's always working on your behalf.

12:36

If you can turn your eyes from the problem towards Him, that'll help you change

12:40

your mind and it'll help you change your life. Tina Tilsdale died because she.

12:44

Was drowning in the butt. I was okay, but I got a brain tumor, and now I have pain, and I'm sure it's

12:49

coming back, and nobody can figure it out, and I'm going to die of this thing,

12:52

and all these doctors are idiots, and my husband doesn't understand,

12:56

and my life is just ruined, and I'm just going to take myself out. That's what she did.

13:00

And she could have instead pivoted to the end.

13:04

She could have said, I had this beautiful life, and I've got a family and a

13:06

husband who loves me, and I had this problem, and it turned out not to be cancer,

13:10

and the surgeons were able to cure me of it, and I've got some residual pain,

13:14

and it reminds me of the fact that I've been given this life again,

13:17

and I've got to learn how to process that pain and hold on to everything else that I still have.

13:24

She didn't understand. She couldn't accept the and, and she couldn't accept

13:29

the my grace is sufficient for you, but you can.

13:35

Friend, you can change your mind, and you can change your life.

13:38

You can learn to turn your eyes away from the problem and towards the provider.

13:41

Or you can turn your eyes on Jesus, you can change your mind and learn how to

13:45

make your brain work on your behalf, even when it hurts.

13:49

And my friend, the best news of all is that you can start today.

13:53

Music.

16:37

Music.

16:42

Hey, thanks for listening.

16:45

The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my brand new book,

16:48

Hope is the First Dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering from trauma,

16:53

tragedy, and other massive things. It's available everywhere books are sold. And I narrated the audio books.

16:59

Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,

17:03

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

17:06

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship the Most High God.

17:12

And if you're interested in learning more, check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

17:17

If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,

17:21

WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer.

17:24

And go to my website and sign up for the newsletter, Self-Brain Surgery,

17:28

every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states and 60-plus countries

17:34

around the world. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your

17:38

life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.