One Thing Necessary
At the tender age of 12, Lisa Marie Angotti was certain she knew what her mission in life would be—to marry and raise children to know and love the Lord—four children to be precise, two boys and two girls; she had a list of favorite names. Until then, she would continue to do the athletic things she loved. And always, always, she thought, she would play the piano.
That was back before Frank and Karen Angotti had heard of the infectious bacteria “Borrelia burgdorferi.” The family had just moved with FedEx in 1990 to the Memphis, Tennessee, area for Frank’s new job. The Angottis chose a home with 10 acres for their three highly active children to roam.
A Giant Battle Against a Tiny Force
“Twenty long years bound to my bed; no visible chains, an illness instead. Not one step taken in all of this time; my jailer laughs: his name is Lyme.”
Every family member was bitten by black-legged ticks that first summer in Memphis, tiny insects the size of the head of a straight pin. David, then 10, was the first to exhibit concerning symptoms. The Angottis spent weeks with doctors who were baffled, and somewhat skeptical, about David’s condition (Lyme disease was not thought to occur in the South). Finally, the Angottis located the late Dr. Ed Masters of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. A Lyme Disease specialist, Dr. Masters believed the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, transmitted through tick bites, had sickened the boy.
David was treated with the appropriate antibiotics that fall, and the disease was halted. The Angottis breathed a collective sigh of relief until that December when Lisa Marie began experiencing symptoms that nearly mirrored her brother David’s. Frank and Karen also fell ill, but the symptoms were different to the point that, for a while, they didn’t recognize their own conditions as Lyme. Only Jonathan, age 5, stayed symptom-free through it all. But while Frank and Karen responded to antibiotics just as David had, Lisa Marie’s condition worsened.
The Angotti’s watched that winter as their daughter wilted before their eyes.
“She was a gymnast. She loved ballet. She played basketball and competitive soccer,” Frank said. “All of that was BOOM, GONE, when she got sick.”
“First it was the pain in the knees,” Karen recalls. “Then she was so weak and in pain that she was not even strong enough to carry something small across the room. She had to stop playing the piano—something she loved.”
Lisa Marie’s extreme joint pain forced her to bed where knife-sharp headaches left her unable to lift her head or even stand the pressure of a pillow. Her sound and sight sensitivity were so heightened she needed a dark, silent room to even marginally reduce the pounding in her head.
Her infection defied all of Dr. Masters’ treatments. He arranged for doctors at a specialized New Jersey hospital to treat her. FedEx flew Lisa Marie and her parents via air ambulance. There Lisa Marie’s positive HLA-DR4 test revealed a genetic disposition to developing the most serious symptoms of Lyme.
After weeks of treatment, she was marginally better, but nowhere near recovered. Over the next seven years, Lisa Marie had several interludes of what looked like the beginning of remission, but such interludes were always followed by dismal relapses. Lisa Marie was able to complete one semester on full scholarship in the Honors Program at the University of Memphis. She won the freshman writing award with such impressive results that she was asked to proof her instructor’s PhD program assignments.
Even after her illness forced her to drop out of college, might it be that her new-found writing talent would prove to be her life’s mission?
Shortly before her 19th birthday, the “remissions” ceased, and the severe pain drove her to bed. She has remained there for the last 28 years.
The Challenge of Solitude
“Mind, body and soul ravaged by pain; nystagmus and dizziness that never wane.
Years without music of any kind have broken my heart and tortured my mind.”
A visitor enters Lisa Marie’s mostly darkened room through a soundproof door, not knowing what to expect. Lisa Marie’s head is propped on a pillow, but only slightly. If she were to sit up, she would be in a great deal of pain, become lightheaded, and experience tachycardia. She wears sunglasses but has taken off the blinders that further protect her light-sensitive eyes and the headphones that protect the nerve-endings in her ears.
Now in her mid-forties, she is a darker blonde, pretty, with milk-white skin and a welcoming smile.
Working with a tiny flashlight for note taking, the visitor asks questions in whispers—questions that attempt to bring understanding as to why God would allow a young girl-turned young woman, a woman who loves Him as He loves her—to go through so much pain.
“How do you sustain your faith in such difficult circumstances?”
“I don’t think I have,” Lisa Marie calmly responds. “God does that.”
“How do you stand the solitude?” the visitor ponders without asking.
Most of us find it difficult to be quiet for even a brief time. We interrupt our own prayers with thoughts about our to-do lists. We fill our solitude by binge-watching our favorite streaming shows or athletic contests. We clutter our minds with news of temporal import, with lists of errands we must run to purchase things that will turn to dust, or with the opinions of other mortals on social media. We distract ourselves with mere worldly games when the Creator of the Universe wants us to honor Him, to become witnesses to His grace and glory…to play the real game for eternal keeps.
Earthly distractions are out of the realm for Lisa Marie. Even with medication, her pain allows her no time for lesser pursuits. “Regular IVIG (Intravenous Immunoglobulin) treatments are especially draining,” she says. She spends her “good” moments, her less painful moments, reading Scripture, praying for the needs God impresses on her, writing poetry, and, using an iPad, encouraging those who are part of a closed Facebook group, the Pain Pals.
“I have been able the past two years to read the Bible through,” she says. “I become quite behind during IVIG, but with dedication and hard work, I have been able to keep up this year, praise the Lord!”
She still sounds, bafflingly, hopeful.
Yielded and Still
I’ve known darkness blacker than night. I long for sunshine and cling to the Light of the world, for He is the reason my heart doesn’t fail in this heartrending season.”
“Was there a time when you questioned God’s faithfulness?” the visitor asks.
“I remember when I was a teenager,” Lisa Marie recalls, “when I realized I would never turn another aerial or kick another soccer ball, when the pain was more than I thought I could stand, I asked my parents, ‘Does God still love me?’”
It is a question, really, we all must answer when storms surge—when a child dies, when the diagnosis comes, when the job is lost, when…fill in the blank.
But most of us can expect for things to get better. Most of us can find other doors when even the most precious and promising doors shut. Most of us can find enough pain relief to move forward in the world even with injuries, auto-immune diseases, or other painful conditions. Most of us don’t give up everything we thought we knew about ourselves and our futures, everything most people agree is important in life, and willingly enter into what God still has for us.
“I’ve asked ‘Why?’ many times,” Lisa Marie says. “The hardest thing for me to give up was getting married and having children. I really wanted that! But He has His reasons, and He knows best.”
“I have stopped asking why. Every ‘Why?’ in our eyes will be answered completely when we look in His eyes.”
Anticipating what might have been the next question (“What will you do if things get even worse?”), Lisa Marie professes: “He is my rock, and I know I will trust Him. Second Corinthians 4: 17-18 says, ‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’”
“Even when we are suffering alone,” she continues, “how we suffer matters. He’s watching, and all those who have gone before are watching. Heavenly throngs cheer each step that draws us closer home.”
A Breath Away
“In an instant all loss and suffering will fade when compared with the price He so willingly paid. He will say, ‘My child, welcome home! You never spent even one moment alone.’”
Our discussion has taken place in this dark and quiet room during a national political election season. Lisa Marie does not trouble herself with who will better provide her with the good life—the “American Dream.”
What is the good life? If we equate it with good health, the accumulation of wealth, and the glory of accomplishment, Lisa Marie is poor indeed. But if we open God’s Word, we hear Jesus, who IS God’s Word, praise the opposite:
He says of the woman who sat quietly at His feet, listening and learning: “One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42, ESV).
He says of John—who owned nothing but the rough clothes on his back, ate wild locusts, and was beheaded for speaking the truth: “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).
He says of a literally penniless widow: “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood” (Mark 12:43-44).
In Scripture we also hear the confession of Job, who was chosen by Satan for special mistreatment, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27).
For Lisa Marie, like Job, suffering has become an invitation to a closer relationship with God. She could have declined the invitation and retreated into self-pity. Instead, her RSVP has resulted in the one thing necessary, a deep and abiding nearness to Jesus. In her most agonizing moments, she worships in the way that only those who know they can’t stand even one moment without Christ are able to worship. She is ever aware that He is only a breath away.
It was Lisa Marie’s suffering that ultimately revealed her life’s mission:
“What I want from my life is that He receive all the glory,” she says simply, using language that, while spoken by many Christians, rings completely true from Lisa Marie’s lips. “Even if one person comes to Christ through my story, as tough as it is, it’s worth it…even if one person comes to Jesus and doesn’t have to face eternity without Him.”
This earnest declaration seems to take every ounce of energy she has. Any further questions will have to wait for another day, for another “good” moment.
The visitor quietly exits, wondering if in eternity—which is just a breath away for all of us—when the famous men and women of all the ages are forgotten, and every earthly treasure is dissolved, there might be a blonde girl turning aerials and singing the song of life at full voice, completely unaware of how truly beautiful she is.
Lisa Marie Angotti enjoys writing about God’s faithfulness. The excerpts in this story are from her poem, Forever Free, which she wrote in 2017.
Read additional thoughts from the perspective of Lisa Marie’s parents, Frank and Karen Angotti, in the article, Embracing Change: God’s Plan; Not Ours.
Read more of Lisa Marie Angotti’s poetry in the collection "My Portion Forever."
