Gettin' Real.

Hello readers! (If there are any of you out there…)

I realize it has been quite a while since my last post, which makes me sad. I’m going to work at getting back on my posting train and post more frequently like I used to. Life has just become so chaotic it seems since my last post. Cliff note version of a “catch up” would be I am now almost halfway through my first semester in graduate school, and it is quite a change! I really do enjoy it though, and am really excited to keep learning more about things I actually care about and have a passion for. I’ve also started working as a diet tech in a hospital, and my pure joy of loving the days I work is such a godsend and a message that I am most definitely in the field He has chosen for me.

Now onto the reason for this post. I realize this is going to be really long, and chances are it will be several parts, written on different days with different additions. This post (and the potential few to come) are really mostly going to be used as a catharsis for me. I’ve always found I can write out my thoughts better than saying them, and in essence that’s why I started this blog. It’s a way for me to cope with everything going on in my life, and if it somehow helps someone else…then that is just how God is using my blog. So here it goes.

This season of my life has been really tough, to say the least. I can probably go back through the posts of this whole blog (about 3 years worth!! Crazy.) and find posts of when I have been in valleys and filled with frustration…yet this time it somehow feels different. Deeper. Harder to get out of. I have physically been in a “flare up” of sorts for the last 2 months, and it hasn’t gone away. I have recently discovered the reason I am in pain and exhausted everyday is a result of an autonomic disorder in addition to my muscular dystrophy. So we sort of know the reason….now its finding a way to get rid of the symptoms. I’ve accepted my baseline amount of pain and tiredness…. I’ve lived with it every day for as long as I can remember and that’s just my “normal”. But these flare-ups are excruciatingly painful, and it affects my daily life more than normal…and forces me to adapt. I find myself some days in such a deep place of frustration and exhaustion. I’m so unbelievably tired of pain, of being tired, and of having to deal with this disease and all that comes with it. I don’t really like complaining about being tired or in pain, and usually push through it and go out and do things. I’ve always figured if I’m going to be in pain I might as well be out living and having fun instead of sitting at home sulking about it. But now my pain is to the point where some days I can’t seem to push through it, and my limitations are growing. I now have to ask for help for things I have been able to do on my own such as grocery shopping and cleaning my apartment. And while those who help me do it with such Christ-like attitudes and do it totally out of love…to me asking for this help and admitting that I need it seems to be such a negative thing sometimes. It feels like I am a broken, disabled person who can’t do normal things that everyone else can. And when I get into that thought process, which Satan knows for a fact is my weak spot, he comes to attack and gets me into a “worst case scenario” thought process which allows me to fabricate this future of being in a wheelchair full time and not being able to do anything for myself. Logically, I know this is ridiculous to fixate on right now, especially because I have NO idea what God has for me in the future. But sometimes it’s hard not to go “there”.

I have talked to several very wise people in this “season” of my life in a desperate attempt at answers. Answers for why this is happening, when it will be over, why it hasn’t ended yet, and just how I can get through this in one piece. I know that this will not be my last valley in regards to my health….and me being the planner I am, I want to have a really good battle plan for the next time. But I really need that battle plan now. One person in particular really has/had me thinking of things in ways I’ve honestly never thought about before. So here comes a lot of the catharsis I was talking about, but perhaps it can be morphed to someone else’s situation as well. To me talking about my pain and pointing it out, in my brain, means my disease is somehow defining who I am – which is something I have busted my tail for my whole life trying to prove untrue. But it was pointed out to me that my lack of being open and vulnerable with people and allowing them to help me is a huge form of pride. And it is making huge assumptions about my friends  - that they will somehow look at me differently or judge me because I’m struggling. Assuming that they won’t carve out time to help me do little errands I can’t do by myself. I know my friends do not fall prey to these assumptions and my closest friends would probably be really upset with me if I didn’t share when I needed help and was struggling. I know I’d be upset if the table was turned. And it was also pointed out to me that by not sharing my struggles with the community of believers I’ve been given, I’m not allowing God to use them to love me and show Himself to me through them. He gave us a community to walk through this life together with, and to show Himself to us in several ways….and by not asking for help I am cutting Him short and not allowing my friends to be God to me. Which isn’t fair to them, God, or me in the long run. My pride can’t overcome my need to see God.

So I guess here’s the big principle I’m learning: IT’S OKAY TO BE BROKEN.

It’s okay to be upset, frustrated, angry, sad, and all of that. It’s okay to let down my guard and not have my brave “everything is awesome” face on. But I can’t stay in that place that Satan wants me to. He wants me to think that God has left me, or somehow doesn’t love me because I have to suffer with this every day and haven’t been physically healed. But none of that is true! God has created every person – including those with disabilities – in HIS image…He doesn’t make mistakes. I just finished the book given to me by one of my spiritual leaders, called Joni. It’s an incredible autobiography about a woman who had a diving accident at age 17 and became paralyzed. She has absolutely no feeling or use below her collarbone. And though my case is not as severe as hers or many others, it was so comforting to read of someone else’s struggle who truly understood what daily pain was like, and the frustration of not having function of your arms and legs. It was so refreshing to go through her struggle with her and know that I am not alone. It was also really encouraging to read how she has come out of an intense, deep valley and now sees her wheelchair and accident as a blessing and fully embraces the plan that God has for her. I am definitely not at the point where I see my MD as a blessing….but I want to fully embrace God’s plan for me like Joni did. I want my life to be completely saturated with His love and for my life to be nothing but a glorification of Him.

I also loved that throughout the book she pointed out specific scriptures she held on to, and it is now fueling my search and desire to dig into the Word and really soak up God’s words for me during this season. In Hebrews 11 it talks about all the people in the Bible like Abraham and Moses (among several others) who never got to see God’s promises fulfilled, but lived their life with the faith that they would. They lived for a heavenly life, and not their earthly life. I may never wake up to see the day when I am healed and free from this disease. But this life, and more importantly this body, are temporary. One day I will be with Christ in Heaven, with a perfect and glorious body that knows no limits. And with that perspective I can pick myself up out of this hole of frustration. Not to say I am there, by any means, and not to say I won’t struggle as things progressively get worse or when I hit bumps in the road…but I will be more equipped to handle them with the perspective that this pain won’t last forever. In Lamentations 3 it says that though there is grief in this life the Lord will bring compassion and unfailing love. “For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men (verse 33).” God is going to use my life (hopefully) in some way that will glorify His name and love. There is most definitely a reason that I have been GIVEN the life I have…and I may not know the reason why until I see Him…but I rest assured in the fact that He knows, and really that’s enough. It’s more than enough.

Serious kudos if you made it this far. I don’t really know what response I’m expecting from this post, if I’m even expecting one. Just throwing out some struggles in the hopes that being real will not only allow my heart to heal, but perhaps others as well.