• girl with two braids standing in front of a colorful graffiti wall of flowers
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    The Tapestry of Healing

    I spent approximately seven months trying to find a doctor who would believe something was wrong with me. It took ten more months for me to no longer be questioned by the medical community, and still over another year to convince the federal government that I was sick enough to be disabled. After almost three years of fighting for my health, I was finally free to rest, recover, and heal. Except I couldn’t. Not fully at least. You spend almost three years trying to convince the world that something is wrong and see how easy it is to stop. My mind had become used to a constant repeat, reciting my…

  • hands holding white and yellow flower by green and yellow bush
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    Embracing the Thorn in My Flesh

    Sunday morning. 9:30 am. My shoulder is hurting so badly that I can’t even touch up the paint on my nails without feeling the pain shoot down my arm. I think to myself that it will be another Sunday where I’m once again just the girl who needs a healing. I wonder when the day will come that I will be able to go to church for the same reason any “normal” person goes. Worship begins. I alternate hands between praising God and holding onto the chair in front of me until I know my balance can be trusted. Focus. Focus on God. It seems I pray that more than…

  • sillhouette of woman spinning and running in field of morning sun
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    Count It All Joy

    Earlier this month, I had my second brain surgery. I’ll save the details for another post, but overall it went very well. One might even go as far as to say it was successful – I haven’t had any high pressure symptoms since. The recovery process on the other hand was a different story. While on the surface, all is technically going well, there’s still so much more to recovery that never seems to be seen or heard. Take the post-surgery depression for example. In all honesty, I don’t even want to call it that because I know how much worse it could truly be. There is just no doubt…

  • close up of woman's light brown eyes
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    A Strange Way of Healing

    Last month, I relapsed. What I thought would end as beautiful memories of the zoo and park with my family turned out to be days of pain and pressure. I overdid it, and I relapsed. You may be wondering how that can be. What happened to being healed? Trust me, I was asking God the same thing. I knew I couldn’t doubt what God had promised, but was I expected to ignore the way I was feeling? There was certainly no doubt there when it came to the stiff inflammation building in my back. There was no ignoring the pressure pushing on my eyes and tightening my neck. How could…

  • Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    By His Stripes, I Am Healed

    To say it was a Sunday like any other would be a lie. In truth, I should have realized something was different early on. Though my husband made no comment to me, he didn’t even want to go to church that morning. Even I lacked the usual energy and excitement that I usually had in going to my place of freedom. The music didn’t reach me the same. I barely sang, and I could only manage a sway while everyone danced and clapped around me. I still had no idea of what was to come. Though my body was only a few feet from the alter, my mind was elsewhere.…

  • girl with shaved head in hospital bed making a peace sign with hand and holding phone
    Chronic Illness,  Intracranial Hypertension

    My Shunt Surgery – Healing

    Apparently when my neurosurgery team told me, “If you feel anything at all, let us know.” They meant, “It can take even eight weeks before your body adjusts to the shunt.” So by three weeks post-surgery, I was back at the hospital once again begging for relief. As I stood hunched against the corner of the elevator trying to stretch out the pressure, who do you think was to enter the elevator that Friday morning but my neurologist – my God-sent angel – the only one who could ever convince my neurosurgeons to help me. And despite ridiculous feuds with my neurosurgery team that day, my shunt was adjusted and…

  • waves and clouds at sunset
    Spirit

    A Chosen Vessel

    Do you ever wonder why you have to go through the trials that you do? Do you question God, wanting to know what you did to deserve this? Wanting to know what He is trying to show you? I know I used to. I used to beg Him to tell me why I was so sick. Even when He told me I was healed in His eyes, here as in Heaven, I still needed to know the reason for this ever happening to me. I needed to know how, in man’s eyes, here on earth, I was supposed to use this. My first thought was that it was punishment for…

  • black and white of man standing in fog with backpack on
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    The Search for Healing

    There is one thing that I never understood. If God has the power to heal me, why hasn’t He? God, you said that if I had faith so small as a mustard seed, I could move mountains. Surely, I have more faith than that! So why won’t you heal me? I can’t tell you how many times I pleaded with God to remove my sickness. How many times I begged Him to just take it all away, to at least let me find a medication that brought relief! So why wouldn’t He? When I first started developing Intracranial Hypertension, I was filled with nothing but anger and bitterness at what…

  • close up of water on a river with trees in the background
    Spirit

    Looking for an Answer

    So many times, I find myself asking God for a yes or no answer. I just want a clear, simple answer. When I am going through something, and I am praying for help, I wish so bad that God could be like a magic eight ball. I wish I could just ask my question, say my request, shake my magic eight ball of God, and have the answer just appear before me. But then I realized, that is my flesh. A magic eight ball is made with only twenty answers inside. That worldly toy is limited to only twenty answers it can give you. It’s origins are not even of…

  • woman sitting in dark old empty church
    Spirit

    Run to the House

    “Ugh, what is the pastor going to say? What is everyone going to think? What if they call us out in front of everyone?” These were some of the thoughts that ran through mine and my husband’s heads as we made the long drive to church. Our stomachs turned with nervousness. Our hearts were racing. I had grown up in church. Why did I feel this way? It was February when God told me to go back to church. Having one reason or excuse after the other, I was lucky if I even watched it online. God had been patient with me, but by the time June came along, He…