• 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…

  • dark photo of woman with black hair putting hand against forehead with eyes closed
    Intracranial Hypertension

    Top Triggers for Intracranial Hypertension

    It’s amazing how the slightest change can throw off your body’s natural balance. Sometimes, it isn’t so much what you do but what you don’t do. Everyone will experience different triggers that throw things off and cause symptoms to flare. In this post, we will be going over some of the most common triggers for Intracranial Hypertension. It is important that you do not let this list intimidate you. Even in sharing the same condition, we may not all experience it the same way. We are all unique. Learn your own body and listen to it. You may be pleasantly surprised, or you may discover some boundaries to respect. Either…

  • greyscale of back of womans head and shoulders hunched over
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    Depression

    ⊗ Trigger Warning: This following post contains sensitive material about depression and suicidal thoughts. Please proceed with caution. ⊗ Sometimes I feel brave enough to say it. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel empowered. I feel stronger. I feel a purpose. And then sometimes I feel nothing but shame. A woman once said not everything has to be shared. I had hoped this could be one of those things. But not everything that is needed to be said is easy to be said. This is that. It has been little over a year since I overcame the very lowest part of my life. But I’m not talking about depression alone.…

  • minimalist white desk with modern chair facing a white wall
    Chronic Illness,  Spirit

    Where to Begin

    Want to know a secret? I was supposed to launch this outreach a long time ago. It began in the hospital one February night in 2018. While one could argue it was the high dose of IV steroids I had just received, I knew it was something greater. God was speaking to me, and words were pouring into my heart and overflowing faster than I could get them out. I needed to write. I needed to share these words with the rest of the world. But how? When? Where would I even start? I soon saw that none of that mattered. All that was important was that God had begun…

  • crowd of friends standing in the woods looking at the sunrise
    Spirit

    Joining the Body

    From the inspirations of the message shared on Pink Incense August 14, 2019 Watch Here! “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.” – I Thessalonians 5:11 EDIFY – instruct and improve, enlighten morally, spiritually, and intellectually In the early days of being sick, all I could ever do was beg God to remove my pain. Medicine and medical treatment were rarely successful, and I felt trapped in a body of torture. All I could cry was, “Take it Jesus. Please, take it.” My sister was always there for me, praying with me through the pain, specifically telling me to praise Him through the…

  • woman kneeling at the side of a bed with her head on the mattress
    Chronic Illness,  Intracranial Hypertension

    A Day in the Life of Chronic Illness

    6:30 am. It’s Groundhogs Day. Has it been two weeks or three weeks of dealing with this episode? I’ve lost track. But I get to wake up once again to the same problem that had me tossing and turning all night. How bad will it be today? That’s all I ever wonder. Will my medicine work right away? Will it all be gone by noon? Or maybe break by dinner? Just please don’t make me to go sleep with it again. Morning At least it’s morning. I can now take whatever medication that is supposed to help relieve the pressure. Please work. I put on my worship music to help…

  • streetlight at night
    Chronic Illness,  Intracranial Hypertension

    Sleepless Nights

    It’s 2 am, and the headache has already hit hard enough to wake me from my sleep. I feel it so sharp inside my temple that I swear if I could slice open my head, I would be able to remove the stone that is piercing my brain. I try to change positions to bring relief, only to commence the whooshing noises of blood rushing in my head. I am tormented by these angry waves roaring at me in this silent hour of night. I can’t take it anymore. I get up and am then hit with the pounding, pulsating pressure on my brain and eyes. If I give it…

  • 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…