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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…
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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…
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What We Wish You Knew
Not everything is easy to say – especially for someone who battles sickness and pain on a daily basis. But there are many things that we wish you knew. I ask that you take the time today to read through what so many of us with chronic illnesses struggle with on a daily basis. Help us break that silence. I cannot speak for everyone, but I do believe this can speak for many: 1.) Sometimes we don’t want to take medicine. You’ve seen the commercials. We don’t need to tell you the side effects that can come with the medications we take. Some of us can barely even keep track…
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Claiming Thankfulness
Sickness did not sneak up on me. Sickness did not work its way into my life because of any bad health decisions I made. There was no family history waiting to show itself again. In fact, I was perfectly healthy for twenty five years, never a broken bone, rarely a visit to the doctor. My sickness had a cause. My sickness started the day my epidural went wrong. Science is still a mystery to most, and our bodies can do some fascinating things, but no one will ever convince me that my sickness just developed on its own. You don’t go from leaking spinal fluid from a faulty epidural to…
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The Five Lies of Disability – Breaking the Stigma
As if being physically impaired isn’t enough, there can be a lot of mental and emotional damage that tends to affect the sick as well. As one who has lived on both sides of the spectrum of being perfectly healthy and chronically ill, I have experienced firsthand how these thoughts can take their toll. You feel ashamed. Embarrassed. Humiliated. You don’t want to be seen as different. You don’t want to be viewed as fragile. You feel guilty. You should be working. You shouldn’t be in bed all day. You should be taking care of your family, your home. You feel doubt. What if no one believes me? What if…
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Labeled Disabled
Recently, I received some wonderful news. I have officially been declared disabled. Wait, what? Come on. Let’s talk about what nobody wants to talk about. Disability. Everything about it seems to scream caution. Judgement. Legalities. Who really wants to be disabled? Who really wants to be limited by what their body can or cannot do? It just doesn’t make sense to speak disability upon yourself at the same time you’re claiming healing. But to some, it’s an answered prayer. My Story It took a year from my epidural for my health to spiral out of control. But I still remained too proud to admit that my body was not what…
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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…
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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…
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Mommy’s Sick
I have been sick since the day my son was born. One miraculous moment became my greatest sacrifice – my life for his. It was the epidural for his birth that went wrong, triggering a snowball of health issues that have never ceased. I didn’t know it right away. I didn’t know it when I repeatedly asked the postpartum nurse for headache medication. I didn’t know it when my body was in excruciating pain just trying to breastfeed. Or when I sat sprawled out in his pediatrician’s office, nauseated to no end. From the very beginning of my son’s life, I was deprived irreplaceable time with him. My husband had…
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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…
