Sunday, March 25, 2018

I Thought I Was Finished

This time is of year is always an emotional one for me.  We're approaching Good Friday, which marks a new start to life I was given.  It leaves me feeling vulnerable and open - which sounds bad, but in reality, it's a good place for me to be.  It's real.  It's the place where my heart is most tender and responsive, the way God always intended it to be.  I wish that I could say I have come to a place where I am always in that mindset.  Where I am always living like today is my Good Friday from six years ago.  But in this broken world, with pain and distractions, it just isn't the reality I'm living in.  It's what I strive for, but it isn't what I have achieved.  I may not while in this temporary life.

2018 has been a weird year so far.  When I look back over these first three months, and where I've been, it's just been weird to me.  I started out the year with this burden to surrender.  To really truly surrender the pain, the fear, the hurt, the control.  And as my last post can attest, I have struggled with this.  I have given into despair at times.  I have felt alone.  I have felt fear.  I have felt anxiety.  I have become distracted with everything else.  And yet, God has sent me these little reminders of what he asked me for - surrender.

I thought I knew what that would entail.  I thought it just meant that I needed to try to keep my focus on God and allow him to guide me through the good and the bad times.  But lately, I've been feeling something more is being asked.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it in January or February.  When I look back on what I thought it meant, really, I think I thought it would be easier.  I thought it would require more than I was giving, but less than I am coming to realize may be required.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Where Pain Has Left Me

Today I was talking to my sister-in-law, Carrie, about my physical pain. I have spent the last 7 days in bed, with the exception of a trip to the ER and a trip to the doctor a few days after that.

I have been dealing with physical pain now for 14 years. Yes. Fourteen. It's not just some mild ache. Most of the time, it's brutal. It's no longer a case where I have good days and bad days. This past year, it is more realistic to say that I have some bad days, some really, really bad days, and then every now and again, I have a day where the pain isn't the first thing on my mind-it's an "ok" day. There are rare moments where the pain is less horrible than all the other days. Days where every thought, every decision, every step is not overshadowed completely by pain.

I am in pain when I wake up. I am in pain all day. I am in pain when I go to bed. I am in pain all night. What a lot of people see on the outside is a mask. It's a way to cope. I don't always look like a person who is constantly reminded that her physical body is worn down and deteriorating at a rapid rate. I can pretend and put on that facade like the rest of the world. The one that most days says everything is great! Or, at the very least, the one that doesn't show I feel a lot worse inside than I look on the outside.