It's been a rough patch for a long while now. When we're healthy and we get sick we usually bounce back after a few days, maybe a week if it is a particularly bad flu or virus. We slide easily back into our daily routines and hardly give thought to what we just went through holed up in bed or sneezing every 5 minutes. Life must go on.
When we are chronically ill- whatever it may be, from diabetes to Cancer, becomes difficult and REGULAR. There is no reprieve, there is no waiting for it to be gone. Instead we must learn how to navigate the very lives we have carefully constructed over time. Our days become a mission to endure and to fight to even have a tiny bit of normalcy.
Not each day is horrible. There is laughter, there is an extra strength that comes, and oh those days feel like Christmas and a birthday rolled into one, and there are moments of supreme joy. Life isn't over, it is just different. Very different. Everything we once took for granted becomes a mountain. Having a friend over, driving a car, eating the right foods, taking our medication on time, getting adequate sleep, being able to function... it all becomes trial and error. We have to figure out what we can handle and what must be eliminated in order to maintain a balance and not fall into a bad way. It is no easy feat. Sometimes we can be in a bad way for a long time.
With Fibromyalgia there is no predictability. Everyday is a new cocktail of ailments. Lately for me it has been vertigo, chest pains, and supreme fatigue, but it changes with no warning. One moment I can handle sounds and I am laughing and having a ball, the next I am angry and wanting to hide in a corner, so certain that I am ruining the lives around me with my incessant needs and irrationality.
Lately I had been in a funk of epic proportions. I felt extremely negative and I noticed it was coming out in my speech and in my thought life. However, when in the midst of it all it is almost impossible to crawl out of the dark. I stayed there. Bitter and angry and crying. Feelings of inadequacy washed over me as I had to wear earplugs at the dinner table, hiding away in the bedroom because everything visual or verbal made me feel much worse. Each conversation I could pick apart and think of what I'd said wrong and what someone really meant. There is a guilt that comes with chronic illness that is particularly difficult to survive when in the darkness of soul.
It seems like no matter what, during those times, there is no way to come out. We can pray earnestly and vent and try to explain all of the irrational, depressing thoughts that keep us held so still, but our mere words never do it justice. All we can think of at these times is escape. "If only I was still healthy" or a whole host of other sentences that lend only to drive us deeper into our madness.
And so we wait... we remember through the gritty tears that we've come out before. It feels like we will never feel light again. The despair is that thick.
And then one day it comes. It can be a good night of sleep, or a song, or a friend, or reading our Bibles. It can be nothing else except the fact that our bodies are relenting just a little and we can feel a piece of our old selves reshuffle and lead us out of that darkness.
Recently I found myself in a negative place. All of the emotional parts of accepting my condition came crashing all at once. The things I pushed away to deal with later while in California. I felt near hysteria. And when I am like that- lashing out and attacking, well, I reap what I sow. I was attacked back. I was told some very ugly things out of anger, and just like that I was a ball of helplessness and despair. See, in our dark times we have no rationality, or if we do, it is very slim. I felt like a nothing so I acted like a nothing.
And then I listened to a sermon from my friends' church in Alabama and it was about how our mouths are a reflection of our hearts. Familiar verses from the Bible, a sermon I've heard in different variations throughout the years, but it came fresh and it was needed. I started to think about my behavior, my speech... putting myself down, believing the lies about myself that have been spoken into my spirit before, the set up the enemy has laid out since I was born. So I started to repent and ask God to fill me up with kindness again. To fill me up with Himself anew and to take all of those negative words that spread throughout my body and soul.
And then I went to sleep.
The next day I drove to the library. All of the beauty of fall met each other though the reds and yellows and oranges of the trees and sky. The stereo played delicious music that moved my soul. I sang loud, I danced in the car, and after the library I parked and sang psalm 51 out loud to God over and over.
Psalm 51
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
As I poured out my heart, I felt it. Hope resurfacing.
It is not to be taken lightly. Hope is what coasts us along on those days where we want to give up and when it disappears we are lost again. Adrift. When it unearths from where we've stifled it, it is a beautiful moment. Suddenly the world is full of possibility again.
As I drove home "God of Wonders" came on the radio. I smiled and sang with all of my heart. This to me is another sign of God's move in my life. He has been bringing me back to the simplicity of who he is and who I am in Him. Striping away the junk I've allowed in over the last few years. No hyper spiritual songs to move the emotions, no big show of worshiping Him. Just Him.
