Betty

Today my appointment was with a nurse named Betty. We spoke about my health history briefly and she asked me what I like to do with my time. I told her I blog and am a part of a support group online, that I want to write a book, that I exercise regularly after starting the Gabapentin and that it took a very long time to get to a place of peace and positivity about my health. She said by reading my records it seems like I have come a long way (which begs me to wonder what the heck is written in those records?!) and that I am very positive for everything I go through. Writing that out makes me want to cry… Weep actually… In complete gratitude.
I don’t always feel strong and I have not always felt brave or positive or able to hold on to hope. Somehow I got here though. I told her it feels like it was very dark for a long time, and that once I started to face the reality of my sickness, I started to process it and come alive again. That it feels like one day I woke up and I was me again, but that it actually took a lot of tears and anger and depression and hitting emotional and physical rock bottom to get here.
At the end she hugged me and told me I made her day. That seeing my progress and my positivity made her so happy and that she was so pleased to meet me.
I feel flushed as I type that. Who am I? Just a woman. A woman with Fibromyalgia who definitely has bad days, who loses my cool at times (though hardly ever anymore which is a HUGE victory! Praise God!), who cries, who struggles, who complains.
I am just me. I don’t see myself as this brave person. Strong? Oh, yes. In life we have to be. But Fibromyalgia didn’t make me strong... it made me stronger than ever. My whole lifetime thus far and all I have been through has made me tough as nails. Loving those kids, learning from them, watching Simmy lose her mom and then her dad, raising Mylie, watching my family and friends preservere through their own trials… letting in all of that light and laughter and love… That is what makes me strong, what makes my whole life brilliant.
My God, who is capable and generous and all knowing... He could heal me right this second but oh! How He knew I needed to be humbled. Still need to be humbled continually! I needed Fibromyalgia to expand my heart, to widen my vision, to rebirth the dreams in my heart and to keep walking into my destiny.
It’s flattering to be complimented. I would be a liar if I said that was not true. It makes me feel good in my flesh, but more then anything it makes me so grateful.
Because Fibromyalgia IS hard and life can be hard, but somehow, some blessed, beautiful somehow… I have made it through the pitch black darkness and I am still standing here.
Thank you, my loving, brilliant God. For knowing my heart. For allowing me this sickness and the brittle, harsh season that came with it, so that I would learn… REALLY learn, that all I need IS you. Thank you for the friends who have supported me, even from afar. Thank you for prayer and the power behind words uttered in the secret places of a heart. Thank you for my chaotic, ever ready family. Thank you for blankets and pillows and heaters and books and Fibro sisters. Thank you for showing me beauty through extreme pain.
Thank you for showing me positivity.
I am so lucky and I cannot believe that this gets to be my life.
In good times I am blessed beyond measure. In bad times I am blessed even more. You break me down, shake me, get all that gunk out into the open. You perform open heart surgery on me everyday as I struggle with the weight of my own flesh.
I am in awe.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This life imperfect, fraught with trial and sickness… It is a beautiful mess and it’s all mine!
You let me hear the laughter of the child I love over the phone, you show me grace and maturity and depth in Simonnie, you let me witness and marvel at the women Maddison, April, and Antonia are becoming. You give me such marvelous friends and family and influences in everything, every day. You set me up to meet Betty today, and to speak with that lonely woman at the bookshop, and all of the other people you have already planned to bless my life with just by being in it.
A million thank yous will never, ever be enough.
Tonight I am quieted by Your fierce, undeniable love.
Please let me always be full of gratitude and let me always be teachable. Open my spirit wide, wide, wide to receive all that you are, my God, my King.
I want to relearn your love over and over and over.
These last few years could have been a horror story. For a very long time I thought it was. I was angry with you sometimes. I was so sad. I lost everything. Job, car, income, home, children, friends, identity, self-confidence, purpose, health. I came undone and you stitched me back together.
My horror story has led me here,
to this moment,
on this bedroom floor in a state I never thought I’d live in,
In front of this heater,
with my eyes dripping tears onto my pajamas,
realizing now that it was never meant to be a horror story. It was always going to be a tale of victory, simply because you are the Author of it.

Wow.

Feel like absolute crap today.

I've been pushing too hard and now the crash has come, weakening the limbs and clouding the brain so heavily with overwhelming fatigue.

The lights are off, save for one dim nightlight and I am in silence. Everywhere hurts. The exhaustion is something fierce that cannot be conveyed with words.

I hate Fibromyalgia.