After weeks of EXTREME exhaustion & pain unrelenting in the slightest, I woke up today with a very precious, tiny canister of energy. I've already made the bed and I can feel the strength sapping fast. This is the blessing and curse moment the person with Fibromyalgia waits for. The little bit of normalcy (and not even!) and the quick draw as the body sucks out with alarming fever.
Already the birds outside that just a moment ago sang so gaily are now piercing my ear drums. The water running in the kitchen loud as a roar. The person in the bathroom, separated by one thin wall, constantly clearing their throat, flushing the toilet, my immediate enemy.
It's such a delicate life to lead.
Already my body is settling back into a state of exhaustion, wherein keeping the eyes open is a chore. I have been awake for less than an hour and already I am drained for the entire day.
Still, I am grateful that for a few brief minutes it was a pleasure to hear the birds sing.
God has been speaking to me about this call to rest. His command for me this year, His desire to have me all to Himself. As I wrote in my journal last night I was brought to the startling discovery that of course (of course!) as God ushers me to choose Him over all things, suddenly things will start competing for my time and energy more than ever! And they won't be half appealing or simply satisfactory. No way. They will be tailored to my desires, because the devil knows what I like. And they will even be good things, like a conference or a trip or new books or new worship CDs or magazines. All of it waiting to steal me away from the rest God is telling me I NEED.
So I have to choose. I have to stop. I have to realign my priorities, my heart. Get back to my first love and settle in for as long as this season shall be. Oh, it is hard!
The truest friends of Fibromyalgia are silence and sleep. All else is a madhouse of sorts.
We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul - not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy,
Colossians 1:11
"Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen."- Frances Hodgson Burnett
“My face set to a grim and determined expression. I speak in all modesty as I say this, but I discovered at that moment that I have a fierce will to live. It's not something evident, in my experience. Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others - and I am one of those - never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the every end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go. It may be nothing more than life-hungry stupidity.”
-Yann Martel
"The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other. The sea is without a wrinkle. There is not a whisper of wind. The hours last forever. You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma. Then the sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy. Yet even these two opposites do not remain distinct. In your boredom there are elements of terror: you break down into tears; you are filled with dread; you scream; you deliberately hurt yourself. And in the grip of terror – the worst storm – you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all.
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.
Life on a boat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing. You must make adjustments if you want to survive. Much becomes expendable. You get your happiness when you can. You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish."
-Yann Martel
