Learning Tough Lessons

Hi

I have been hit hard by an article I read the other day called 'I Surrender' on (In)Courage written by Sara Frankl. Like me she suffers with very restrictive health issues although more severe than mine as she is totally house bound. I went on from her article to her blog Gitzen Girl where she had also written some of the same powerful words that hit me again!

How I came across this was seemingly by chance but I don't believe in chance and do believe in God's guidance!

I get Dayspring Devotions to an email I hardly use anymore and sadly I tend to delete them without even looking at them but today I was sorting out my emails and somehow found myself reading that piece on (In)Courage!

So much of my life mirrors Sara's description of hers in her article although our illnesses are different the effect is the same! (I have already talked about this a bit in my previous blog entries and some of this you might already know about me. But as I went to Sara's blog and added my own comment I felt like it was very powerful and important and so I am bringing it to my blog.)

You know I have ME. I would say it's not very bad and I'm managing it and I'm ok. All those things you tell yourself to hide from the truth and because there are people out there who have so much worse than me! Like my friend who is in hospital with her ME cos she is having trouble breathing, she is in a wheelchair, she can hardly eat and is on morphine for the pain! But reading Sara's article I've had to look at myself a bit more honestly. She talked about fighting it and that is what I am doing. Fighting, fighting, in the hope if I keep fighting it I am doing something, that it might make me better, that I might feel better because I am achieving something! But ME doesn't work like that! If you fight and push and do that something, you suffer for it afterwards!

My poor doggy hadn't had a walk in weeks, maybe months because putting the dog in the car and driving to a field, letting her have a run and then driving home again was too much for me but walking causes discomfort and aches! Never the less something needed to be done. Maybe I could manage a 10 minute walk around the block everyday at least that would be better than nothing. So I took her out but 10 minutes didn't seem enough so we walked for 30. I felt great! What a sense of achievement! So the next day we went for a 20 minute walk despite the fact my calves were sore. The next day I was in agony and resting in bed! It hurt every time I moved and every step downstairs that I couldn't avoid because that is where the toilet is! The last few days have been pretty much a wash out I have been so tired and feeling foggy, struggling to wake up!

And so it is this state I come to Sara's article and then from there to her blog! Knowing that somehow, although I thought I had let God into every area of my life, I was trying to do it alone and that I need to let God into this area too. Allow him into the frustrations of not being to get out for a meal with friends, not being able to go on holiday this year, not being able to get back to my old home to see all the friends I left behind, whom I haven't seen in nearly 6 years and miss like crazy! And it hurts like hell! I'm not sure how to do it! How do I let down those barriers? I struggle to hear His voice! I don't know how to stop burying myself in the internet and little bits of activity I do to let go. The frustrations of not being able to manage to push my little business of selling online the things I make for fun and therapeutic benefit.

I am not totally housebound yet but I'm worried that I will be for a while so I can find out what I CAN do without payback! That God might take me down to zero activity. That things might get even worse than they already are! Isn't that usually the way when God asks you to let go of the control of part of your life? Fear can really get in the way and, as fear does, paralyse you. In this case spiritually!

This all sounds really depressing and it is really emotional for me to write. But it is a beginning of a new journey, one I have no idea of how it will be and where it will take me. Hopefully I am ready to take it, maybe strong enough to step onto it. I want to do what God wants me too and follow His plans for my life! If I didn't, I wouldn't be 36 and still single but I believe that God's plan is perfect and that no matter how hard things are now one day everything will fall into place and I will look back at the tough times and say "so thats why that happened!"

DC Talk sang a song called 'In the Light' and that is where I want to be! In God's light. I will leave you with that to watch courtesy of youtube