I hesitate

I hesitate to write this post, but my blog posts pile up in my head like a queue and if I want to blog about my awesome trip to Rockridge Canyon and my hilariously terrifying adventure down a zip line I'd better get this one posted.

On Sickness

For the past month and a half I have been sick with the worst sinus infection ever (it must be true, just look at the italics).  This means constant headaches, constant fevers and no energy.  After multiple trips to the doctor's offices and three different antibiotics, my head felt like it was going to explode at work, and my ear infection was so bad I couldn't fall asleep because my ears were ringing so loudly.  I am so thankful that my headache finally stopped before my trip to B.C. last week.  Since I got home from B.C I've been experiencing some pain that seems to get worse every day (to the point where I need to take T3's to get through the day).  It sucks to realize that I will probably be sick for a while, and to not know why I am in so much pain, or why my immune system is so crappy.

I've never been direct about my faith on my blog before, but I can't imaging going through this past year without it and I can't seem to get this post out of my head.  So if God or faith makes you squeemy, you might want to skip the next paragraph or two.

Last year about this time I shared with my community at Journeys things I was learning.  One of the verses I shared was Habukuk 3:17-19, which I admitted I really didn't understand.  But I can say now I get it.  Here is the lowdown on the passage:  Everything sucks.  There is nothing and no hope for a future and yet Habbi (as I like to call him) looks outside his circumstances and rejoices and is joyful in God.  Habbi says that God gives him strength, he's like a deer, he's able to go up high mountains.  (This whole rejoices and joyful in God seemed so ridiculous to me).

After a year full of panic attacks, surgery, depression, and lots of sickness, I can definitely say that the only thing that can get me through the darkest nights of my soul is God.  Looking at the wrong things, like my immediate circumstances only brought fear and despair.  I thought I was just being melodramatic, but fear and despair is simply the product of looking to myself for control over my immediate circumstances.  But when I look outside my circumstances to God I see he is in absolute control and I believe he has a plan for me.  Seeing my situation in this way brings me such peace and comfort and all I want to do is praise and glorify God.  And I don't think that I could write that last sentence truthfully, until I had experienced all the muck and yuck in this past year.

I wish I could wrap this post up nicely by saying how peppy and energetic I felt, but that'd be a lie.  So for Round 2, I am simply going to Be Still, which is probably the hardest thing to do as I am such a doer and achiever.  To me, this means living in the moment in each day.  It means trusting that I will have the strength to get through each day and not worry about getting through tomorrow, or the next day, or next week.  It means instead of feeling stuck, I just need to see what I can do with the energy and opportunities I have on a daily basis.

And so this is how I choose to respond while I wait to get my health back:

• Adjust my plan.  I still have things I want to achieve, and there's no reason why I should give up and do nothing, I just need to adjust my approach into teeny weeny little steps, until I am strong enough to run in leaps and bounds.  

• Steward wisely.  I think it is easier sometimes to live with "less" (money/time/energy), because you are forced to be responsible and being wasteful could be disastrous.  There is little room for error.  I don't have the luxury of wasting my time or energy, I need to be spending my energy on the most important things.  I'm just happy if I can work a full day and come home and be a good mom.

It is inevitable that sometime in our life we will go through some really hard struggles, but if there is anything I learnt from my dad it is that I can have ongoing health problems in my life and still laugh, love, and enjoy life

~b~