So if you've known me for any period of time, you're well aware my thoughts can be both deep and random simultaneously. You'll also know that I have a tendency to become so focused on said thoughts that I miss turns while driving (Ex: I was late to Sunday school this past Sunday) and I will toss and turn while thinking through said thoughts.
The past few days I've been thinking about football games, character, apple trees, and a friend of mine whom we'll call Bob* (short for Bob the Tomato off of Veggie Tales).
There are many different people you come across as you journey through this venture called life. You'll find those who are too stuck up on themselves to notice the world around them...those whose only goal in life is to succeed at the American dream. You'll find those who are in various stages of life, but are oh so unhappy with where they are. You'll find the unhappy mother who cries herself to sleep, because her husband left her for another woman. You'll find young girls having sex with their boyfriend because they've never been shown what true love is. You'll find different things, because people are different.
It is a very rare occurance when you meet someone whose love for God is so full that it overflows--it overflows into how that person carries themseves, how they interact with people, how they care for others, and how they handle the curve balls of life.
Now I'm not talking about any regular Christian here, I'm talking about the one you WANT to be around because you feel simply by being around them that you'll somehow be closer to God. I'm talking about the one who doesn't talk about how important it is to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but the one who actually has a relationship so deep he/she can't help but talk about the greatest love story of all time.
Our churches are filled with "regular Christians". Sometimes I fear many of our pastors are "regular Christians". Regular Christians know all of the Bible answers...heck, regular Christians go to church faithfully EVERY Sunday.
Regular Christians are like fans at a a football game. They go because the team (in this case, God) is doing well. They're being blessed by their teammate; therefore, they go to the game. They might be daring enough to even attend a game in a bit of rain or snow. But the moment the team starts to lose, or the moment God allows some icky stuff to creep into their life...they stop going to the game.
They might attend church every now and then simply not to raise eyebrows...after all, they don't want people to think poorly of them. Just like fans at a football game, being a regular Christian is focused all on you.
Now Bob......Bob's not your regular Christian. I had the privilage of talking with Bob for a while this past week. I'd mention his name, but from what I know about him I don't think he'd like that too much. Just like a devoted Christian, he wants it to be all about God-not about himself.
Bob's love and adoration for Christ runs so deep that's it's contagious. If you wanna stay as a regular Christian, I highly suggest not hanging around Bob. He should come with a warning sign that reads "I love Jesus". His character is so deeply grounded in the scriptures that it makes you speechless.
I'm not sure what has happened to our American churches, but I know there's a problem. And I know that problem needs fixed. Unfortunately, this type of problem won't be fixed with hammers or screwdrivers, because it's a problem of the heart.
Our churches are filled with regular Christians who proclaim they love Jesus, but yet fail to live it out.
Granted, I've never followed Bob around 24/7, but I'd say it's safe to say that his Bible never leaves his side except for short periods of time. Because his Bible his is access to learning more about the God whom he loves so dearly. His Bible is an extension of his God.
I wish more Christians were like Bob the Tomato.
*Bob the Tomato is not his name; in fact, his name isn't even Bob. Just wanted to point that out.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Let's Get Cookin'!
Everyone who has talked to me for more than five minutes, knows that I'm a passionate person. I always have been, and always will be.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking lately. I want to organize an autoimmune disease awareness walk.
The whole being a proactive person, and not doing anything really to help myself or others has been driving me crazy since my diganosis. I mean, there's things I do--go to doctor's, etc. that keeps me proactive in my health. But I soooo want to be able to do something on a larger scale to help out more people.
So here's what I'm thinkin'. Please feel free to tell me I am insane, need to check myself into a mental institution, or to just critque my ideas into something that will be more manageable. Also, if you would like to be on the planning committee for said crazy idea....lemme know. :-D
After much thought, instead of doing a Lupus awareness walk with the LFA (Lupus Foundation of America) I would prefer to do autoimmune diseases as a whole. Please see the following link for more details about the organization.
http://www.autoimmunewalk.org/aawalk/aboutwalk.asp?action=publish&mode=normal&cmsid=1464&varcontentname=AboutWalk
This is the first year they have ever done an Autoimmune Walk. I'd like to participate next year.
The idea is getting together at a track of some sorts, so people who have not lucked out as much as I have with their diseases will still be able to participate. At the completion of each lap they receive a link. On the link, they can either put a person's name who has a disease, or the disease itself.
They then will take that link and attach it to the "common link chain". At the closing ceremonies, we will hold that link up so that news people, journal writers, and quite frankly the WORLD can see how complicated Autoimmune Diseases are.
Right now, there is no "Autoimmune Disease" doctor. Instead, in order to reach a diagnosis many people are shuffled from one doctor to another in a desperate attempt to discover the reasoning for their sickness. Then once we FINALLY find out why we're in so much pain, we are told there is no cure. We are told we'll have to live a life of medication popping and chronic pain.
Autoimmune disease awareness needs to be blared from the loudest speakers, and shouted from rooftops. We need to raise awareness for something that affects more people than cancer! yet cancer is more heard of. Most people when you try to tell them about your illness, cock their head to one side and raise their eyebrows in confusion.
This needs to be done. Will you help?
I've been spending a lot of time thinking lately. I want to organize an autoimmune disease awareness walk.
The whole being a proactive person, and not doing anything really to help myself or others has been driving me crazy since my diganosis. I mean, there's things I do--go to doctor's, etc. that keeps me proactive in my health. But I soooo want to be able to do something on a larger scale to help out more people.
So here's what I'm thinkin'. Please feel free to tell me I am insane, need to check myself into a mental institution, or to just critque my ideas into something that will be more manageable. Also, if you would like to be on the planning committee for said crazy idea....lemme know. :-D
After much thought, instead of doing a Lupus awareness walk with the LFA (Lupus Foundation of America) I would prefer to do autoimmune diseases as a whole. Please see the following link for more details about the organization.
http://www.autoimmunewalk.org/aawalk/aboutwalk.asp?action=publish&mode=normal&cmsid=1464&varcontentname=AboutWalk
This is the first year they have ever done an Autoimmune Walk. I'd like to participate next year.
The idea is getting together at a track of some sorts, so people who have not lucked out as much as I have with their diseases will still be able to participate. At the completion of each lap they receive a link. On the link, they can either put a person's name who has a disease, or the disease itself.
They then will take that link and attach it to the "common link chain". At the closing ceremonies, we will hold that link up so that news people, journal writers, and quite frankly the WORLD can see how complicated Autoimmune Diseases are.
Right now, there is no "Autoimmune Disease" doctor. Instead, in order to reach a diagnosis many people are shuffled from one doctor to another in a desperate attempt to discover the reasoning for their sickness. Then once we FINALLY find out why we're in so much pain, we are told there is no cure. We are told we'll have to live a life of medication popping and chronic pain.
Autoimmune disease awareness needs to be blared from the loudest speakers, and shouted from rooftops. We need to raise awareness for something that affects more people than cancer! yet cancer is more heard of. Most people when you try to tell them about your illness, cock their head to one side and raise their eyebrows in confusion.
This needs to be done. Will you help?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Look around you....
Look around you. There’s tragedy everywhere—young girls getting painful diseases, people are being murdered, people dying. Our world is fallen, there’s no question about it. People suffer, people are in pain, and in the midst of all of this our initial reaction is to cry out to God telling him to fix it.
We beg, we plead, and we make bargains with God. Deep down I think all of us know that he’s…well, he’s God. He’s omniscient (all-knowing), he’s omnipotent (all-powerful), he’s omnipresent (everywhere simultaneously). We demand for justice. We demanded that Casey Anthony get punished for killing her daughter. We demand to know why our loved one just died. We demand that the man who hurt us gets punished. We seek justice for ourselves, and often for other people.
But what is justice? In the great USA we certainly have our definitions. But is that the real meaning of justice?
I suppose to truly answer the question we’d have to look back in time…..
Once upon a time, on a land called Earth, there was this man and woman named Adam and Eve. They both screwed up. They did something that was wrong. They sinned. And that began the story our lives. We now are born into a sinful world. Our bodies fail. People we love get cancer, and we’re forced to watch them die before our very eyes. Marriages get screwed up. The husband starts drinking, and doing drugs, and beating on his wife. Dads make mistakes, and end up dying because of it. Because of those mistakes, they leave their children without a father.
Life isn’t fair. Everywhere we look things just flat-out aren’t fair.
And to top off the unfairness, God sent his son to die for us. Seriously? Think about it. Think about who we are, the world that we live in, and yet someone died for us? That’s not fair. Don’t get me wrong, that’s blooming AWESOME…but that’s not fair and in our own eyes, according to our own definitions that’s not justice being served.
If justice were actually served, we’d be rotting in hell for the rest of eternity. But you know what? There’s this cool theological word called “propitiation”. Basically, God can’t just simply pass over sin. In Romans 3:25 we see what’s called propitiation. It’s a sacrifice that satisfies justice.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since my diagnosis. Getting lupus definitely isn’t my ideal life. My ideal life involves trips overseas, it involves fun and exciting things. My ideal life would be me going sky diving, flying planes, and living a life on the edge. Lupus kind of gets in the way of that sometimes. And it’s not fair. But it’s my reality.
I’ve been angry. I’ve been asking those “Why me?!” questions. I’m sure many of us have thought similar thoughts. I know I sure have…especially in these past couple years. Mere words do not describe the depths of my anger since my diagnosis. There’s no need to go into details, let’s just leave it at I’ve been pretty pissed off for far too long.
But do you know what a gift it is to have a chronic illness? Because of my constant pain, I’m constantly reminded of how I don’t know the narrative of the end of my life. Lupus may very well kill me one day. One day I may die of failed kidneys, livers, etc. I can’t control what happens to me. Who knows? I may die on my way to work today. We don’t know what, or how, we’re going to die. The fact is—we are going to die.
I believe that I was purchased with a price. That Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins so that I could have a relationship with God. I don’t know about you, but I try to take care of my purchases…especially the more expensive ones. So my question is why does God allow us to hurt and be damaged?
I won’t pretend to know the answers. And to do so would be the height of presumption. But I do know that I seem to learn the most when I suffer the most. Growing up my Dad would spank me when I did something wrong as my punishment. Of course, I was the perfect child so that hardly ever happened (….just kidding….I’m surprised I don’t have welts from my childhood…). But if we lived in a utopia, we would learn nothing. End of story.
We can’t control how we die, but we can control how we live. The “why me” questions are designed more to express your anguish than to actually find answers.
We desire lives of simplicity, with nice and paved walkways for as far as our eyes can see. But I’m quickly finding that God loves to throw you curve balls. He puts us in situations that we look around us and wonder exactly how strong God seems to think we are. We think we’re going to fall apart, and break, that we’re not strong enough to do this and to make it through this. But somehow, someway, with God’s love and grace, we persevere. The crappy situations we find ourselves in, the ones that make our stomachs churn and hearts race, are the ones that we seem to learn the most from. Those are the ones that strengthen our faith and grant us wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.
II Corinthians 4:16-18 says the following…and please read this. Don’t just skim over it like you usually do when you see passages of scripture pop up.
“16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal”
I’m not gonna lie. Living a life in constant pain is well, painful. It’s hard. It’s hard to keep a smile on sometimes, but I am a vapor of smoke. This pain I’m in isn’t forever. One day I’ll have a new body, without pain and without default. One day I’ll be in heaven with my Father. One day.
In our lives it’s so hard sometimes to keep our eyes on the goal, and to keep in mind that “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 4:15). It’s so easy to focus on the negatives, or to get discouraged, or to get angry at God or at our circumstances.
We feel as if He’s in charge, that He should fix our problems, that He should provide us some miracle to save our son from dying, or to heal us, or to give us enough money to make our bills work. He IS in charge, but sometimes we forget.
We forget that this isn’t our movie. We aren’t the stars of planet Earth, we’re only the stand-ins. You know…the ones where you only see the back of our head for a split second. Planet Earth is about God. It’s not about me, it’s not about my problems. It’s about God. God made the movie, God’s the star of the movie. This is His movie, His world, and His gift. Sometimes when we face hard times, we just have to keep reminding ourselves that this crappy situation we’ve found ourselves in IS in God’s plan. He’s not forgotten about us, He didn’t decide to go take a nap. He’s still here with us. He’s still in control, and the beautiful thing is that He always will be.
***Note: I actually wrote this close to a month ago. This is a prime example of how "quickly" I get on to posting things. lol
We beg, we plead, and we make bargains with God. Deep down I think all of us know that he’s…well, he’s God. He’s omniscient (all-knowing), he’s omnipotent (all-powerful), he’s omnipresent (everywhere simultaneously). We demand for justice. We demanded that Casey Anthony get punished for killing her daughter. We demand to know why our loved one just died. We demand that the man who hurt us gets punished. We seek justice for ourselves, and often for other people.
But what is justice? In the great USA we certainly have our definitions. But is that the real meaning of justice?
I suppose to truly answer the question we’d have to look back in time…..
Once upon a time, on a land called Earth, there was this man and woman named Adam and Eve. They both screwed up. They did something that was wrong. They sinned. And that began the story our lives. We now are born into a sinful world. Our bodies fail. People we love get cancer, and we’re forced to watch them die before our very eyes. Marriages get screwed up. The husband starts drinking, and doing drugs, and beating on his wife. Dads make mistakes, and end up dying because of it. Because of those mistakes, they leave their children without a father.
Life isn’t fair. Everywhere we look things just flat-out aren’t fair.
And to top off the unfairness, God sent his son to die for us. Seriously? Think about it. Think about who we are, the world that we live in, and yet someone died for us? That’s not fair. Don’t get me wrong, that’s blooming AWESOME…but that’s not fair and in our own eyes, according to our own definitions that’s not justice being served.
If justice were actually served, we’d be rotting in hell for the rest of eternity. But you know what? There’s this cool theological word called “propitiation”. Basically, God can’t just simply pass over sin. In Romans 3:25 we see what’s called propitiation. It’s a sacrifice that satisfies justice.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since my diagnosis. Getting lupus definitely isn’t my ideal life. My ideal life involves trips overseas, it involves fun and exciting things. My ideal life would be me going sky diving, flying planes, and living a life on the edge. Lupus kind of gets in the way of that sometimes. And it’s not fair. But it’s my reality.
I’ve been angry. I’ve been asking those “Why me?!” questions. I’m sure many of us have thought similar thoughts. I know I sure have…especially in these past couple years. Mere words do not describe the depths of my anger since my diagnosis. There’s no need to go into details, let’s just leave it at I’ve been pretty pissed off for far too long.
But do you know what a gift it is to have a chronic illness? Because of my constant pain, I’m constantly reminded of how I don’t know the narrative of the end of my life. Lupus may very well kill me one day. One day I may die of failed kidneys, livers, etc. I can’t control what happens to me. Who knows? I may die on my way to work today. We don’t know what, or how, we’re going to die. The fact is—we are going to die.
I believe that I was purchased with a price. That Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins so that I could have a relationship with God. I don’t know about you, but I try to take care of my purchases…especially the more expensive ones. So my question is why does God allow us to hurt and be damaged?
I won’t pretend to know the answers. And to do so would be the height of presumption. But I do know that I seem to learn the most when I suffer the most. Growing up my Dad would spank me when I did something wrong as my punishment. Of course, I was the perfect child so that hardly ever happened (….just kidding….I’m surprised I don’t have welts from my childhood…). But if we lived in a utopia, we would learn nothing. End of story.
We can’t control how we die, but we can control how we live. The “why me” questions are designed more to express your anguish than to actually find answers.
We desire lives of simplicity, with nice and paved walkways for as far as our eyes can see. But I’m quickly finding that God loves to throw you curve balls. He puts us in situations that we look around us and wonder exactly how strong God seems to think we are. We think we’re going to fall apart, and break, that we’re not strong enough to do this and to make it through this. But somehow, someway, with God’s love and grace, we persevere. The crappy situations we find ourselves in, the ones that make our stomachs churn and hearts race, are the ones that we seem to learn the most from. Those are the ones that strengthen our faith and grant us wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.
II Corinthians 4:16-18 says the following…and please read this. Don’t just skim over it like you usually do when you see passages of scripture pop up.
“16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal”
I’m not gonna lie. Living a life in constant pain is well, painful. It’s hard. It’s hard to keep a smile on sometimes, but I am a vapor of smoke. This pain I’m in isn’t forever. One day I’ll have a new body, without pain and without default. One day I’ll be in heaven with my Father. One day.
In our lives it’s so hard sometimes to keep our eyes on the goal, and to keep in mind that “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 4:15). It’s so easy to focus on the negatives, or to get discouraged, or to get angry at God or at our circumstances.
We feel as if He’s in charge, that He should fix our problems, that He should provide us some miracle to save our son from dying, or to heal us, or to give us enough money to make our bills work. He IS in charge, but sometimes we forget.
We forget that this isn’t our movie. We aren’t the stars of planet Earth, we’re only the stand-ins. You know…the ones where you only see the back of our head for a split second. Planet Earth is about God. It’s not about me, it’s not about my problems. It’s about God. God made the movie, God’s the star of the movie. This is His movie, His world, and His gift. Sometimes when we face hard times, we just have to keep reminding ourselves that this crappy situation we’ve found ourselves in IS in God’s plan. He’s not forgotten about us, He didn’t decide to go take a nap. He’s still here with us. He’s still in control, and the beautiful thing is that He always will be.
***Note: I actually wrote this close to a month ago. This is a prime example of how "quickly" I get on to posting things. lol
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
If I Can Get Through This
WOW. Super long time since I've blooged, huh?
I admit it-I'm a closet metal-head. One of my favorite radio stations is 101.5 Bob Rocks. I heard a song a few months ago I fell in love with, and feel as if it describes emotionally how I feel about my Lupus.
There are days like today that I really struggle to see a positive--any positive--of having a chronic illness. It's the days when I had a horrible night, constantly waking up in pain. The nights when I wake up at 3 am with a mouth so dry it feels like someone poured sand down my throat while I was sleeping.
Or a morning when my whole body is in so swollen it's hard to move. The mornings when I find a handful of hair on my pillow. The mornings I wake up nauseous, head-pounding, body aching.
It's times like this when I honestly don't know what to do to help me feel better. The times when I feel so hopeless. I try to sleep, but my body hurts too much and wakes me up. I try to distract myself mentally by watching a movie or reading a book, but my head feels like it's going to explode.
It's times like this when I understand why when looking into another person's eyes who has a chronic illness I see no hope. It's times like this when I understand their grumpiness and pessimistic attitude.
But I've always been a fighter. I may have my grumpy moments, but just because my body has me down doesn't mean I have to let it get me down. If I can just get through this, I can get through anything.
FYI--for those metal haters out there, I want you to know this band wrote this song for a friend who was diagnosed with cancer. From my understanding, their friend won the battle and is now cancer free. It's a good song. You should listen to it. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxeMpkw8FPw&NR=1
I admit it-I'm a closet metal-head. One of my favorite radio stations is 101.5 Bob Rocks. I heard a song a few months ago I fell in love with, and feel as if it describes emotionally how I feel about my Lupus.
There are days like today that I really struggle to see a positive--any positive--of having a chronic illness. It's the days when I had a horrible night, constantly waking up in pain. The nights when I wake up at 3 am with a mouth so dry it feels like someone poured sand down my throat while I was sleeping.
Or a morning when my whole body is in so swollen it's hard to move. The mornings when I find a handful of hair on my pillow. The mornings I wake up nauseous, head-pounding, body aching.
It's times like this when I honestly don't know what to do to help me feel better. The times when I feel so hopeless. I try to sleep, but my body hurts too much and wakes me up. I try to distract myself mentally by watching a movie or reading a book, but my head feels like it's going to explode.
It's times like this when I understand why when looking into another person's eyes who has a chronic illness I see no hope. It's times like this when I understand their grumpiness and pessimistic attitude.
But I've always been a fighter. I may have my grumpy moments, but just because my body has me down doesn't mean I have to let it get me down. If I can just get through this, I can get through anything.
FYI--for those metal haters out there, I want you to know this band wrote this song for a friend who was diagnosed with cancer. From my understanding, their friend won the battle and is now cancer free. It's a good song. You should listen to it. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxeMpkw8FPw&NR=1
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Blah day
Considering I'm blogging, you can almost guess with 100% accuracy that today is a bad Lupus day. Actually, the last couple days have been fairly bad. It just gets so frustrating sometimes. I'm such a proactive person, and I feel like there is nothing I can do to make myself better.
Sometimes, I almost wish I had cancer instead of Lupus. At least with cancer you either get better or you die. I know that sounds awful, but it's how I feel at times. And with cancer you actually look like you are sick. People don't expect you to be at your ultimate best all the time. They don't look at your weird when you wait to use the handicapped restroom, because you know you wouldn't be able to stand up on your own without the bars to assist you.
I am not wishing for death, please do not misunderstand me. But I am wishing for a cure. I am wishing that one day, when a 21-year old female gets diagnosed with Lupus, the next sentence her doctor will tell her is "No worries, there is a cure."
I did my laundry today. That is all that I accomplished. I woke up with a headache, with a hand-full of hair on my pillow, and extremely nauseous. My body is achy and swollen, my knees hurt. And as simple as laundry sounds, it was one extremely hard chore for me to accomplish today.
I must say though, I am very proud of my intellectual progress. I now keep microwavable meals on hand, and have upgraded from my bunk bed to an absolutely ahmazingly comfortable bed.
It's in the days like today that I struggle the most with maintaining my sunny personality. It is so incredibly easy to just lie around and complain about the unfairness of my situation.
On my good days, I often ponder how I can turn my mind from the negatives of my situation on a bad day to something more positive. I've tried painting, blogging, reading, etc. But I have yet to find an actual solution. If you have any ideas, by all means please let me know. My goal is to maintain my sunny outlook in both the good times AND the bad times.
I have found that whenever I run across some old person who is still well....happy about their life, it never fails to make me smile. Because those people are unfortunately few and far between. Far too often, one only runs across grumpy old men, or complaining old ladies. Those few old, happy people give me reason to believe that not every person is doomed for an unhappy ending to their life.
Anyways, I'm gonna go take a nap.
Sometimes, I almost wish I had cancer instead of Lupus. At least with cancer you either get better or you die. I know that sounds awful, but it's how I feel at times. And with cancer you actually look like you are sick. People don't expect you to be at your ultimate best all the time. They don't look at your weird when you wait to use the handicapped restroom, because you know you wouldn't be able to stand up on your own without the bars to assist you.
I am not wishing for death, please do not misunderstand me. But I am wishing for a cure. I am wishing that one day, when a 21-year old female gets diagnosed with Lupus, the next sentence her doctor will tell her is "No worries, there is a cure."
I did my laundry today. That is all that I accomplished. I woke up with a headache, with a hand-full of hair on my pillow, and extremely nauseous. My body is achy and swollen, my knees hurt. And as simple as laundry sounds, it was one extremely hard chore for me to accomplish today.
I must say though, I am very proud of my intellectual progress. I now keep microwavable meals on hand, and have upgraded from my bunk bed to an absolutely ahmazingly comfortable bed.
It's in the days like today that I struggle the most with maintaining my sunny personality. It is so incredibly easy to just lie around and complain about the unfairness of my situation.
On my good days, I often ponder how I can turn my mind from the negatives of my situation on a bad day to something more positive. I've tried painting, blogging, reading, etc. But I have yet to find an actual solution. If you have any ideas, by all means please let me know. My goal is to maintain my sunny outlook in both the good times AND the bad times.
I have found that whenever I run across some old person who is still well....happy about their life, it never fails to make me smile. Because those people are unfortunately few and far between. Far too often, one only runs across grumpy old men, or complaining old ladies. Those few old, happy people give me reason to believe that not every person is doomed for an unhappy ending to their life.
Anyways, I'm gonna go take a nap.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Fight the Great Fight
When I first got diagnosed with Lupus, I had a lot of people come up to me and tell me to "just keep fighting". They told me that I was strong, and that I could handle it. It hasn't been until recently that I have come to the decision of what it means to "fight" a chronic illness such as Lupus.
The first thing that pops into your mind when you say you are going to "fight" something is battling. You think of weaponry and battle. You think of a head-to-head combat, with one winner and the other invariably the loser.
When a person with a chronic illness takes this ideology, they will lose every time. My illness is chronic. It won't just suddenly go away. It may go into remission some day, but it will never completely leave me. It will always be my Constant Companion, and it will always be my obstacle to overcome.
I no longer think that "fighting" Lupus means that I need to continue my busy schedule during my bad days in order to beat it. Because I have found that when I do not pay attention to what my body is telling me, I end up in even worse shape the next day.
I have a good friend whose Mom died of breast cancer. I had the privilege of meeting her once. Strength shown through her eyes, and I see that same strength in her daughter's eyes today. If I were to take the battling perspective, filled with weaponry and heartache, I would have to say she lost the battle with cancer.
But the bottom line is she did not. She left a lasting legacy. She was so strong that her daughter feeds from that strength every day. She never let her cancer keep her from loving her daughter. She won because she never let her spirit and love of life die. It still lives.
I think we all can take a great lesson from her, and from anyone in this world who has a chronic illness and can wake up in the morning with a smile. Fighting Lupus does not involve me always having a good day. It does not involve me forcing myself to pretend to be healthy when I am not feeling that way.
What it does mean, is that I do not let Lupus kill my spirit and love of life. It means that I will wake up in the morning, with a smile on my face regardless of how swollen my body is that day. It means that I will no longer fret over the little things, like inevitable hair loss. It means that I will continue to live happily. It means that I will continue to help others to the best of my ability. It means that I will continue to be my bubbly, happy self.
That it what it means to fight.
The first thing that pops into your mind when you say you are going to "fight" something is battling. You think of weaponry and battle. You think of a head-to-head combat, with one winner and the other invariably the loser.
When a person with a chronic illness takes this ideology, they will lose every time. My illness is chronic. It won't just suddenly go away. It may go into remission some day, but it will never completely leave me. It will always be my Constant Companion, and it will always be my obstacle to overcome.
I no longer think that "fighting" Lupus means that I need to continue my busy schedule during my bad days in order to beat it. Because I have found that when I do not pay attention to what my body is telling me, I end up in even worse shape the next day.
I have a good friend whose Mom died of breast cancer. I had the privilege of meeting her once. Strength shown through her eyes, and I see that same strength in her daughter's eyes today. If I were to take the battling perspective, filled with weaponry and heartache, I would have to say she lost the battle with cancer.
But the bottom line is she did not. She left a lasting legacy. She was so strong that her daughter feeds from that strength every day. She never let her cancer keep her from loving her daughter. She won because she never let her spirit and love of life die. It still lives.
I think we all can take a great lesson from her, and from anyone in this world who has a chronic illness and can wake up in the morning with a smile. Fighting Lupus does not involve me always having a good day. It does not involve me forcing myself to pretend to be healthy when I am not feeling that way.
What it does mean, is that I do not let Lupus kill my spirit and love of life. It means that I will wake up in the morning, with a smile on my face regardless of how swollen my body is that day. It means that I will no longer fret over the little things, like inevitable hair loss. It means that I will continue to live happily. It means that I will continue to help others to the best of my ability. It means that I will continue to be my bubbly, happy self.
That it what it means to fight.
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