It's a startling realization - our fragility. That with a flip of a switch, I find myself trembling and pain-stricken at the mercy of strangers in a hospital.
That nothing I can do can change the pain I'm feeling. I am completely helpless. It is perhaps one of the most frightening feelings out there.
You go into the bathroom and the person staring back at you is a ghost. Pale, dark circles under eyes. You move around in a daze - numb to anything but the awareness of your pain. You can't think beyond it.
The other patient in the room was an older man. By himself. I am so scared of the inevitability of being old and sick and quite possibly alone. It's bound to happen. I'm only 25 and I have a kidney stone already.
Being sick, the hardest thing has been the absence of my family, especially my mum. She has a way of telling me everything will be fine and I choose to believe her because she can say it so convincingly.
The realization that I don't want to have kids in Slave Lake hits me hard in this moment. I need my mum close for that. And I wonder how long God will call us to Slave Lake. I do desire to follow Him and so that is the main factor.
When you're in pain you feel as though you are far away from everyone else. Walking in circles - a current that takes you around and around and you can't stop it. People drop suggestions, opinions, medications at your feet and you take it in blindly, barely caring.
Your appetite is gone. You get viciously sick of drinking water as every medication reads 'take with plenty of water.' You want to crawl into a hole and wish it all away.
Waiting on God is the hardest thing. He has done so much already - giving me the ultrasound Monday when someone cancelled so I wouldn't have to wait a week. Giving me medication that does work. Giving me friends by my side when I break down crying in church because it feels so hopeless. Giving me Jay to just hold me when I feel so fragile and empty.
But it's still hard. I will continue to praise Him - I do continue to praise Him. But it's still hard.
I don't know how Job did it. I don't know how people with chronic pain or cancer or other painful diseases do it. In fact, I don't know how anyone can do it without God to believe in - to give you hope.
Trying to remember scripture.
You , O Lord, give a perfect peace to those who hope and put their trust in You. Isaiah 26:3
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3
These are the mantras I cling to. When my sleep is interrupted every hour by dreams that wake me up to pain, I say these over and over.
And when the pain is gone, when the meds have kicked in, you pretend you are a normal healthy person. That it was all just a nightmare. That it was in your imagination. You feel liberated and yet you are not perfectly pain free. Your muscles ache from the intense chills. Your head throbs from tense shoulders. You are still hovering on the edge of the nightmare. Enough to stand it. Enough to smile , but enough to sense that the pain will come back around.
I write this because as I lay in bed in agony, these words started jumping around in my head. Writing is a good release. I don't write this to ignite a pity party or to make it seem like my life is unbearable. I just write the truth for myself. So that when this is all over, I will look back and not take health for granted.
Because we do take our health for granted. Like we have the right to be healthy and yet it is by God's grace that we are given that gift. And when our health is shaky, by His grace He gives us the strength to get through it.
and that's the truth. plain and simple.
That nothing I can do can change the pain I'm feeling. I am completely helpless. It is perhaps one of the most frightening feelings out there.
You go into the bathroom and the person staring back at you is a ghost. Pale, dark circles under eyes. You move around in a daze - numb to anything but the awareness of your pain. You can't think beyond it.
The other patient in the room was an older man. By himself. I am so scared of the inevitability of being old and sick and quite possibly alone. It's bound to happen. I'm only 25 and I have a kidney stone already.
Being sick, the hardest thing has been the absence of my family, especially my mum. She has a way of telling me everything will be fine and I choose to believe her because she can say it so convincingly.
The realization that I don't want to have kids in Slave Lake hits me hard in this moment. I need my mum close for that. And I wonder how long God will call us to Slave Lake. I do desire to follow Him and so that is the main factor.
When you're in pain you feel as though you are far away from everyone else. Walking in circles - a current that takes you around and around and you can't stop it. People drop suggestions, opinions, medications at your feet and you take it in blindly, barely caring.
Your appetite is gone. You get viciously sick of drinking water as every medication reads 'take with plenty of water.' You want to crawl into a hole and wish it all away.
Waiting on God is the hardest thing. He has done so much already - giving me the ultrasound Monday when someone cancelled so I wouldn't have to wait a week. Giving me medication that does work. Giving me friends by my side when I break down crying in church because it feels so hopeless. Giving me Jay to just hold me when I feel so fragile and empty.
But it's still hard. I will continue to praise Him - I do continue to praise Him. But it's still hard.
I don't know how Job did it. I don't know how people with chronic pain or cancer or other painful diseases do it. In fact, I don't know how anyone can do it without God to believe in - to give you hope.
Trying to remember scripture.
You , O Lord, give a perfect peace to those who hope and put their trust in You. Isaiah 26:3
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3
These are the mantras I cling to. When my sleep is interrupted every hour by dreams that wake me up to pain, I say these over and over.
And when the pain is gone, when the meds have kicked in, you pretend you are a normal healthy person. That it was all just a nightmare. That it was in your imagination. You feel liberated and yet you are not perfectly pain free. Your muscles ache from the intense chills. Your head throbs from tense shoulders. You are still hovering on the edge of the nightmare. Enough to stand it. Enough to smile , but enough to sense that the pain will come back around.
I write this because as I lay in bed in agony, these words started jumping around in my head. Writing is a good release. I don't write this to ignite a pity party or to make it seem like my life is unbearable. I just write the truth for myself. So that when this is all over, I will look back and not take health for granted.
Because we do take our health for granted. Like we have the right to be healthy and yet it is by God's grace that we are given that gift. And when our health is shaky, by His grace He gives us the strength to get through it.
and that's the truth. plain and simple.
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