Three Steps

It is incredible, finding out you have a chronic illness...something that will likely last your lifetime, and could likely worsen. I cannot really equate it to anything non illness related. My other life....I was reading a book about coping with illness, and it blankly stated that you will have to reinvent yourself....the old you is gone, and there is a new you now. You may long for the old you, but you can't get the same back.

Kind of like having a relationship with God. I really don't remember my very first prayer for salvation---I quite often pray that prayer again if a service offers it, where I sit, as a reaffirmation of my choice. Like people who renew their wedding vows.
So, having no pre-Salvation memory, I cannot tell that the old me is dead to sin, but I can say that I have changed and "died" so many times to various sins as time goes on. I think that with the relationship we have with God, we will change in so many ways we will barely know the oldest "us" that there ever was. Does that make sense? The selfish child, angsty teen or whatever stage of life we were in will almost be forgotten as having been us in time, with all the changes we see.

This RA business is the fastest I have had to change I think in my life. To learn to thank people for so much that they do---and really mean it. I thank people for helping me clean by carrying dishes, washing clothes, carrying books. Dusting something. 
It's humiliating as a woman who's love language is DOING stuff for people to be forced to not do stuff.  My life goal was to keep a neat and happy home, filled with pets and children. I cannot often stand to take Zoe for a walk...I can only stand to take her outside for bathroom breaks, and there are days I cannot stand to do that.
I even tried the other day. Cleaning I mean. I was so out of it the next day and my joints are screaming now.

I really sometimes am not sure what will be the best outcome of my illness. God uses anything and everything for good, and I am certainly learning patience.

We make so many things in this life and world so important...when really they are not. Grades was a big one for me in college. I wanted to be top in the class, every class...and I really have no idea why. Pride, I suppose--but since most profs do not say who is top in a class. And that is not the right reason to have pride. God is the only One to boast about. Any puny thing we do here on earth is so meaningless next to God.---I think if what we are doing is 100% dedicated to God, then that is something. But even then, we get prideful that "we are doing SOMETHING for God", which is equally disgraceful. We just need to pray constantly and watch constantly that we do not become self important....because if we are putting ourselves above God in the picture---knowingly or not----our picture will crash and smear paint all over the carpet and become a huge mess.