Each year that stacks onto the length of time I have been actively sick gets harder and harder. This year is year four, as of August 8th. Waking up suddenly into what will probably be a lifelong illness--with the added complications that may or may not appear--is a dark thing. I've been married five years, yet what stands out is not the length of my marriage, but the length of in-vaild-ism that I have had to face.
Today, for an example, has been an "ill" day. A day when I am just ill enough that everything takes triple the effort. The sunshine was out, and gorgeous, so I helped my dear mother in the greenhouses by watering plants and shifting some pots about. Yet I can feel the added heat building in my fingers and palms, radiating away from me.
I so desperately want to be in remission. Four years, at my time in life, means that a 7th of my life has been spent terribly ill. That isn't even counting the anxiety and depression I had 13 years ago, which I now count as being part of my RA. Most of my life has been spent in illness--real or imagined I cannot say.
It is stifling to me to be trapped in my own body. I thank God that I can move when I want to, eat and drink when I want to, and have some semblance of relief in the medications I take and the steps I can follow to help me feel less ill. Still, illness is incredibly wearing on everyone.
I try and remind myself of God. My poor blog has suffered, some from the darkness that floats in my heart and mind, but also because my eyes have been so irritable that any computer use leads to a headache, not to mention just plain reading.
An adopted mother gave me the Bible on CD, which will be a wonderful addition. God's Word is so bright at removing the darkness in one's mind. I get to thinking, in ever-looping circles, how much I am missing out on in life. I want to raise children, yet most of the time I am so ill that it is foolhardy to consider it--at least at this point. Yet another year passes me by.
I need to focus more on what I think God really wants out of me at this point in life. It is not the freedom of a young woman. It is the study and words of a prisoner. The actions of what I view as godly being acted out on. More important than anything, the relationship with God that is available to me at this very moment.
The world calls to me, a great seductress. She weaves her words, and paints pictures of the "great dream" that all "good" women are to follow. She sways her hips, calling me hither and yon, attempting anything to pull me away from my focus with and on God.
Each and every moment is a battle against the great liar who rules this world. Every moment is a two way street. Am I going to follow God, or follow (even accidently) the liar? The world shows us that we should be busy, busy, busy. Yet...is that actually what should be done? What should be the most important thing? It is physically impossible for me to be "busy". While my body is more cooperative than it has been for years, it takes little for that to be sent askew.
See how the world tempts me, though? I would give nearly everything to be well and healthy, to have my job back, some children, the way things were before I woke up that fatal August morning. The only thing I will not give up is my God...yet I would possibly give up everything else in order to have my life the way it was.
Does it make a big stand with the world that I am not healed, but cling to God anyway? I have no idea. It does, however, make an enormous difference to my life.
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