Sick and tired of being sick and tired

I am sick.  I have been sick for over twelve years.  Since before we started the church actually.  I hate talking about it because from the very start, well meaning believers crushed my spirit.  They implied I didn't have faith to be healed, they asked if I had hidden sin or unforgiveness in my heart....blah, blah, blah.... Let's just be real....who doesn't have hidden sin or unforgiveness?  If I really search my heart at any point in time I can find some sin and some unforgiveness.  Then the super healthy people would try to change my diet, judge my food choices, etc.  Let's just face it well meaning people can really stink!

It all started with a condition that caused seizures in my nerves in my face.  This resulted in terrifying, debilitating pain in my face.  I described it as feeling like someone was stabbing me in the face with a hot knife.  I was misdiagnosed for months, had in-depth dental work, got migraine shots and was basically flat out miserable, when they finally decided to send me to a neurologist I was told it would be a month long wait.  I went crazy.  I called them up and told them I would kill myself if they didn't see me immediately....they saw me that day.  It was an easy fix, at least that is what they told me.  Seizure medicine.  It was like the heavens opened up, but....I reacted to the medication by sleeping all the time and having terrible vertigo.  I won't bore you with the details but it took about six months to stabilize me on the meds.  Shortly afterwards in prayer I felt like the Lord was telling me He was going to heal me....really Lord?  You couldn't have saved me all the struggle a little sooner?  Through a remarkable display of His power, He healed me.

So I did what every sane person does after being healed from an all consuming illness....I trained and ran the LA Marathon.  It was awesome, after being controlled by an illness in my body for over a year I controlled my body and pushed it to the limit.  It was great.  I was slow and peed myself but I didn't care, as I crossed the finish line I just kept saying to myself....He has caused me to rise up on wings of eagles!

That was the year 2001, within three months of that I began to get sick again.  Different this time, weak and tired.  My joints ached and I would swell up for no reason.  Pain became my constant companion.  They tested me for a gazillion things.   Okay maybe not a gazillion but many of you may know that battery of test it felt like a gazillion and it included cancer and MS (the scary stuff).  They stuck needles into my muscles to see why they were inflamed and producing to much of some enzyme.  It was brutal.  They finally settled on Lupus and Fybromyalgia.

By this time we had started the church but I tried to never complain for fear that someone would start with the whole "it must be my fault" that I was sick.  When we would go out somewhere away from our church I would go forward for healilng prayer but I was never healed completely.  Things changed, I learned to cope.  I did a clean eating purge which seemed to really help, but is difficult to maintain.   In the meantime I went into early menapause for no clear reason and decided to try natural hormonal therapy.  Thankful for that otherwise I am pretty sure I would have eventually destroyed my marriage.  Hormone problems are no joke. Life continued....I had children to raise, a church to help build and God sustained me.  I wouldn't say I thrived but I would say I learned to be content in my circumstances.  The pain was sometimes worse and sometimes better.

Now fast forward to 11-11-11 my husband dies right in front of my eyes.  He is laid out on the ground, grey with his eyes open and they are working on him trying to bring him back.  Thankfully they do but the stress of that experience, the stress of two emergency surgeries, the stress of raising teenagers, pushed my body to it's very limit but I kept going, kept pushing on.

Then Justin died and everything changed. I was so sad, so shocked....even after all we had been through I really believed that Justin would turn around.  He did.  Then he didn't and in His mercy God rescued him out of that cycle, snatched him out of the enemies hand.  I found solace eventually in that.  He had gone to church on that Sunday, took great notes.  Then Monday came, I hate Mondays.  He had a root canal and apparently it just was too tough, he caved.  The text messages show the struggle, the friends that told him not to go back.  He had been clean for over six weeks.

Now for the last year I have been sick, sicker than normal.  Tired, tireder than normal.  Struggling to be the woman I was, trying to figure out who I am even now.  There came a point where I literally could do nothing but go to work put in my time and go home and sleep.  I am always freezing, sleeping with tons of blankets on until suddenly I am hot, I couldn't think straight, couldn't remember much, it was bad and add to that I was having what I thought were anxiety attacks.....I still got up went to work, went to church, prayed for healing, loved people to the best of my ability, served my church, saw my friends, etc.  Life still has to go on, I refuse to lose to this illness.

They told me I was depressed.  I told them I was sad and tired but not depressed.  They told me I had chronic fatigue syndrome.  They told me I had an overload of the epstein bar virus in my body (80% of people have this virus). They told me I needed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds...ummmm no thank you (not saying anything is wrong when necessary but I truly didn't feel that was the issue).   Finally they told me my thyroid was low.  They put me on medication, I felt better, improved but still didn't feel great.  I pushed through because I am passionate about my life, my family, my church, my friends but inside I was mentally beginning to break apart.  I know my limits and I am at that limit.

Now they tell me I have an autoimmune disorder attacking my thyroid its called  Hashimoto's.  Fairly common and often misdiagnosed.  The symptoms are many of the same symptoms I have had for years.  The torture I experience almost daily is feeling extrememly fatigued yet struggling with insomnia(this is getting better).  I have pain in my joints and feel sluggish most of the time.  I am high energy emotionally but my body does not match up.

I leave church early on wed night's.  Evenings are the worst for me, everything I feel is amped up including some strange thyroid storms that for a year I thought were anxiety attacks. I try to stay at church but sitting still(moving is better for me) makes me accutely aware of how tired and achey I feel.  Feeling tired and achey makes me feel emotionally tired and that starts an avalanche of emotions that are better dealt with at home and so I leave.   It's for the best for everyone, if you know what I mean.  

So I say all this to let you know....just because someone looks okay on the outside doesn't mean they are okay.  I am trying to be more authentic about all of my story...braver in every area.  So have some grace for me, but more important have grace for others.  Many illnesses don't show on the outside but it doesn't make them any less real.  You don't know what someone is walking through, ask them or just love them.  Let's just throw the whole judging thing out the window, in this broken world many of us have broken bodies.  One day we won't.  One day everything will be made new so until then let's give each other space to be honest about our struggles and to show up when we can and no guilt when we can't.

So yes, I look well and I rarely complain because I know we are all battling something.  You and I are really not that different.  I just want you to know that sometimes I want to cry because I am so tired and sometimes when you ask how I am I want to say  "shitty" but that wouldn't be very Christian of me.  Instead I say....I am good and the truth is that I am. I can feel bad and still be good because of Jesus.

You people give me ton's of grace, this isn't to say you don't.   But what if we thought about everyone in our lives this way.  We just kept in mind that just because they look all good on the outside doesn't mean they are all good on the inside.  Be grace givers today and always.  Love yourself well and love others.

I love you people.