There is no doubt that the state of the world is frustrating. Each day there are new situations to add to the list of frustrations we face. And so I find myself, taking stock and asking how am I responding? Do I let the frustrations grow and manifest into something dangerous, or do I proactively see what I can do to make changes, to safeguard myself?
I have seen friends and family members do the latter lately and I am following their lead. Boredom has led to unhealthy choices, and a lack of activity. Energy levels are bottoming out.
I encourage you to be proactive as well. Read, go for a walk - even a short one in the fresh air, journal, connect with a friend over the phone. The possibilities really are limited only by your imagination and your knowledge of yourself. Rediscover something you already know you love, or try something new.
There is a lot going on right now, and you can overcome it.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Plight of a lupie
A lupie is someone who has lupus. I find this an interesting term. I am not yet convinced it is a compliment, however I am convinced that those with lupus do find themselves in difficult circumstances regarding their health.
How do I know this and why am I so convinced? I was diagnosed with lupus this past August (2014). After almost two years of thinking I had arthritis, and two weeks in acute care, there was relief - emotional relief anyways - in hearing the phrase "it's lupus, you have lupus".
And so, after months of being off work, an attempt to return to work, sleepless nights, painful days and a lot of frustration...I continue my journey towards remission.
The extent to which this disease has and continues to affect my family and daily life is at times staggering, at others merely an annoyance, but the disease is always there. Whether in the way I bump into furniture and sometimes other people because I cannot hold my balance, or the way in which I cradle my arms because of the pain I am experiencing, or the frustration I cannot control in part because of medications and in part because I'm not having fun dealing with this disease, lupus is always here. It is always a part of me. It seems to always be robbing me and my family of something.
And yet...there's that joy in the pain. There are the moments of laughter - that yes, cause the pain to increase for a moment because of the chuckling and movements from laughing hard. There are the moments when our family is brought closer together because we have to lean on each other and depend on one another - even when it is a nuisance because I used to be able to do something that I always thought held us together. My children continue to learn new life skills as they are asked to pick up the slack at home. My children continue to learn empathy and compassion that will undoubtedly benefit them and others in the future. My husband and I continue to learn that communication is key to any relationship, especially when there is a chronic illness. I am learning that work will still be there when I am able to return and the building will not burn down without me there. And we continue to witness how our community is lifting us up in prayer, in their thoughts, and with tangible gifts of rides to places when I am unable to drive, meals when we need a hand with food prep, and other appreciated ways.
Faith continues to sustain me in the moments when I feel low and unhappy. It has not changed my circumstance (much like when my first husband died, faith did not bring him back) but it does change how I view my circumstance. I am not walking this journey of lupus alone - I have a community, a family, and a God walking withe me. I have hope, in the doctors and in the plan God has for me, that remission will be part of this story. I am listening to words of hope and promises, God's word, for guidance and peace. I am still showing up for life, there is still much life to live even with lupus. Some days are darker, lonelier and more sad than others, but there is always another day, a new day, a new opportunity to view this journey with excitement and joy.
How do I know this and why am I so convinced? I was diagnosed with lupus this past August (2014). After almost two years of thinking I had arthritis, and two weeks in acute care, there was relief - emotional relief anyways - in hearing the phrase "it's lupus, you have lupus".
And so, after months of being off work, an attempt to return to work, sleepless nights, painful days and a lot of frustration...I continue my journey towards remission.
The extent to which this disease has and continues to affect my family and daily life is at times staggering, at others merely an annoyance, but the disease is always there. Whether in the way I bump into furniture and sometimes other people because I cannot hold my balance, or the way in which I cradle my arms because of the pain I am experiencing, or the frustration I cannot control in part because of medications and in part because I'm not having fun dealing with this disease, lupus is always here. It is always a part of me. It seems to always be robbing me and my family of something.
And yet...there's that joy in the pain. There are the moments of laughter - that yes, cause the pain to increase for a moment because of the chuckling and movements from laughing hard. There are the moments when our family is brought closer together because we have to lean on each other and depend on one another - even when it is a nuisance because I used to be able to do something that I always thought held us together. My children continue to learn new life skills as they are asked to pick up the slack at home. My children continue to learn empathy and compassion that will undoubtedly benefit them and others in the future. My husband and I continue to learn that communication is key to any relationship, especially when there is a chronic illness. I am learning that work will still be there when I am able to return and the building will not burn down without me there. And we continue to witness how our community is lifting us up in prayer, in their thoughts, and with tangible gifts of rides to places when I am unable to drive, meals when we need a hand with food prep, and other appreciated ways.
Faith continues to sustain me in the moments when I feel low and unhappy. It has not changed my circumstance (much like when my first husband died, faith did not bring him back) but it does change how I view my circumstance. I am not walking this journey of lupus alone - I have a community, a family, and a God walking withe me. I have hope, in the doctors and in the plan God has for me, that remission will be part of this story. I am listening to words of hope and promises, God's word, for guidance and peace. I am still showing up for life, there is still much life to live even with lupus. Some days are darker, lonelier and more sad than others, but there is always another day, a new day, a new opportunity to view this journey with excitement and joy.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Joy in the Pain
This August has been anything but what I expected. Serious illness struck me down at the end of July, kept me in the hospital for a few weeks in August, and brought with it a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease that will have lifelong implications. Not the plan I had for my month of birthday.
Walking through the journey of not knowing what was wrong with me, why I hurt, seeing the fear on the faces of my children, my husband, my family, and my friends, and then getting some unwanted news, forced me to face many emotions.
Over the past year, I had learned that physical pain was a part of my everyday life. Although we had no idea what was causing it. We are overjoyed that we now know what it is. As my husband so poetically said "our dragon now has a face". The face of my dragon is Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Autoimmune Hepatitis. This brings relief as the doctors at first were thinking the scans were showing them other causes for the pain and high liver numbers.
While in the hospital, I coined the phrase "Joy in the Pain". Each day, even when I was wracked with physical pain, or in the grips of emotional terror (seriously, wondering if your liver is going to liquify while you lay in a hospital bed is terrifying - ridiculous apparently - but terrifying), I tried very hard to see the joy in the pain.
The joy came from the friendships I made with other patients who were in the hospital: the little girl who stopped by almost everyday to see my get well soon balloons - who I gave them to, and then she gave them back to me to cheer me up when she was released, in Sue, the woman I learned I had far more in common with than the outside would hint. Or when I was able to walk around the ward, or take a shower, or have a visitor, or take a deep breath, or cuddle in my hospital bed with my children eventhough it was hard for them to visit sometimes because 5 years prior their father had died in a hospital just like this one and spent so much time in the ward across the hallway, or read my Bible and feel that peace that is hard to describe and yet so exciting to tell people about, or when my husband of two years took me outside in a wheel chair for a 'stroll' around the parking lot and told me he thought my character - how I was dealing with all that was going on - was so very beautiful to him.
There was so much joy even in the midst of the pain. There is so much joy even though recovery will take time. There is so much joy even with the uncertainties that this disease may bring and the vigilence that maintaining it will take.
I have a family that came to my side when I needed them. I have children who have shown a resilience beyond anything I have taught them. I have a husband who has shown himself to be a man of great character, truly loving, lifting me up with Bible verses and words of love. I have friends who rallied to my hospital bed, sent messages, and kept me laughing - even when my liver hurt. And I serve a God who is greater than the ups and the downs this life will bring.
I have hope in a healthy future. And each day I will choose to see the joy in the pain, even when I see the pain clearly - because seeing one, I believe, helps me to see the other. But I will choose which one gets my focus...it will always be JOY.
Walking through the journey of not knowing what was wrong with me, why I hurt, seeing the fear on the faces of my children, my husband, my family, and my friends, and then getting some unwanted news, forced me to face many emotions.
Over the past year, I had learned that physical pain was a part of my everyday life. Although we had no idea what was causing it. We are overjoyed that we now know what it is. As my husband so poetically said "our dragon now has a face". The face of my dragon is Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Autoimmune Hepatitis. This brings relief as the doctors at first were thinking the scans were showing them other causes for the pain and high liver numbers.
While in the hospital, I coined the phrase "Joy in the Pain". Each day, even when I was wracked with physical pain, or in the grips of emotional terror (seriously, wondering if your liver is going to liquify while you lay in a hospital bed is terrifying - ridiculous apparently - but terrifying), I tried very hard to see the joy in the pain.
The joy came from the friendships I made with other patients who were in the hospital: the little girl who stopped by almost everyday to see my get well soon balloons - who I gave them to, and then she gave them back to me to cheer me up when she was released, in Sue, the woman I learned I had far more in common with than the outside would hint. Or when I was able to walk around the ward, or take a shower, or have a visitor, or take a deep breath, or cuddle in my hospital bed with my children eventhough it was hard for them to visit sometimes because 5 years prior their father had died in a hospital just like this one and spent so much time in the ward across the hallway, or read my Bible and feel that peace that is hard to describe and yet so exciting to tell people about, or when my husband of two years took me outside in a wheel chair for a 'stroll' around the parking lot and told me he thought my character - how I was dealing with all that was going on - was so very beautiful to him.
There was so much joy even in the midst of the pain. There is so much joy even though recovery will take time. There is so much joy even with the uncertainties that this disease may bring and the vigilence that maintaining it will take.
I have a family that came to my side when I needed them. I have children who have shown a resilience beyond anything I have taught them. I have a husband who has shown himself to be a man of great character, truly loving, lifting me up with Bible verses and words of love. I have friends who rallied to my hospital bed, sent messages, and kept me laughing - even when my liver hurt. And I serve a God who is greater than the ups and the downs this life will bring.
I have hope in a healthy future. And each day I will choose to see the joy in the pain, even when I see the pain clearly - because seeing one, I believe, helps me to see the other. But I will choose which one gets my focus...it will always be JOY.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
The World is full of Beauty
It is quite amazing that so much surrounds us, and so often, we miss it. I don't mean we miss our bus, or we miss our favourite television program, I mean we really miss the important things that happen to be around us all the time, things that are simply doing and being, and yet we miss them.
Allow me to quantify. Sometimes, missing your bus is important. I'm not taking away from that. Sometimes having the dinner on the table by 6 p.m. is really important. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes seeing the butterfly cross your path is important. Sometimes smiling at the little kid jump in the puddles you just worked hard to avoid is important. Why are they important? Because they remind us that we are not all there is. These things show us that there is more to life than the busyness that takes up far too much of our time.
I say this as I am one who too often is caught up with how things look and how things should be rather than what things really are and the relationships that are built along the way when I sometimes take a moment to see the things around me.
This past few days, I have had opportunity to sit back, more specifically sit back by a pool, in a beautiful part of the world, and see what is going on around me, see what is going on in my head. Some of the things I have 'witnessed' have been from a distance, in that my children have had an opportunity to spread their own wings, without me at home. At this point, does it really matter that they didn't have dinner at 6 p..m.? Or that they probably have not even looked at a vegetable that did not come on a pizza? or that clothes are probably, even as I type this sentence, sitting on the floor where they left them last night...or a few days ago? Not at all. Because they are building their relationship, as siblings. That is so much more important. That is the wonder of life. That is where the magic happens...the little things.
So when I return home...I will remind myself that the dishes in the sink are not a slight to me, that my children not dusting is not them saying they don't love me, they were busy developing their relationship. Something I should do with them as often as I can, and sometimes that should mean I forgo the dusting...and just sit back, and watch the wonder of the simple things that surround me.
Allow me to quantify. Sometimes, missing your bus is important. I'm not taking away from that. Sometimes having the dinner on the table by 6 p.m. is really important. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes seeing the butterfly cross your path is important. Sometimes smiling at the little kid jump in the puddles you just worked hard to avoid is important. Why are they important? Because they remind us that we are not all there is. These things show us that there is more to life than the busyness that takes up far too much of our time.
I say this as I am one who too often is caught up with how things look and how things should be rather than what things really are and the relationships that are built along the way when I sometimes take a moment to see the things around me.
This past few days, I have had opportunity to sit back, more specifically sit back by a pool, in a beautiful part of the world, and see what is going on around me, see what is going on in my head. Some of the things I have 'witnessed' have been from a distance, in that my children have had an opportunity to spread their own wings, without me at home. At this point, does it really matter that they didn't have dinner at 6 p..m.? Or that they probably have not even looked at a vegetable that did not come on a pizza? or that clothes are probably, even as I type this sentence, sitting on the floor where they left them last night...or a few days ago? Not at all. Because they are building their relationship, as siblings. That is so much more important. That is the wonder of life. That is where the magic happens...the little things.
So when I return home...I will remind myself that the dishes in the sink are not a slight to me, that my children not dusting is not them saying they don't love me, they were busy developing their relationship. Something I should do with them as often as I can, and sometimes that should mean I forgo the dusting...and just sit back, and watch the wonder of the simple things that surround me.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
I'm still standing...
Well would you look at that! I found my blog! It would appear it has been a bit of a pattern with this blog that I post for a while and then I'm gone for a while. Well, I hope this time I'm back for good.
Life certainly has changed over the years of this blog. When I started blogging in 2007, my husband had recently become very ill with crohn's disease. In 2009 he lost his fight, but won the ultimate prize, and now has a new body in heaven. I blogged about my journey - the triumphs and the defeats.
When I started re-blogging in 2011, I was a new woman...sort of. I had found running was a passion of mine. I had started running with Team Diabetes, a fundraising division of the Canadian Diabetes Association, and I was figuring out life one day at a time as a single mom, relying heavily on my friends and my faith.
The end of 2011 also brought with it a new friendship that quickly blossomed into something more and I remarried in 2012.
I feel as though the Elton John song "I'm still standing", which he released in 1983 when I was 10 years old, applies quite well to my life. The lyrics read (sing?) "I'm still standing better than I ever did, feeling like a little kid". I'm still standing. After the triumphs, and yes, even after the defeats, because they are all, both the good and the bad, the joys and the sorrows, the fun stuff and that 'really God?' stuff, part of life. That, and my children are constantly asking me to grow up (the little kid reference). I'm loving life, and being goofy.
Life is not perfect. I am still meeting challenges. Sometimes I meet these challenges head on. Sometimes I try to not make eye contact, but the challenges, and the opportunities for triumphs, are still there, and I am still standing.
Thank you for refinding my blog! Thank you for reading.
Life certainly has changed over the years of this blog. When I started blogging in 2007, my husband had recently become very ill with crohn's disease. In 2009 he lost his fight, but won the ultimate prize, and now has a new body in heaven. I blogged about my journey - the triumphs and the defeats.
When I started re-blogging in 2011, I was a new woman...sort of. I had found running was a passion of mine. I had started running with Team Diabetes, a fundraising division of the Canadian Diabetes Association, and I was figuring out life one day at a time as a single mom, relying heavily on my friends and my faith.
The end of 2011 also brought with it a new friendship that quickly blossomed into something more and I remarried in 2012.
I feel as though the Elton John song "I'm still standing", which he released in 1983 when I was 10 years old, applies quite well to my life. The lyrics read (sing?) "I'm still standing better than I ever did, feeling like a little kid". I'm still standing. After the triumphs, and yes, even after the defeats, because they are all, both the good and the bad, the joys and the sorrows, the fun stuff and that 'really God?' stuff, part of life. That, and my children are constantly asking me to grow up (the little kid reference). I'm loving life, and being goofy.
Life is not perfect. I am still meeting challenges. Sometimes I meet these challenges head on. Sometimes I try to not make eye contact, but the challenges, and the opportunities for triumphs, are still there, and I am still standing.
Thank you for refinding my blog! Thank you for reading.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
What's love got to do with it?
I'll admit, I wrote that title totally singing the Tina Turner song of the same title. But seriously though, what's love got to do with life? And when I say love, I'm not talking, walk to the alter, let's make a family, the distorted view of love that is so often portrayed on television these days. What I'm talking about is agape love. The kind of love God showed when he sent his son Jesus to take the brunt of our sins. The kind of love that is so evident in the eyes of a child - hence the Bible verse "let the little children come to me" Matthew 19:14. The kind of love that is shown when a community rallies around one of its own, in a time of need.
I was shown such love today. It's funny, because I didn't suspect a thing. I was caught so totally off guard. I was, and still am, numb just thinking of how this group of people so willingly, and this is not the first time, surrounds me (sometimes figuratively, and other times literally) to show me their love for me and my kids. But in addition to being numb, I am asking why.
Why, after so many years, after so many showings of love, would these people do it again? The worldly question is: what did I do to deserve this showing of love? To answer this we need to go back to the original showing of love - Jesus. What did we do to deserve THAT kind of love? Nothing. Why did God send Jesus? Because He loved (and continues to love) us.
The next question we might have when shown this love is: what do I do now? Assuming you've already said thank you... pass this love on. You don't have to go looking for it, but rather, have your heart and eyes open to the opportunities that you will undoubtedly find crossing your path.
You have so much potential to love others. Whether you have a lot of money or you don't. Whether you have a lot of time or you don't. You have all you need, all God has equipped you with for the explicit task of sharing love. A smile, a kind word, a new perspective, a loving hug, there are so many ways to show it.
So, what's love got to do it (life)? Everything. Love should be at the root of every word you speak, at the basis of every action you perform, at the beginning of every thought you have.
Sharing this most special love will not only bless those you share it with, but it will transform you - your heart and your mind - you will find you are blessed beyond your capability to anticipate...
Share the love. Be blessed.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
What's in a song?
I spent much of today with my father. On the way to picking him up, the music in the car was blaring. A good sign of things to come. Throughout the day, more music was listened to and it added a certain energy to the day.
I often find that music speaks to me. It speaks to where I'm in life, where I'm at in the day, where I want to be...
Here's some the music I heard today that made me act silly, made me feel funny, made me laugh out loud...I've included links to youtube videos for your enjoyment. I'd be interested in knowing what songs make you laugh, smile, jump and dance...
Tom Jones, She's a lady
James Brown, I feel good
Joss Stone, Spoiled
I often find that music speaks to me. It speaks to where I'm in life, where I'm at in the day, where I want to be...
Here's some the music I heard today that made me act silly, made me feel funny, made me laugh out loud...I've included links to youtube videos for your enjoyment. I'd be interested in knowing what songs make you laugh, smile, jump and dance...
Tom Jones, She's a lady
James Brown, I feel good
Joss Stone, Spoiled
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