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.