I'm so very frustrated. It's been a very low few couple of weeks honestly, and I hate admitting it. After taking the 4th, YES, THE 4th anti-depressant that has made me suicidal in the last year. At first I was ashamed to even speak of it. But why are we so afraid to talk about mental health and suicide? They've become this taboo topic in our society because we're afraid of the ramifications. Would this be the same issue if I said I was diabetic but thought I could just do it without drugs... anywhoo. I disgress.
I know I don't play by the rules. Usual medication side effects don't really apply to me, and the things that might typically happen to someone have never worked for me. Muscle Relaxers made me have insomnia when they usually make anyone else super drowsy. I have been on SO MUCH medication in the last few years. I'm just SO TIRED of feeling like I've frustrated the medical community so they just throw more pills at me. I feel like replying back "You think I CHOSE THIS? DO YOU THINK LIVING IN CHRONIC PAIN IS FUN? I'm sorry to be a medical anomaly, but try taking more than 2 minutes in your visit with me, since I AM PAYING FOR IT, and get out of your Medical School thinking and listen to what is going on with me please!" I'm not just making this stuff up for fun. I promise that I always have pain of some sorts. I usually don't let it show because I hate talking about it. It's not something I enjoy talking about- i hate to talk about me regardless. I just don't want "to be that girl". I think being on allllll of this medication is what is keeping my pain as bad as it is. I'm just too compliant to actually object to someone in a lab coat and I take their pills because I I still have hope that the pills might DO SOMETHING for me after all. I can't go back to the original prescribing doctors, as they are back in Colorado. So I need a doctor in Indiana who IS CONFIDENT to slowly start taking me off one medication and see what happens. Not all at once. I'm tired of being an anomaly. One of the greatest things that I have heard in the last 3 years was when Dr. Fox said to me "You're not a medical anomaly. You're just a puzzle." Thank you. It was as if she gave me a new identity in all of this, because there is no user manual of "now here's how to live with a TBI" (which I may attempt someday at writing someday).Sweet freedom. I've certainly done most everything else that I was told couldn't be done after a stroke. Most people who find out that it's part of my past now are now very surprised, to which I am very grateful, and honestly never imagined would happen because I never thought that day would come WHERE YOU COULDN'T see the effects of the stroke in me. I've said that I don't want to be defined by the stroke, but I also have very select memories (without reason) from before the stroke as well,so even describing pre-stroke Amy is difficult on most days unfortunately. I'm a mixed bag and I'm becoming not afraid to admit it.
So there is this guilt of knowing that I am a miracle and but also living in chronic pain and wanting to end my life, and feeling guilty because I don't want my life to end that way either. It's a maddening cycle really. And there's not a "magic pill" to fix it and make it all better, and God hasn't healed me yet and made the pain stop, so right now, I live in tension of the life "not yet glorified". I want my glorified body SO BADLY I can taste it. A life without pain seems almost impossible to possibly imagine. So for right now, I know that as much as I hate them, I need them. I've attempted to ween off some of them, and in that process, some of my doctors have actually tried to add more pills to my routine. No, I don't need any more than what I already have. Please no. My mental health and pocket book are way too important to me to sacrifice right now. Having a voice is not something I have ever excelled in having, so when I actually use it Mr. doctor, please listen to it, and don't add medications as that just increases my frustrations with you and your vocation. ANd those are my frustrated and random thoughts for the day.
Love,
Amy Christine
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Hard day. Again.
Life continues to be hard in Indianapolis. And I continue to be misunderstood here too for a variety of reasons. I think it's one of the reasons that I just want to pack up in the night and return back to Colorado, without even saying goodbye. No, things weren't "easy" there either, but at least I knew the trials that could maybe come. I hated being known by my stroke, having that be my legacy or how I was known, but the resources were more accessible. Now that I had a job (well, I stepped down as a therapist this morning without a back-up plan yet and moving forward is still TBD) freaks me out. I hate this place of "unknown" again. I don't sit well. Living with a TBI is SO HARD. And to find someone else with a TBI that's higher functioning and young... yeah, doesn't happen often. It's not like something you can explain to people, but because I do "look normal" now on the outside, I have to remind the people that are closest to me that... sorry, my brain doesn't play by your rules. I know you find that frustrating, but trust me, it's about 20x more frustrating to know that there used to be stuff I could easily do and now it's simply not there. That still brings me to tears.
I met with a new friend the other night with a TBI that I had met after church when my video had played at church, and as we both cried together, we both admitted that even though our brains sometimes malfunction with a headache, we still have brains and are still here by God's grace. That's a sobering thought. PRAISE GOD for even sending her my way though!? I did have a stress-induced migraine on Friday, and many people can't understand why I would walk away from the only door that God seemed to open after 4 long months. When they can't understand what it is to live with chronic pain, on social security disability, riddled with anxiety, a thorn to the medical system, and over half of what you made last year going to medical expenses of your way below poverty... well, yes, it's a hard thing to explain to others why I would walk away. My brain just can't learn the way that they were trying to train me (with videos). I still want to work with people with disabilities somehow, and loved BACA for giving me the grace and opportunity to try. They even told me that they didn't see anything within me that was anything that wouldn't be true of any new therapist (which was SO AFFIRMING). I found I have a lot more in common with those autistic kids. We both need structure. We both crave people to see us for our abilities and what we can do and not at all for our disability. Our disabilities were not our fault, and we should never be treated any different for them. Although they needed some help with life and social skills, I realized that we are a lot more alike. That's stuff I had to relearn after my stroke too. It didn't just naturally come back. Thanks to my gracious friends and family for helping me with my blunders along the way, and helping me with my little hiccups, and sorry to anyone that I offended and never got the chance to apologize to. My filter was off for a long time, and many days still it is barely hanging on.
These were also kids that the school systems couldn't work with. I was also told I wouldn't return to school. Within 6 months, I was back pursuing my master's degree. When I realize it's been 3 years since my Stroke, that's a long time, and in many other ways, it seems like yesterday. There is a lot more that my new friend is aware of that I'm not yet- of knowing that she can't face the window because the constant people passing is too distracting for her, and she wore little earplugs that I didn't notice were even in. I need to find these little tricks for myself yet. And I need the grace of the people that are around me to allow me to do those things, even when it might seem weird when I request the seat facing away from the window. I think that's the biggest thing I need here in Indiana to make me feel understood in all this as I search for a job again, just for the grace to just be. Not to be enabled, or a hand-out, but just the grace TO BE moving forward. I think that's what I'm longing for and feel like I don't have right now somehow. Life, to even get out of bed and pretend that all is OK just takes so much energy, and I just need the space & grace to not pretend for awhile if that makes any sense. So those are my thoughts today, through the tears and not really knowing what's next. I think God likes me all vulnerable like this, even though I find it crazy and asinine.
Love,
Amy Christine
I met with a new friend the other night with a TBI that I had met after church when my video had played at church, and as we both cried together, we both admitted that even though our brains sometimes malfunction with a headache, we still have brains and are still here by God's grace. That's a sobering thought. PRAISE GOD for even sending her my way though!? I did have a stress-induced migraine on Friday, and many people can't understand why I would walk away from the only door that God seemed to open after 4 long months. When they can't understand what it is to live with chronic pain, on social security disability, riddled with anxiety, a thorn to the medical system, and over half of what you made last year going to medical expenses of your way below poverty... well, yes, it's a hard thing to explain to others why I would walk away. My brain just can't learn the way that they were trying to train me (with videos). I still want to work with people with disabilities somehow, and loved BACA for giving me the grace and opportunity to try. They even told me that they didn't see anything within me that was anything that wouldn't be true of any new therapist (which was SO AFFIRMING). I found I have a lot more in common with those autistic kids. We both need structure. We both crave people to see us for our abilities and what we can do and not at all for our disability. Our disabilities were not our fault, and we should never be treated any different for them. Although they needed some help with life and social skills, I realized that we are a lot more alike. That's stuff I had to relearn after my stroke too. It didn't just naturally come back. Thanks to my gracious friends and family for helping me with my blunders along the way, and helping me with my little hiccups, and sorry to anyone that I offended and never got the chance to apologize to. My filter was off for a long time, and many days still it is barely hanging on.
These were also kids that the school systems couldn't work with. I was also told I wouldn't return to school. Within 6 months, I was back pursuing my master's degree. When I realize it's been 3 years since my Stroke, that's a long time, and in many other ways, it seems like yesterday. There is a lot more that my new friend is aware of that I'm not yet- of knowing that she can't face the window because the constant people passing is too distracting for her, and she wore little earplugs that I didn't notice were even in. I need to find these little tricks for myself yet. And I need the grace of the people that are around me to allow me to do those things, even when it might seem weird when I request the seat facing away from the window. I think that's the biggest thing I need here in Indiana to make me feel understood in all this as I search for a job again, just for the grace to just be. Not to be enabled, or a hand-out, but just the grace TO BE moving forward. I think that's what I'm longing for and feel like I don't have right now somehow. Life, to even get out of bed and pretend that all is OK just takes so much energy, and I just need the space & grace to not pretend for awhile if that makes any sense. So those are my thoughts today, through the tears and not really knowing what's next. I think God likes me all vulnerable like this, even though I find it crazy and asinine.
Love,
Amy Christine
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Reclaiming hope
Within 24 hours this last week, I went to 2 different doctors that I had been looking forward to seeing for months, a general practioner that came recommended to me a few months ago during my EEG, and a neuro-psychologist to talk about my stroke with. Both left me in tears, and were fantastic. For over three years, I've lived with WAY MORE questions than answers, and gotten used to doctors just throwing pills at me because they don't know what else to do with me since my body won't play by the rules they were taught in school...
So Monday I met with Dr. Fox. Loved her. I had already sort of established myself with a doctor in Carmel, but something still told me to go get a second opinion on everything yet. I think when I had lived in Indianapolis in 2003-2005 I had seen someone in the 'Community' network, so she was able to she my prior notes from then as well, including my immunization records from when I went to Africa in 2005. When I had the stroke in 2009, I was on birth control, but can't even remember the name of it now, and it was only to help with the cramps I had every month. They never put me back on anything, and when I have to return to something someday when I'm married, they'll put me on an hormone-free IUD. I guess there are risks associated with them. Again, I should have gone to medical school for all that I've had to pro-actively learn myself in the last few years. She actually asked me questions about my family, the medications I was taking then and now. Though she didn't come out and say anything definitive and still wants to do further blood work, she hypothetezied that maybe my liver couldn't fully process the medications I was on and with the immunizations my immune system was weakened, with the history of cancers in my family there might be something more genetic to look for, and the combination of it all especially with the migraine medications just became the perfect storm in my body. I broke down. A 31 year old woman crying in a doctors office.
I have had weekly doctors appointments, and added it up yesterday for taxes, and just last year alone, spent over about $7,500 in medical crap. That is absolutely ridiculous. I'm relatively healthy, but come ON!? The relief that she offered me with just a hypothesis of what it could have been was... I can't even express it in words. Sure, it won't change anything now, it happened, but just to know WHY. I trust God. I do. But I still want a medical explanation of why it happened and why I'm always in pain. She looked at my sinuses and I told her that I've had chronic sinus problems and headaches since 3rd grade. She said they were inflamed and it could be due to dairy. Since I've done radical diets before and I'm in such pain all the time, I asked how long it would be until I noticed a difference, thinking she'd say a few weeks. 3 MONTHS. Middle to end of June. No creamer. No cheese. No milk. No ice cream. Back to reading labels for everything. Dr. Fox gave me hope in telling me and shifting my focus from something I've seen myself as over the last 3 years and told me a new truth- YOU ARE NOT A MEDICAL ANOMALY. YOU A JUST A PUZZLE. I can deal with that. A puzzle can be solved. I walked out of her office for the first time in three years with HOPE. I cannot express how GOOD that feels. So I'll do this dairy-free diet until the end of June if it means less pain.
24 hours later, I was sitting with Dr. Bigelow in her office, the neuro-psychologist. She looked at the scans that I had done a few months ago here in Indiana. She pointed to her screen and the picture of my brain and pointed to the section of frontal lobe that is now missing and said "if they had removed the section just a few centimenters over, you would have no speech. If it was over here, you would have no comprehension." Instantly bawling again. The pain and reality of the last three years have sucked. Royally. Getting my migraines and daily chronic headaches back in the fall of 2009 was one of the worst days of my life because the fear of "seriously, I have to deal with THIS again?" Looking at that screen with her was a small glimpse into the sovereignty of God. It was if He was saying, yes, I know this was not something you would have chosen for yourself. But even in that, I made sure that you were taken care of. She also said to me "for you to have made this much recovery so quickly is truly remarkable". All I could say in response was that there was someone looking out for me in this. So I feel like I have Hope again. So we'll see what happens with all of this. Hoping and praying for more answers from these new doctors, and feeling like they are a God-send right now. Sorry this was mostly a doctor-ish update, but that has mostly been my life for the last three years, so here's a glimpse into my life for real :)
Love,
Amy Christine
So Monday I met with Dr. Fox. Loved her. I had already sort of established myself with a doctor in Carmel, but something still told me to go get a second opinion on everything yet. I think when I had lived in Indianapolis in 2003-2005 I had seen someone in the 'Community' network, so she was able to she my prior notes from then as well, including my immunization records from when I went to Africa in 2005. When I had the stroke in 2009, I was on birth control, but can't even remember the name of it now, and it was only to help with the cramps I had every month. They never put me back on anything, and when I have to return to something someday when I'm married, they'll put me on an hormone-free IUD. I guess there are risks associated with them. Again, I should have gone to medical school for all that I've had to pro-actively learn myself in the last few years. She actually asked me questions about my family, the medications I was taking then and now. Though she didn't come out and say anything definitive and still wants to do further blood work, she hypothetezied that maybe my liver couldn't fully process the medications I was on and with the immunizations my immune system was weakened, with the history of cancers in my family there might be something more genetic to look for, and the combination of it all especially with the migraine medications just became the perfect storm in my body. I broke down. A 31 year old woman crying in a doctors office.
I have had weekly doctors appointments, and added it up yesterday for taxes, and just last year alone, spent over about $7,500 in medical crap. That is absolutely ridiculous. I'm relatively healthy, but come ON!? The relief that she offered me with just a hypothesis of what it could have been was... I can't even express it in words. Sure, it won't change anything now, it happened, but just to know WHY. I trust God. I do. But I still want a medical explanation of why it happened and why I'm always in pain. She looked at my sinuses and I told her that I've had chronic sinus problems and headaches since 3rd grade. She said they were inflamed and it could be due to dairy. Since I've done radical diets before and I'm in such pain all the time, I asked how long it would be until I noticed a difference, thinking she'd say a few weeks. 3 MONTHS. Middle to end of June. No creamer. No cheese. No milk. No ice cream. Back to reading labels for everything. Dr. Fox gave me hope in telling me and shifting my focus from something I've seen myself as over the last 3 years and told me a new truth- YOU ARE NOT A MEDICAL ANOMALY. YOU A JUST A PUZZLE. I can deal with that. A puzzle can be solved. I walked out of her office for the first time in three years with HOPE. I cannot express how GOOD that feels. So I'll do this dairy-free diet until the end of June if it means less pain.
24 hours later, I was sitting with Dr. Bigelow in her office, the neuro-psychologist. She looked at the scans that I had done a few months ago here in Indiana. She pointed to her screen and the picture of my brain and pointed to the section of frontal lobe that is now missing and said "if they had removed the section just a few centimenters over, you would have no speech. If it was over here, you would have no comprehension." Instantly bawling again. The pain and reality of the last three years have sucked. Royally. Getting my migraines and daily chronic headaches back in the fall of 2009 was one of the worst days of my life because the fear of "seriously, I have to deal with THIS again?" Looking at that screen with her was a small glimpse into the sovereignty of God. It was if He was saying, yes, I know this was not something you would have chosen for yourself. But even in that, I made sure that you were taken care of. She also said to me "for you to have made this much recovery so quickly is truly remarkable". All I could say in response was that there was someone looking out for me in this. So I feel like I have Hope again. So we'll see what happens with all of this. Hoping and praying for more answers from these new doctors, and feeling like they are a God-send right now. Sorry this was mostly a doctor-ish update, but that has mostly been my life for the last three years, so here's a glimpse into my life for real :)
Love,
Amy Christine
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Shame
I know I've acted like I'm tough before, but today was a hard day, for so many reasons. I had to tell my bosses at work (2 of 3) about my stroke and chronic headache pain, and even though "I did nothing wrong", there is still SO MUCH SHAME that comes with it. It's unexplainable. For the last 3+ years, I've lived with SO MANY lies and doubts over SO MANY things, thinking that I was inadequate and that I somehow did something wrong or to deserve some of the things that have happened to me... well, it just becomes an old, broken, worn out record after awhile. I hate it.
Doctors and their appointments, medications, living as a medical anomaly, living in a cage behind a mind that seems to malfunction and just yearning for your glorified body already, constantly feeling misunderstood by everyone that surround you... well, you tend to doubt yourself. A lot. Even if you try to portray yourself as a confident, single 31 year old female. Nope, most days, just a facade. I'm afraid. I feel like a shell of what I used to be or even my potential, and I'm yearning to get back to that person. I will not live as a victim, but I have been victimized, yes. Which is why I don't let anyone get close to me. I hide. I cower. I stay busy to try and not think about it all. Now with my intense job in every area, I can't focus on me and my own mess, which has it's own pros and cons. So I'm learning to take care of me in the midst of a world that doesn't make sense today, and I'm not sure when it will again. I refuse to give up Hope because that's all I have left, so I am clinging to it for dear life. With this new job, I need to start working out or having a place for all of my pent up aggression and frustrations to go, since working with Autistic children makes so little sense to me yet. And this entry probably made little sense, but those are my thoughts tonight, or emotional vomit if you will. Thanks for still following along :)
Love,
Amy Christine
Doctors and their appointments, medications, living as a medical anomaly, living in a cage behind a mind that seems to malfunction and just yearning for your glorified body already, constantly feeling misunderstood by everyone that surround you... well, you tend to doubt yourself. A lot. Even if you try to portray yourself as a confident, single 31 year old female. Nope, most days, just a facade. I'm afraid. I feel like a shell of what I used to be or even my potential, and I'm yearning to get back to that person. I will not live as a victim, but I have been victimized, yes. Which is why I don't let anyone get close to me. I hide. I cower. I stay busy to try and not think about it all. Now with my intense job in every area, I can't focus on me and my own mess, which has it's own pros and cons. So I'm learning to take care of me in the midst of a world that doesn't make sense today, and I'm not sure when it will again. I refuse to give up Hope because that's all I have left, so I am clinging to it for dear life. With this new job, I need to start working out or having a place for all of my pent up aggression and frustrations to go, since working with Autistic children makes so little sense to me yet. And this entry probably made little sense, but those are my thoughts tonight, or emotional vomit if you will. Thanks for still following along :)
Love,
Amy Christine
Friday, March 2, 2012
My mess is in process of becoming my message
I have been going to a sexual assault survivors group that meets on Wednesday nights, and it has been incredibly healing for me. To find other people that have also had to live through trauma's that they didn't ask to deal with and for an hour and a half, have a safe place to come, cry, scream, whatever- and not feel like I'm burdening people by talking about my baggage... well, it's truly freeing. There is a couple that both went through childhood trauma's, and they shared this quote last week and it brought me to tears. I think for so long I HAVE LET MY PAST DEFINE ME that to have the world as my oyster now and to, in many senses, create new opportunities for myself, well, it's scary and freeing and so many things. This quote is thought provoking and I hope it makes you think just the way it did for me last week =)
Your past doesn't define your present or imprison your future. What happened then doesn't have to happen now. You decide today what your life is going to be. Your present and future are in your hands and your hands alone. Don't let whatever happened in the past hold you back from living your life now or later on. Let it go. Those scars, nightmares, and traumas that hurt you so badly, don't give them anymore power to hurt you. You are stronger than they ever could be. You are so much more than they could ever be. Please don't let them overshadow your beauty or your right to a better now. We all have things in the past that haunt us, but we have to choose to let it go and move on because we deserve to live in the now. We are worthy of a bright future. Run towards it and never look back.
It's rare, but every now and then, I'll get in a conversation and actually allow myself to not be the listening ear and answer some of the questions, which is beyond hard for me. I don't like the answers that I give because I'm still figuring out how to answer them and not have it be a total shock "since I look normal" (whatever that even means). Guess what. Even "normal looking" people have crap to deal with. We all do. it's part of being human. Move on.
I just loved that quote and wanted to share!
Love,
Amy Christine
Your past doesn't define your present or imprison your future. What happened then doesn't have to happen now. You decide today what your life is going to be. Your present and future are in your hands and your hands alone. Don't let whatever happened in the past hold you back from living your life now or later on. Let it go. Those scars, nightmares, and traumas that hurt you so badly, don't give them anymore power to hurt you. You are stronger than they ever could be. You are so much more than they could ever be. Please don't let them overshadow your beauty or your right to a better now. We all have things in the past that haunt us, but we have to choose to let it go and move on because we deserve to live in the now. We are worthy of a bright future. Run towards it and never look back.
It's rare, but every now and then, I'll get in a conversation and actually allow myself to not be the listening ear and answer some of the questions, which is beyond hard for me. I don't like the answers that I give because I'm still figuring out how to answer them and not have it be a total shock "since I look normal" (whatever that even means). Guess what. Even "normal looking" people have crap to deal with. We all do. it's part of being human. Move on.
I just loved that quote and wanted to share!
Love,
Amy Christine
Monday, February 27, 2012
My "Evangelism" plan...
I had coffee with my friend Lindsay on Friday, and she is becoming a dear friend here in Indianapolis. In College (as a ministry major) I thought I had things all figured out and had an "Evangelism Plan" all mapped out. And then life happened and my idea of God had to radically shift and I found out that the God that I thought that I knew and the plan that I was leading people to didn't quite fit the God of my experience. Not that I shouldn't HAVE an evangelism plan. I would desperately LOVE if I could use my story in people lives to tell them the amazing news of what God has done IN ME AND THROUGH ME. But I realize now that even a walking miracle and medical anomaly that my Evangelism plan sounds a lot more like I'm talking about the Easter bunny and all I can say is "Welp, He is real. I shouldn't be here. That's what I know to be true. I wish you could experience that for yourself." I wish that life made a lot more sense. It hasn't for me, and at the end of the day, even with my advanced degrees and religious training, I have a lot more questions than I do answers, and I've had to rest assured that God is OK with my questions. In fact, He is big enough to welcome and encourage them. He made me with these wrestlings and although I WANT answers, I want to know Him more. So I've had to become OK with maybe not getting answers for now, at least in this season, time, or maybe even this life. If someone could explain to me an Evangelism plan using my story that would make sense for others to hear and present them with the Trust in a non-hokey way, that would be awesome. For right now, I have nothing, other than what I've said above and simply loving them in their process of wrestling too and trusting God with the details of everything else. Maybe that's all that we're really meant to do anyway. Sometimes I think we get so focused on "Salvation" and "being in or out" that we miss the point of the relationship altogether, which really should be the point. Maybe all my education was just to remind me that I need to unlearn who I thought was in control and the "neat" formulas of having it all figured out anyway. Life is A LOT more gray than I used to believe, that is for certain.
Love,
Amy Christine
Love,
Amy Christine
Monday, February 20, 2012
Learning in the stillness
Jesus Calling, February 16:
"Thank me for the conditions that are requiring you to be still. Do not spoil these quiet hours by wishing them away, waiting impatiently to be active again. Some of the greatest works in my kingdom have been done from from sick beds and prison cells. Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the midst of these very circumstances. Limitations can be liberating when your strongest desire is living close to me.
Quietness and trust enhance your awareness of My Presence with you. Do not despise these simple ways of serving Me. Although you feel cut off from the activity of the world, your quiet trust makes a powerful statement in spiritual realms. My Strength and Power show themselves most effective in weakness."
I've been sick since Friday. I accepted a full-time job on Friday morning, and got to celebrate by being in bed sick all weekend. Not only do I live in chronic, daily pain and put on a smile and hide behind it to not answer questions of "How is it today" but I was bed ridden with a not only a migraine but a sore throat and fever (and we'll find out if there was more at 1:30 after going to the doctor) since Thursday night. I'm super stubborn, but to lay out and watch nothing but TV and sleep because I had no energy was super hard. I was a few days behind on my devotions and read this last night. I was floored to say the least. I shouldn't be amazed anymore, but I still am. I still can't believe that God actually wants to USE ME in my "broken" state. It seems so counter-intuitive. I have a million excuses, and must sound a lot like many of the bible characters that we Hero-ize for their acts of faith, like Moses when he stuttered up to God his excuses... God wants to use me when I'm broken and don't have my act together. I LOVED the line "Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the Midst of these very circumstances" Really? You have a plan in this mess? In my migraines? With my sore throat and fever this weekend? You want to use me like this? When I only see myself as an invalid and I'm bed-ridden? Teach me more of what that looks like then! Because I'm like that pretty often! Teach me what that heart of prayer looks like and I will gladly offer it Lord! You know this life is yours, so do with it what you want Lord!
Love,
Amy Christine
"Thank me for the conditions that are requiring you to be still. Do not spoil these quiet hours by wishing them away, waiting impatiently to be active again. Some of the greatest works in my kingdom have been done from from sick beds and prison cells. Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the midst of these very circumstances. Limitations can be liberating when your strongest desire is living close to me.
Quietness and trust enhance your awareness of My Presence with you. Do not despise these simple ways of serving Me. Although you feel cut off from the activity of the world, your quiet trust makes a powerful statement in spiritual realms. My Strength and Power show themselves most effective in weakness."
I've been sick since Friday. I accepted a full-time job on Friday morning, and got to celebrate by being in bed sick all weekend. Not only do I live in chronic, daily pain and put on a smile and hide behind it to not answer questions of "How is it today" but I was bed ridden with a not only a migraine but a sore throat and fever (and we'll find out if there was more at 1:30 after going to the doctor) since Thursday night. I'm super stubborn, but to lay out and watch nothing but TV and sleep because I had no energy was super hard. I was a few days behind on my devotions and read this last night. I was floored to say the least. I shouldn't be amazed anymore, but I still am. I still can't believe that God actually wants to USE ME in my "broken" state. It seems so counter-intuitive. I have a million excuses, and must sound a lot like many of the bible characters that we Hero-ize for their acts of faith, like Moses when he stuttered up to God his excuses... God wants to use me when I'm broken and don't have my act together. I LOVED the line "Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the Midst of these very circumstances" Really? You have a plan in this mess? In my migraines? With my sore throat and fever this weekend? You want to use me like this? When I only see myself as an invalid and I'm bed-ridden? Teach me more of what that looks like then! Because I'm like that pretty often! Teach me what that heart of prayer looks like and I will gladly offer it Lord! You know this life is yours, so do with it what you want Lord!
Love,
Amy Christine
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