All Things Beautiful

I started writing this post a few days ago and kept quitting half way through. I lacked the perspective to be able to put everything I wanted to say into words. I wouldn't say I have that perspective now either, but at some point in all it's imperfection, what rolling around inside me just has to find a way out.

It's a terrible feeling to be 26 and face something chronic, unfixable and barely manageable. I've fought this for the last few years, telling myself I would be one of the lucky few people who just needed some simple solution that had been overlooked, that some miracle cure was going to come along and fix the migraine disease that instead of getting better, seems to bullying it's way into more and more areas of my life and my healthy well days seem to tipping in the balance on the wrong side.

It's a hard thing to admit that one's body is not trustworthy, that it is letting me down when I need it most, that it is not reliable and not easily fixable either. A condition like mine takes a lot of patience and investigation; I suffer from complicated migraine disease with Aura and Hemiplegic Migraines. Which basically means a long with the debilitating symptoms I have been suffering the last few years (extreme pain, loss of vision, nausea, vomiting, an inability to function and stroke-symptoms) last week I had my first fake seizure.

I had just come home from a promising doctor's appointment that morning; I had a referral to a specialist, some new medication to try and some promising leads to help me get a bit of my life back  from these painful and frightening attacks. I've been suffering migraines since I was a little girl with only a few breaks here and there in my life, some lasting a couple of years, in the last 5 years, only a few months here and there that were migraine free. But that was the first time I'd suffered a hemiplegic migraine and it really shook me up.

I was frustrated and deflated, overwhelmed at how I could feel so encouraged one moment and only a few short hours later be struggling  to form the words to talk to my daughter while laying on the couch unable to feel the right side of my body or move it. Once the feeling came back to my face I realized I'd been crying, so upset at why God could seem to be answering my prayers and then still hand me this heavy load of struggle. The anxiety of attacks like this has complicated my condition further, creating a vicious cycle of panic attacks that trigger migraines and migraines that trigger panic attacks. Being stuck between a rock and a hard place doesn't begin to describe how I've been feeling. I feel strung out and worn out and very low on my faith and optimism.

On one hand I wonder is their some solution that's still eluding me. Am I not exercising enough? (thanks to my generous In-Law family giving me a treadmill that belonged to my husbands grandmother, I've been able to run 5 times a week again which does help) Is there something wrong with what I'm eating? (Another vicious cycle to not feeling well, is not having the energy to properly prepare foods for myself).
Or is it more intimate than that? Is it my faith that's lacking or sin that needs weeding out? I don't really think so, but believe in the dead of night when nothing about this makes sense I have cried out to God to reveal to me, what I can't seem to see clearly myself.

It's hard not to feel desperate and despondent, ignored and uncared for. I identify with the Psalmist crying in Chapter 6: 2-3 "Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed, But thou O Lord, how long?" (KJV)

I keep praying that I will see some way that God will glorify himself in all of this, that I will find the elusive mystery to "counting it all as joy". I have decided t Psalm 73 :26 will be my life preserve for now, the tether that keeps me somehow grounded so that  when my head is filled with pain and confusion, when my limbs feel weak and shaky or I can't feel anything at all, I can still the rising panic and  have something to whisper back to the pressing darkness.


It sometimes seems like I only have half of the answer to my prayers, Sometimes it seems like I see less than half of what is really going on, and I know I see much less than a fraction of where this will all lead or how God will bring help to me. But in the deepest part of me I will cling to my faith that indeed He will and He will prove himself sufficient for me; a strength to not only my body but my heart and He will be a sufficient portion to me.

Even if it feels like only a small piece to me.

Can it still be peace?

I pray that it can.