Fighting the Invisible

Being chronically ill is an interesting battle, particularly for those of us who fight the battles with “invisible illness”. I mean, most of us, we get up every day, we eat, work, socialize, have hobbies and families. On the surface there is very little if anything that would differentiate us from any other person wandering around. The fun begins in explaining to the outside world that we’re sick, it’s even more fun when you suffer from something that doesn’t have 50 pharmaceutical commercials on every cable network advertising the newest cure or treatment so people end up simply baffled. 

We all work to see if we can make our lives as “normal” as possible, despite people thinking we’re insane because we’re maybe exhausted, drained, broken, in pain, or any number of other things. This is where I want to start today. An open and honest journey about living with chronic issues and finding normalcy to the best of my ability. To share with other what that journey looks like, good, bad, or ugly. The journey to get parts of my life back that illness and pain have taken, to embrace the new changes and challenges that life will bring me, and to open up the conversation to those like me as they take the same journey with me. 

This year I will figure out how to get back to my healthy happy weight, I will get back to my active hobbies, and I will embrace all that I can learn about my invisible nemesis and about those that plague those around me. 

My nemesis is an arthritis that plagues my entire system that’s only been exacerbated by a moderately severe car accident last fall. It has a name, though few have heard of it in my experience; it has its symptoms and its battle plans, but I have given my marching orders. Life isn’t about coping it’s about living, and I can’t wait to take on the journey of learning to Live with my illness instead of being crippled by it. 

I hope you take this journey with me.  Until next time, keep your faith, have courage, and realize your potential. 

Election Day 2016

Whenever we see clouds roll in it’s usually a sign of impending storm, something that is brewing, something bigger than we can even imagine. It’s interesting that after two weeks with not a cloud in the sky that on the day of the election the storm clouds rolling over at the Sunshine State’s panhandle. I feel strangely like its an omen or sign. I encourage all of you today as you go to the polls to take a moment and forget what media has put out and take a minute to be really quiet with yourself. Ask yourself what is your vision for our world, what are your wants and desires? What do you want to see happen.? Once you have that idea, I ask that you look at your options and decide which of these “two evils” or the other candidates is going to align best with your ideals and your vision. 

In all reality while somethings may change in the next four years, the will primarily be moderately  superficial changes for the most part, there is this series of checks and balances that have already been put into place by our founding fathers to ensure that no one person has absolute power over anything, but who sits in the Oval Office sets a tone the environment that we live in on a day today basis. The last eight years has been full of both triumphs and trials but most notably for me is the change in the social environment in which we find ourselves. 

As millennial I can say that this is honestly the first time in my life that I’ve seen such social division and such anguish amongst the American people. We now immediately jump to racial or ethnic or background conclusions prior to actually communicating with someone or reaching out to someone; we make assumptions that they are automatically in the wrong or out to get us. This environment is a scary environment, it’s one in which good faith and kind hearted words and actions are looked at as weak or suspicious and not as sincere or humanitarian. It’s a time where it doesn’t matter what your best intentions are you have to go out of your way to prove them before you’re taken seriously.

So today I challenge you to view this election as a turning point, God is big on those moments, he’s giving us a choice to trust in him and his plan. My pastor had an awesome point while discussing the elections recently… 

That’s huge, think about it, the world will do as it wishes, you can’t control that. What we can control is our behavior, our reactions, and our impact on the world around us. We have all heard that saying “Be the change you want to see in the world”, and I get it, it’s super cliche and it sounds great but what does that actually mean for us in the real world? Be the change? How are we, as individuals, supposed to make a difference in a country of 322,761,800+ people, in a world of over almost 7.5 billion people? How?

Start by opening your Bible, remember that ONE MAN sacrificed his life to free us all. Remember that ONE MAN influenced and changed the hearts of millions. We can follow his lead and love one another, spread positivity instead of judgement, donate time and energy into making the communities we live in better instead of tweeting about how it’s getting worse. 

Be the change, be the light in the darkness, a beacon in this storm. Get out and vote today, then pray for the future of our country and ask that God lead you in your path. In the words of a great friend of mine “Go forth and LOVE”. 

And remember …

Relationship Status: LOVING ME!

It sounds simple right? Single or in an actual relationship, most people would say easily enough that that love themselves. We hear it all the time in one form or another splattered all over one form of social media or another, but I want to have an honest conversation with you about self love. True self love, not just surface self love, not the social media bravado, none of that. I’m talking about that behind closed doors, up late at night, subconscious thoughts kind of self love. 

It’s tragic really, in a time of so much technological advancement with opportunities to connect not just with others but with ourselves I find that so many many people are missing out on that self love.  Take a minute for me and think, think back to the last truly and honestly good thing you said about yourself TO YOURSELF, or the last time you slowed down to genuinely have some “me time” that didn’t correlate to how you would be seen by somone else or how it might raise your status or bring out droves of likes on Facebook. Do you have that moment in mind? Good, I’ll come back to that in a couple minutes. 

Now I want you to think about your perfect mate, whether you’re single or dating or married or what have you, it doesn’t matter just image your perfect mate. What would you expect of them when they “loved” you? Kindness? Positive affirmations? Affection? Occasional pampering? Respect? Would they challenge you to be better? Would they find you attractive, smart, witty, fun,and funny? Grab a pencil and a sticky note or a piece of paper and write it down, (yes seriously write it down) just 3-4 things that your perfect mate would embody when you think about them loving you.

Now that you have that, I want you to go back to the first thing I asked about remembering the last time you loved on you, did you embody those same 3-4 things? Did you find yourself kind, loving, genuine? Did you support yourself through a rough spot? Were you affectionate? 

It’s all too easy to have these expectations of another person, all too easy to demand to be loved in a way that makes us not only feel it but believe it. However, it seems that when it comes to loving ourselves we struggle wholeheartedly to do it in a genuine fashion on a REGULAR basis.  Why is that? 

In a world with media so saturated in what we SHOULD be according to the latest trend or sensation we lose sight of what is so amazing about what we ALREADY ARE! 

Anytime you start feeling like you aren’t enough remember two words… “I am”… Those same words God spoke many many times throughout the Bible, simple and sweet, I am. Now that sounds ridiculous I know, you’re sitting here reading this thinking “Who is this chick and why is she dilusional enough to believe that two words can change everything?”… And I’ll be frank, it won’t change everything, it won’t stop bad things from happening but what it will do is change the way you react to it. Ultimately you only have 2 choices in life, you can let things happen to you and let them break you or you can take the bull by the horns and let it shape you. 

The power behind I am is all about self love, about understanding who you are as a person and LOVING every inch of yourself as is. This can be so hard for some people, admittedly I still have issues with it somedays, weight will fluctuate, an injury will flare up, I fail at something, something goes awry and ultimately that is when decision time matters. No I’m not perfect but I AM a work in progress, God is not done with me just yet. I AM beautiful, even with things I want to tone up or slim down. I AM powerful because I know that I am capable of all things because I have the greatest weapons in my corner… Self love and my relationship with Christ. “Be strong and brave, do not be afraid, for I am the Lord your God. I am with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9. 

So I challenge you all this week to indulge in some self love. Take that sticky note and put it where it will remind you of how you deserve to treat yourself. Be kind to yourself, you are the only you you get. Don’t be afraid to believe that you could be and are the best partner you will ever have on Earth.

Go forth and love!

One Step Forward, Four Steps Back

It’s cliché I know, we have all heard that life is all about taking one step forward and two steps back; and in essence the statement is generally found to be true in most people’s lives. I myself find myself repeating versions of this in my head as if it’s a justification or a realization of what it means to be human, what it means to live a life led by God. “An arrow can only be shot by being pulling it backwards, so when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it is going to launch you into something great.”  It sounds good right? I mean if we believe this then we believe that there is an overarching plan for our lives, one we don’t absolutely have control over but rather one that God has planned for us.

As millennials we were taught to plan, to make plans and to pursue them avidly, plan our futures be it careers, families, goals, businesses, or dreams. This wasn’t just instilled in us but growing up, at least where I’m from, it’s DRILLED into us, where did we think we were going in life without a plan? So as hopeful adolescents we do just that, we plan, we map out our dream colleges that will lead us to our dream majors and perfect careers. From there we plan our future weddings and the families that will spawn from those perfect relationships with Mr. or Mrs. Right, when in all actuality we are unaware that someone larger than us has a plan all his own and that our plans will have to change in order to find out what our true paths are.

I can honestly say that as a Junior or Senior in high school if you would have asked me where I was going to be by the time I was 27, working in a law firm and living 8+ hours from home, engaged and renting a town home probably wouldn’t have been what I would’ve told you. The actions and decisions that led me to where I am today aren’t particularly special in any way, I’m not trying to spout off something profound here about coming to a ‘fork in the road’ and ‘seeing the light’ that ‘showed me the way’.  In a way I am no more well-directed than I was as the idealistic high school student I was 10 years ago, but in other ways I am so much more perfectly in tune with where I am and what it means to be where I am.

In the Christian faith we are consistently talked to about the importance of knowing what “season” in life we are in. Is it a season of growth, a season of reaping, a season of harvest perhaps?  There is definitely some truth to that, knowing what season you are in is crucial to knowing how to intake and understand the things happening in your life.  I am most definitely in a season of growth, and it’s not been an easy one (not that growth has ever been considered something easy or painless, I offer up the well accepted idea of “growing pains” as an example) but I digress it has been one of the most important times in my life to date.  In the last year and a half I have met the man of my dreams, neither of us is perfect but it works wonderfully for us, we complement one another, challenge one another, and support one another regardless of what life throws at us; I have lost the man who was essentially like my second father suddenly and unexpectedly; soon after I lost my service animal who had served as my whole world in some of the years prior; I failed at my first attempt to finish my masters degree; I found work in an unexpected place because of a need for good health insurance; found more medical issues that seemingly have no explicable cause; watched my baby sister graduate from college and find the first step to her dream career; was in a major car accident at a time that is far less than convenient; lost another major male family member; and have struggled to find what it is that I was put on this Earth to do.

Now, by no means do I think that my past year and a half is unique to me alone, nor do I believe that it is a reason to feel like a victim, like the world or God is picking on me. In fact it’s reason to believe exactly the opposite. God is not picking on me, but rather he is honing me and leading me to where he knows I am meant to serve.  With each door that closes, and believe me some days it can feel like every door I even think about touching manages to have a brick wall behind it, is leading me one step closer to the woman I was meant to become.  At the church I have found a home in, there was a women’s conference this weekend, the theme was “She Rises” and this phrase, while I wasn’t able to attend this conference due to life’s crazy twists and turns, still resonates with me heavily. She Rises.  It’s simple, its vague enough to fit almost any set of circumstances, it serves as a reminder to rise above and also as inspiration to continue pursuing growth and development.

She rises, what does that have to do with anything else I’ve been ranting on about?  It’s a reminder that even though you may find yourself feeling lost, alone, confused, broken, defeated, or any other overwhelming feeling of challenged or punished. Remember to rise. Find something else to identify with other than victim.  Rise.  Don’t let the adversary win, regardless of the situation be it a literal adversary or a spiritual or metaphorical one. Rise.  Learn something new from that door closing, better yourself, expand your resources and skills, simplify your life and focus on what really matters.  Rise. Take on whatever life or God is handing you and make it work for you not against you.  There is always pain in growth, we all know that, but without growth we would perpetually be in the same place, we would never know love, family, friendships, achievements, or peace.  We would never know how to leave home and spread our wings and become our own individuals, form our own passions, thoughts or ideas. Pain and discomfort let you know that you are growing, it is up to you to make sure that that pain and comfort is causing growth and not regression.  Don’t let fear or discomfort keep you from achieving, keep you from growing, or keep you from loving.  In one of my favorite bible verses, one I would call one of my life verses, we are reminded that pain is never caused for no reason.

So what does all of this ideological ranting boil down to?  No matter what season you are in my fellow millennials, or anyone for that matter, don’t let these set backs in life have detrimental impacts on your life. I heard once recently from a youth pastor “IF you have time to text about it you have time to pray about it”, and this statement is truer than any of us want to admit to.  When life pulls us backwards, when God but your arrow in his bow and pulls you in a direction you didn’t expect, don’t pout and text it, talk to one another of course,  open and honest relationships define what it is to be human, but don’t lose sight of the fact that our most important relationship is the one we have with Christ.  The pain and discomfort and confusion He is causing in your life right now are leading you to where you are meant to be.

As this is my inaugural blog post I thank you for taking the time to read my musings, I hope that you got something out of them and that you will continue to read my posts.

Remember life is all about Faith, Courage, and Potential, never lose sight of yours, and as a good friend of mine would say… Go forth and LOVE!!!