In light of the year itās been, this Thanksgivingās āthankful forāsā could be very different from years past. I know mine is but in everything we are to be thankful.
āRejoice always and delight in your faith; be unceasing and persistent in prayer; in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.ā āā1 Thessaloniansā¬ ā5:16-18ā¬ āAMPā¬ā¬
Scripture tells us that Jesus will have a second coming and that we should be prepared for that day, every day, because we do not know the day nor the hour of His return.
āBut of that [exact] day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son [in His humanity], but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man (the Messiah) will be just like the days of Noah.ā āāMatthewā¬ ā24:36-37ā¬ āAMPā¬ā¬
So for 2020ās world changing year, I am thankful that Jesus has given me a second (multiple) chance (chances) to get my affairs in order. While I am saved, this trying year has taught me that I need to prepare more than ever for Jesusā return. Some things I thought were important to me arenāt as important as I thought while other things I thought werenāt so important are very important. Thank you Jesus for never giving up on me!
So, what are you thankful for this year? Comment below…
Well Iāve had another rest from blogging, and other stuff, as Iām sure yāall that follow me have noticed.
I never know when I will feel good and when I will feel awful due to this chronic pain I live with. Letās just say that Iāve had more down days than up lately for a number of reasons. I pray to be on the track to feeling good for more than a couple days at a time now. I just never know what each day holds for me until I begin it.
I have found myself cancelling things and saying no more than ever, even when I really want to. I apologize more than ever because I just canāt!! I hate the hold this autoimmune disease has over me. It isnāt just one thing. I have a number of things that taunt me daily.
So many say there āwell just do thisā or āhave you tried…ā and āI know that feelingā when really they donāt have a clue! I donāt even try to explain anymore I just say āthanks for that adviceā or āIāll try thatā just to move the conversation on from even talking about it any further. Most days I just want to scream but even thatās to exhausting. š
Any-who, enough about that!!
Pray for me and my husband! Say a special prayer for those not even in my life these days, whether theyāve chosen to walk away or Iāve just distanced myself from them, to love me through it anyway.
Good night world! May God hold your hand through the hard times just as He does for me because without God, I probably wouldnāt even be here. š
Kelly Clarkson sings a song called āBroken and Beautifulā and it is so relatable for me because I feel so broken, most days, these days BUT GOD and loved ones yāall; right!?!
Broken and Beautiful (YouTube screen shot)
I live with lots of chronic pain in my entire body, due to a few medical issues, that causes me to live with so much pain around the clock. Some days itās āhide-ablyā tolerable and some days it hurts to just wake up! Lots of days, I just wanna sleep and not wake up until the pain hurts no more.
So many Drās!!!!! So many surgeries!!!!! So many āLetās Try This!ā So many āLets Run This Test.ā So many āXrays and blood work!ā So many unknowns but letās keep seeking for answers until I am so sick of it all!!!!!š«
My most recent surgery, just 5 weeks ago, was for them to put in a nerve stimulator implant in my back. For those that donāt know what that is, itās a machine thatās basically an internal Tens Unit that blocks the nerve signals that go to my brain telling my brain that I feel pain. While it has helped, itās not as helpful as weād hoped. I would say itās helped by maybe 30% when itās turned on.
As I type this, itās 2:20 A M and I canāt sleep. And since Iām awake, I feel the aches and burns going on through out my entire body. In my shoulders, arms and hands I feel aches, throbs, burns, down to my finger bones hurting so bad at times that I just shake them off and hang them down to my sides for a few seconds of that momentary cold sensational relief. Some times I just wanna take em off and set em aside for a bit, swap em out with another pair, massage them momentarily, just something for some kind of relief! This is not what the stimulator is for, thatās for my feet, legs, lower back, and hip pain (which didnāt help my left hip much at all). To be fair though, I rarely mention my shoulders, hands, and arm pains at all because thereās so much other crap that hurts way worse.
I donāt know how to explain it, all I can say is I just HURT ALL OVER and I donāt know why. I donāt know how to explain it. I donāt want sympathy. I donāt want more freaking medicine. I donāt want another dang surgery. I rarely even want to be touched but I donāt want to be rude. I donāt want to seem mean to any one. I donāt want to hurt anyones feelings. I donāt want to hurt anymore PERIOD! So, to avoid things in this paragraph, I stay home a lot more.
So much of this unexplainable pain just makes me so danged irritable at times. I have gotten to where I just avoid being around people and certain situations all together. I rarely get out and about by myself anymore because I never know from moment to moment what Iām going to be able to tolerate because the pain changes from day to day through out each and every single day. Simply put; I just hurt and I donāt want it to become an excuse for any thing in my life but itās very debilitating at times. Thankfully though the migraines have almost completely stopped since my neck surgery was done in December of last year. So thatās a positive praise! Thank you Jesus!
I just simply have āunexplainable chronic painā thatās un-relatable to anyone and everyone around me therefore itās hard for you to understand. Just know that some days are good days for me and some days are bad but more often than not I just āfake the smilesā to make it through the day with as little complaining as possible because I donāt want to be a burdensome person to anyone. However, I do love deeply and I want yāall to know that I truly appreciate ALL of the prayers and support from you all! I feel ya š¤ā„ļø
To those of you that do show me true genuine love and support (not just when ya want something) through all of the āmaybe thisāll helpā processes that I continue to go through to find relief, I love you from the depth of my being and I apologize for not being able to physically help any of you but I do pray that Iām there for you, as you are for me, to the best of my abilities because without God and yāall I donāt know how Iād cope with this life.
So thanks for just being your true selves yāall š #ILYMTTYBLTTā¤ļø
When we take our eyes off Jesus and focus on self, most of this worldly pain is unbearable.
We must continue the path that God has us on because only He knows the lessons we are to learn and the many lives thatāll be touched by our obedience to Him.
Pain hurts, no matter the reasoning! The lack of understanding that we have toward said pain is why we begin to question God and what Heās allowing to take place in our lives. Itās not until we begin to fully trust Him that the pain becomes tolerable.
Keep your eyes off the world! Stay true to who you are in Christ! While things wonāt always make sense, itāll always be worth it because thereās always life lessons to learn thatāll strengthen our trust and faith in Jesus.
My morning started off pretty good. My husband and I got up and prepared to head out for the hour and a half trip to see my Rheumatologist but we were quickly halted when my husband found that our water heater had been leaking. Thankfully he seen it before we had a complete mess on our hands. The drain pan was almost to the rim full of water. It would not have made it another week until he got back so, after a few calls, he got in touch with a plumber that could replace it TODAY! WooHoo, thank ya Lord! So we gather what info we need from the old one in order to buy a new one.
We finish getting ready to go and head out.
Next stop, Dr office.
That appointment was also a frustrating ordeal. First my husband wasnāt allowed to even go inside with me, due to this covid19 crap, then the lab tech chased a vein in my right arm for a good five minutes before deciding to try my left arm for a good vein. Of course she got it the first stick only for something goofy to happen and her wind up having to chase that vein too for some reason. BUT she was finally able to get her three tubes of blood from that arm so thatās good. The tech was very nice and apologetic during it all, which I greatly appreciated, so that was helpful in keeping my frustration at a minimal. I even told her it was fine, no need to apologize because it just happens that way some times and she appreciated my understanding.
Next stop is Loweās for our brand new water heater. So thankful that we had the means necessary in order to purchase a new one but this too took longer than expected. The gentleman that helped us was very nice and LOVED to chit chat. After finally getting what we needed the nice gentleman even helped my husband get it outside and into the back of our pick up.
So, off we go for our journey back home because the plumber we were able to get in touch with will have his āhandsā to meet us there. Once the two gentlemen got the tank drained and outside, they began the install of the new one. BUT, you guessed it, they have some unexpected issues with the install and it is now going to take way longer than expected to complete the job.
Thankfully, once they are complete and outta here, all is well once again.
UNTIL it isnāt.
As I began to clean up the mess, not a big one, left behind from the job that has taken several hours to complete, I find that the new water heater is now leaking. I call the plumber and after a few ādiscussionsā on a few different calls, we both agree that itāll be fine to wait til morning for them to come back and see whatās happening now.
So my husband is back where he needs to be for work and I am off to bed to begin my morning in the morning, once more, with the water heater situation.
Moral of this story you may ask……..I just felt like sharing part of my very frustrating day with yāall and also to share that SATAN DID NOT WIN TODAY!!
Iām now off to lay my frustrations down at the feet of Jesus and have a great night of peaceful rest in spite of my frustrating day.
Hopefully yāall can do the same and have a good night!
For a limited time, weāre sharing the Freedom Sleepā¢ and Freedom Releaseā¢ Bundle: a selection of oils to reach for when finding balance is your number-one priority. To order go to http://www.myyl.com/lozlows and enroll for essential rewards.
Another rough day of pain. Ugh!! So over this flare up.
My BFF sent me this picture and it is so true! She truly gets me and there are no words to explain how much I appreciate and love her.
Speaks for itself
After day 4 (today) of this particular flare up and struggling to even get something accomplished (read My Office post), Iām so exhausted! My body is so tired and not like a normal āoh Iām tiredā, itās like an āIām so tired I canāt see straight nor walk right kinda tiredā. I feel like every bone and muscle I have is aching and burning and my skin tingles when someone just touches me. My head feels I can feel every single strand of hair and they hurt. I hate so many things about myself, especially my body, these days. But God right!?! If I didnāt have God to lean on and carry me on the days I canāt carry my own weight around, I honestly donāt know what Iād do with myself. Also, I am so thankful for my husband yāall! He does everything he can to help me. He tries so hard to ease my pain but nothing truly helps. It just has to run its course.
Itās so hard to explain so that others can have some kind of understanding of my misery. No one sees my ābehind closed doorsā struggles, I make sure of that. The two people I canāt hide from are God and my husband, they see it all, and they help me more than any others could. I rely on them for everything. Thank you Lord for your strength and mercy. Thank you David for loving me through it all.
As I type this, I realize that I really am very blessed! Way to blessed to stress over all of this pain. Itās nothing compared to what Jesus went through. Thank you Lord God for giving us Your Son on that cross to take our sins and fill us with The Holy Spirit once we give our life over to You. Thank you for helping me live in this pain every single day. I look so forward to my life in Heaven with You Lord.
Good night yāall. May God bless each and every one of you as He has me.
For me, my chronic pain feels like this gorgeous picture appears to me in my mind. I can see the beautiful mountain as it is so disguised by the tons of cold snow that lay at rest on it. But we know the snow will come and go with the seasons as does the enhancement of my pain.
I can disguise my body raging with pain just as the snow is disguising the mountain in the photo. I can almost feel my pain level rising just from the mass of cold air I imagine is blowing as I look at this picture. Such cold air, while the view may be beautiful, only enhances my chronic pain yet I will disguise it to others as they look upon me and my life just as this photo has disguised the dirt that lies beneath the snow.
The nerves and joints in my body are covered with mounds of pain, such as the snow in the picture. As the pain slowly goes down the insides of my body, just as the snow falls down the mountain side, it hits every angle of sharpness on its way down. It feels like I can literally feel every sharp and dull pain it encounters as it is falling.
I see the imagine come alive inside my mind as each tumble of snow breaks apart into more and more flakes of snow before it winds up into the icy cold waters below and is melted until all of the snow has completely been melted off of the mountain; such as each pain flows down my body until the next one is felt. Once it hits the āwatersā itās melted so that that particular feeling of pain is gone only to feel the weight from tons of more pain that was left behind.
When will the entire snow in this shot, that is frozen in time, fully melt? When the seasons change as each year passes until God returns to claim His possession that He created.
When will my pain be completely gone in this life? Only when God returns to claim His possession that He created.
Have you ever really in truly thought about what you put into your body? Me neither! Well today I had an awakening, more than before, to pay even more attention to that very thing.
I have some health concerns that, to me, aren’t really “concerns” but rather just a daily reminder that I have issues from never having a day free from pain. I stay in pain twenty four / seven due to them, but the one I want to talk about today is the fact that I suffer from fibromyalgia.
Now, for those of you that do not know what that is: MayoClinic.org explains it this way; Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues. Researchers believe thatfibromyalgia amplifies painful sensations by affecting the way your brain processes pain signals. Having said that, I take medicine daily for the many different pains I live with. Occasionally though, I will have what is known as a “flare”. A flare is when symptoms intensify without warning and can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. One just never knows when it will come on or even how long it might last.
Having said all of that, I wanted to blog about it because I watched a YouTube video today that shed some light on the subject for me that I had never seen before. It taught me that someone with fibromyalgia that consumes foods with copper should not do so. Copper, in anything if ingested, can have lots of repercussions for someone with fibromayalgia. We can receive significant pain from it.
First of all, I had no clue that copper was even found in foods, vitamins, and even in our water. What!?! So I did what anyone that had just learned something new would do, I googled it. It gave me a list of the top ten foods to avoid that contain copper and wouldn’t you know some of those foods would be my FAVORITES to eat!?! For instance, DARK CHOCOLATE contains copper…..no way! Another one of my faves is CRAB LEGS! It also stated that pork of any kind contains copper. NOT MY BACON!!!! Anything processed or containing something from the intestinal parts of an animal, such as liver, gizzard, etc., will contain copper.
I might as well just stop eating all together and just live on protein drinks, chips, and Dr. Pepper!! I mean just about everything I eat isn’t good for me now a days any way right, especially now that I know about this new found copper knowledge.
Anywho, now that I have learned to pay closer attention to things I consume for an ingredient known as copper, I will be checking all the labels as I go. But the one thing I refuse to give up is my Dr. Pepper a day. I will consume that until the day I die or I can not lift the can myself anymore. But wait, that’s when a straw will come in handy…LOL!
