Yesterday (at this time of this writing), a post of mine was published on a blog I hadn’t been on before. And the comments made me both smile and made my heart break. I had struggled to write that post and had prayed that God would use it. Well, it is turning out that He is. But not in the way I imagined. People weren’t responding to any profound spiritual truth or encouragement that I’d tried to share.
They just wanted to tell me their story. They saw me give a brief mention of my various illnesses, and they were desperate to tell me, “Me too!”. They related. They understood. They had been there as well. God wasn’t using my post in the way I expected. He was simply using it to tell other people that they weren’t alone. There was someone else with illness too. There was someone else who was young and chronically ill. There was someone else who believed that Lyme and mold and MCS and other illness existed. There was someone else who had some comprehension of what it felt like.
So today, I want to tell you the same thing: you’re not alone. I’ve written posts about this before. But I want to tell you again today, just in case you need a reminder.
You.
Are.
Not.
Alone.
Chronic illness is so much more common than most people realize. Including those who are ill. The more and more I write about illness and interact with the chronic illness community, I realize how many of us there are…. many of us feeling alone.
Maybe that’s because a lot of us find it hard to talk about our illness. Maybe that’s because it’s hard for many of us to be social. Who knows! But there’s a lot more of us than we realize.
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. -1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
Today I got Kara Swanson’s book in the mail and was telling my mom how Kara had Lyme. My mom said, “You have a lot of friends who are Christian teenage homeschooled authors with chronic illnesses!” I agreed, and I said I love it because they’re like me… that’s what I am! Then my mom said maybe all of us teenagers with long-term illnesses have become authors because that’s an easy profession to do from your bed. 🙂
Yes! I was literally talking to a friend (another homeschool graduate Christian teen with a chronic illness who writes books) about that yesterday. It’s both easy to do from bed, it’s flexible, and people who have been through illness generally have the life experience to write deep, relatable things and characters. 🙂 It’s kinda crazy how many of us there are! 😀 (P.S. Kara’s book is pretty awesome!)
Yeah! I was happily surprised to find so many of us. I am so excited to start Kara’s book!
Realizing I’m not alone has been such a powerful piece in the mental fight against chronic illness (in my case, tickborne disease, SIBO, MCAS, and a PANS-like illness). Thank you for this; I really enjoyed the read and the reminder 🙂
Glad it could be an encouragement to you! 🙂
We need this reminder every single day, so thank you!
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