Ya know, this blog is getting pretty old. If you’ve been around since the beginning, you have picked up bits and pieces of my story. When someone I know reads He’s Making Diamonds, they often comment on the fact that my story isn’t in it. And they’re right. I mean, He’s Making Diamonds is full of personal stories about my experience as a chronic illness warrior, but I don’t share them chronologically, and there are major details that were left out because I didn’t feel ready to share them with the world yet.
Like . . . when I was fifteen, I was given a month to live due to the toxic mold poisoning. And it’s been a long journey of healing since then. It still is. I haven’t shared a ton publically on how my health is doing nowadays. Honestly? My physical health has been improving significantly. I am able to function almost like a normal person, just with a lot of extra care. It’s INCREDIBLE. I shared here why that is not something I easily share online, but today I want to share something beautiful because y’all, there is hope!
The last few days, I’ve been in pain. Horrible, sleep-depriving musculoskeletal pain. But I went on an adventure with some family. And on our late-night car ride home, I wrote the following . . .
Y’all I’m alive!! I’m living and breathing and dreaming and growing and it’s something so incredible. Something that shouldn’t be true, but that I’m so glad is. I wish you could hear my voice as I say this. I wish I could express what’s in my heart and what I’ve experienced.
Tonight I went to my first ever concert. When I first got sick so many years ago, my family bought me tickets to go see Rend Collective for Christmas. But I was dealing with so much muscle weakness and sensory overload that I couldn’t go. It was the first big thing I missed out on because of my illness. Those of you with health challenges will know exactly what that means. The pain, grief, and resignation that maybe gives a dull pulse in your heart right now, remembering your own “first” that illness stole from you.
But tonight I went to a Christmas Rend Collective concert and I’m counting every blessing. God is restoring the years the locusts ate. I’m still in a whole lot of unusual pain, but that made tonight even more beautiful as I rejoiced over what God has done in my life and am thankful for the things He has allowed me to suffer. He has brought me safe to shore and will continue to bring me safe to shore and GUYS I’M ALIVE AND LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
I’m living a life I didn’t think I would be able to have, and God has just doused me in SO MANY blessings. A functioning body. The ability to travel. The possibility of overseas mission work. Hope for a future family, when I gave that up at 15, grieving what illness made seem impossible. Multiple of my dream jobs. Horses in my life. The ability to step outside my door and be immersed in nature in minutes. A driver’s license. Plans to move out and live on my own. (There was a time I couldn’t even get a spoon to my mouth as a teenager.) Kids to love and people to do it with. Community: mentors (plural), adopted moms and grandparents, sisters, brothers, both local and long distance. These might seem small, but they are so significant. As many of you know. At points I thought each of these were things that were humanly impossible.
That community was impossible. That marriage was impossible. That walking was impossible. That caring for myself was impossible. That driving was impossible. That working and supporting myself was impossible.
Thankfully God is not human.
