What matters most?
It’s a question I don’t ask myself nearly enough. Something I wish I always answered correctly to but most certainly do not. Because, while I would like to say that my identity in Christ is what matters most, more often my actions, anxiety, and stress would say I think what other people think matters more. Everyone questions what people are thinking for different reasons, it’s part of our fallen nature to desire to be liked and to be wanted.
"Waiting for someone to give me permission to not feel okay so I could do the same for myself"
Some of you reading this may be aware of the health issues I’ve dealt with for some years and have been asking what’s up, so here is the story. The last five years of my life have been filled with waiting, waiting for doctors to give me some sort of answer, waiting for some snippet of relief, waiting for someone to give me permission to not feel okay so I could do the same for myself. But they always came up empty, and if not at first, then eventually they would just tell me to deal with it and cope.
Since the medical world told me there were no answers and that I was probably fine, I put that same standard on myself. You just push through, you keep up, you work the full time job, you go to college, be social, invest in people, do all the hobbies. You do this because this is what a normal, average person is capable of with no problem. It’s nothing extraordinary, it’s just life. The constant tape being replayed in my mind would go something like this;
“You’re pathetic for feeling like its so hard to keep up."
"Why do you struggle with everyday things?"
"It’s too much to handle, you’re too much to handle."
"This should not be so hard, everyone else is doing it.”
When people asked,
"why don’t you eat what everyone else is eating?”
“why are you so tired all the time?”
“Why aren’t you coming?”
The only answer I had to give was,
“I don’t know, my body just hates me.” (As I would laugh and shrug it off).
The last thing I wanted was sympathy, for someone to feel sorry for me, to draw attention to myself. I am strong, I am independent, I am capable, I don’t need to rely on others. I never wanted to use my health struggles as an excuse or for others to think I did or think I was needy. This incessant fear of how others viewed me permeated my life, it was as loud and constant as the physical symptoms were.
As goes with most lessons in my life, God took this fear and mistaken identity and ran with it. (Cue absolute breakdown of body and utter need for reliance on other humans and God).
As the months passed, I felt like my body continued to fall apart. Constant migraines were soon added into the mix; another instrument added to the orchestra of stomach pain, exhaustion, brain fog, body aches, unexplained weight gain, and nausea that was on a constant replay in the background of my everyday life. Every few months I break. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so good at coping with pain, with hiding, with being used to it, maybe I wouldn’t feel so stressed or lonely if it was more obvious.
But, honestly, unless I tell you how I’m feeling you would probably assume that I’m a normal looking person which must mean I have a normal functioning body; I don’t. My pain is not visible to the eye, and maybe that’s the hardest part. When doctors say you look fine, it must just be in your head. You’re just being dramatic, so the same lines circle back through my head again, after every doctor visit. But when you can barely eat, traveling sends you to bed or the ER, your emotional and mental state never quite seem to find a happy medium, every few months you just break.
You can’t handle it anymore and you cry, and you get angry, and you demand an answer now. So, you go out looking for one, you get your hopes up, just enough for you keep pressing on for a couple more months. But then it becomes clear that there’s no change, so you break again. After several years of this cycle you begin to lose steam, you lose hope and begin to think maybe you are crazy, and just a giant, dramatic burden to those around you.
"My pain is not visible to the eye, and maybe that’s the hardest part."
A friend recently told me about a specialist in Tennessee. It seemed like a long shot, nothing else was working and I didn’t think this doctor would be able to tell me something anyone else hasn’t. The fact that she had the audacity to tell me she knew what the problem was before I even met her left me skeptical, but I had nothing to lose so I flew out with my parents.
As we sat across from the specialist and I explained, once again, how I felt, she listened. She didn’t cut me off or tell me I was fine, she just listened. I told her how exhausted I was, how pathetic I felt for not being able to work and do a college class, two very average things. How, emotionally, I felt broken and so tired of the physical pain but also the feeling of hopelessness, depression, and being a burden. After I finished, she looked at me and said:
"You’re not pathetic, you’re stronger than most people. Most people would have given up by now, but you’re here. Most people would be bed ridden with half of what you’re going through, and if you weren’t standing here in front of me, your blood work shows you shouldn’t be able to get out of bed."
She diagnosed me with an extreme case of Crohn’s disease. In a nutshell my cells are diseased. A normal person’s body has active cells, ones that form a protection around infection, they move and have color.
Mine do not.
They don’t move.
They don’t protect.
They just sit there, there’s very few of them and the ones I do have are toxic.
Because my cells can’t protect me, the disease has created lesions in my intestinal wall and allowed parasites and toxins to take over my body. Toxins from the disease, seep throughout my body, tanking my adrenals, thyroid, liver, kidney, gut, pituitary gland and have started to coat the gray matter in my brain, causing constant migraines.
To hear a licensed professional, validate the stress I’ve gone through for years; I needed that. In that moment I could breathe. It was like someone had given me permission to stop trying to hard, to stop beating myself up when I couldn’t even stand, to let the standards I had set roll off my shoulders. To look at myself and have grace for where I am at, and to take another step forward.
"This incessant fear of how others viewed me permeated my life, it was as loud and constant as the physical symptoms were."
When it comes to worrying about what others are thinking, for me, it’s all do with my health. While the relief and permission I’ve felt and given myself these past few weeks was great, something in me resisted again this week. A voice in my head has begun to quietly add to the background music;
“Okay that’s enough. You’ve not worked long enough; you’ve felt weak and needed people long enough. You keep this up and people are going to ask questions, they will think you’re a bum, that you’ve made nothing of yourself, and you’re a disappointment.”
I’m embarrassed to admit for the past week I’ve been hiding a lot. Hiding from the questions, from the explanations I feel I have to give, the shame I feel from not contributing to society like I feel I should be, hiding physically, hiding from the nagging feeling that, not just me but , God too is disappointed in me. I was resisting the hug, as someone so perfectly put words to it for me.
In hiding, I was resisting others because of how I felt about myself and I automatically assumed that’s how they thought of me. In turn that’s also how I thought God was viewing me: Bum, not enough, burden, pathetic. When we allow these thoughts to overtake it creates a muddle in our mind of truth and lies that are incredibly hard to separate.
Coming into a new week I still feel confused, I still feel incredibly broken, I still feel like I’m not moving as quickly forward as I would like to. But I don’t want to resist the hug. I don’t want to miss out on the sweet embrace the Lord is just giddy to give me. And He wants to gift them to me every day.
Sometimes it’s through a moment of silence with Him,
other times it’s through a financial blessing of a friend,
Another time it’s a listening ear,
an embrace,
a space for tears,
a walk in the sunshine,
a fit of laughter,
Or morning reminder that what He gives is greater than what we beg the world for.
I don’t know what you’re hiding from today, what thing fills you with thoughts of shame, what scares you, but I know that no matter how confusing it is, it's a lie. Today I’m learning that God embraces us in many ways and accepting that through other people seems contradictory to our individualist culture. Being in need feels unattractive.
But that’s the beauty of the body of Christ, we were meant to need each other. And I speak from a place of learning to receive it and understanding the value in giving it. So, let’s stop pretending like we don’t need each other, like we are always okay and have our crap together, like we don’t long for intimacy with the Church, for a place to be raw and honest. Someone desperately needs a hug from God today and you might be the one to give it.
"Waiting for someone to give me permission to not feel okay so I could do the same for myself."
Like that specialist in Tennessee, God gives us permission to breathe, to not be okay, to validate the aching pain we feel. The fight you put up, the walls you build.
They are unnecessary.
You have nothing to prove.
Drop the mask and let Him hug you.
Because what matter’s most isn’t what others are thinking. What matter’s most is His embrace.
P.S. I challenge you to be that embrace for someone today, take a leap and be vulnerable because that might be the permission they need to breathe. And if you have been resisting an embrace, take a chance on someone and trust, take a chance on God and sit with Him in the silence.
Sincerely, Questions to My Answers.
Comments