So here we are…

If you follow me on Facebook, you saw this post the other day.

Yeaup. It’s that time of year again.

It’s now the fifteenth. My lungs show no sign of behaving. It’s frustrating.

I am truly coming to terms with the fact that I live with chronic illness. I don’t think anyone wants that. We all think that somehow we will be healed. Sometimes that’s just not in the cards. I’m accepting the fact that I drew the ‘really misbehaving lungs’ card, and that’s my mission in life (among many others)- to live with chronic asthma and respiratory disorder.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had pneumonia now. And each time, it is taking longer and longer for my body to fight back- and the medications I must take are getting stronger and stronger. It just is what it is.

But the thing is, while I can’t control this issue with my lungs, I can control my attitude towards it. I think I’ve really goofed on this in the past. I tend to get really, really discouraged and depressed when it happens. Not only am I sick in body, I tend to make myself sick in mind and heart -and how in the world does that help me get better?

I’m learning to think in terms of ‘I can’ instead of ‘I can’t’. I am looking for and finding the things I can do when I am ill, versus the things I can’t do. It means I get to read and knit more. Snuggle on the couch with a kid or three. Find a cozy quilt. Stay near the warm fire.

I’m learning that with the rest of my life too. Sometimes God has in a foggy place, and we’re there for a reason. ‘Course, it’s not pleasant. Instead of thrashing about and trying to peer through an impenetrable fog, I’m learning to be still; to watch and see the small compass around about me, to watch my feet and the path before me, to testify to the way to He is providing for me in these very moments where I can’t see much beyond my fingertips. Wandering and thrashing about in a fog only leaves you more lost. I’m trusting the path He has set my feet on, and I feel so much more at peace about things. I’m not saying it’s easy, or that it’s not discouraging at times. But in an upsidedown Kingdom way, I feel a lot more in control of an uncontrollable situation by just letting it go into the hands of Christ. This is where I am:

He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.

-Psalm 40:2 (NKJV)