If the Lord wills

Over the past twenty years or so that I have been ill,  it has become totally apparent that we chronically  ill  women can never make plans.   By it's very nature,  chronic illness  is unpredictable and we do not know from day to day, or indeed, moment by moment how it will effect us..

Nearly every day I write lists of things I need to get done and places I have to go, then something will happen that tosses my plans into the rubbish bin. I run out of spoons, or I become dizzy or feel faint or want to vomit, have angina, or mostly, I just collapse and need to take a nap..

Even planning for a restful day can go awry as sleep doesn't come and we find ourselves staring at the ceiling whilst going cross-eyed with fatigue..It's very frustrating..

I have only recently been able to say to people that we will go to a certain event or do something "if I am able" and not worry too much about the reaction. Because we Sisters all know that we can't please people when we can't jump to their command. I have gotten to the stage that I no longer care about their reaction because I am not doing it wilfully..their reaction is their problem..

None of us want to be chronically ill and it does us no good whatsoever to blame ourselves for not being able to attend a function or do something that we have promised to do. Our life is not our own when it comes to chronic illness..

I think what works best for me now is when I realised that God is in control of my life, my days and my nights. Unless He allows my body to co-operate, I am at chronic illness's mercy.. 

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." James 4:15

Thoughts as we travel the road of illness

It's amazing how when you aren't chronically ill how you take so many things for granted. Things like getting in and out of a bath, taking a shower, even toileting when your back is in spasm, bending forward to clean your teeth, standing at the kitchen sink, wiping benches in the kitchen, sweeping the floor or simply bending to pick something up....

It once was an easy task to climb up and down stairs, get on and off trams or buses, walk to the letterbox and push a shopping trolley around the supermarket. Not any more...

Everything we do has to be measured up and spoons metered out before a task is actually done. It certainly impinges on our spontaneity. For us, there usually are lots of ramifications when we have tried to be spontaneous. Pain and more of it!..

Normals would probably view our hesitancy to do a task as procrastination or laziness, and before becoming a Sacrificial Home Keeper or chronically ill woman, I would have as well... but we simply are adapting to our new normal...

When our illness is invisible, we just want to be respected and understood, but inevitably, we are judged. Especially so if we have become overweight because of illness...  it is us who suffer from guilt (false guilt really) that unkind judges of our body put upon us. This invariably leads to depression and overeating in an effort to gain energy to move more, or simply for comfort.

I am just so glad that God knows exactly what is in our heart and understands. He knows our frame and we are loved unconditionally- and this is so comforting to us who only know scathing remarks and criticism in this fallen world we are travelling through.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed. Psalm 41:3