May 20, 2012
Some of the more discerning readers among you will have noticed that I have mentioned God a couple of times in my posts. Congratulations Sherlock, you’re correct, I am a Christian. I decided to re-commit my life to God last August (2011). Some people make the assumption that my faith gives me a nice cushion to rest on when I need to think that all my pain will be worth something or that I’ll have a better life in Heaven. Yes, that is part of what God has given me, a peace of mind that He can use what I’m going through, but that’s not the whole picture.
Paul began fighting to get better and for a better life for us when we started going to Church
I actually stayed away from Church and acknowledging God properly for a couple of years before last summer because I had some pre-conceived ideas. I thought that coming to Him would mean ruining my relationship with Paul. In my mind, I needed to live with Paul (and wanted to) and being a part of a Church and having a relationship with God would mean changing that, ere go I couldn’t be a Christian. Because of the guilt I had laid on myself when I was a Christian before, I had come to believe that God was the kind of figure who really loved me but there were lines that couldn’t be crossed and I had crossed them and didn’t want to hop back to the other side. I didn’t want to go back to living a double life- a life where I loved God and had a great relationship with Him, and the life where I had a great relationship with Paul. It never occurred to me that God didn’t care whether we had a legal piece of paper, we were committed like a married couple (this is before we were engaged) and intended to get married one day. I knew for sure in my gut that I was meant to marry Paul. Why would God be against that?
Anyway, that was just part of the deal. The other part was dealing with how I felt about my illness. I have never given in or tried to stop getting better. I’ve rehabilitated myself before so I know, when my body is ready, I can do it again. I had become comfortable in the life I had though, staying in reading or writing most of time, going to the cinema, and having coffee with friends. I had my degree and political activism too so it wasn’t like my world had become just myself, but there is something wrong when you accept this is all you’ll ever have. No matter what your age, the best is always to come. I’ve talked before about how I thought my glory days had been and gone. I needed to have hope that I could do more, that my life could be more than trying to struggle through each day, and doing what I could for others when I could. Because of the combination of my illness and Paul’s depression, we really were just muddling through each day. If there was cutlery in the drawer, dinner on the table and I had got out of bed, we were doing incredibly well. By the time August 2011 rolled around, I was doing ok health-wise, it looked set that I was actually going to pass my first year, but Paul was…not in a good place. I had no idea how he was going to get through his own studies, let alone help me in the next academic year. The only thing getting him out of bed was the thought that if he didn’t help me, I’d be in incredible pain. But, somehow we weren’t in despair. We both came from families used to dealing with stuff like this so we were just getting on with things, doing the best we could.
Giving out free hugs in Brugge
Admitting God could have more for us, that felt a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t want to hope for Paul to get better, or for my health to improve, or to make any hopes or dreams for the future, because I’d been disappointed too much in the past. Doing that would leave me vulnerable for hurt, that once again things would not work out. There’s so much more to the story, but I think you get the picture. I didn’t come to God because I needed a shoulder to cry on, I was done crying, and just getting on with my life. I would say I didn’t even feel I needed Him. My faith is a motivator, it challenges me. This year, I went to Brugge to help plant a Church. I know that that journey there alone should be nowhere near possible for me to handle. I can barely manage the trip home to my parents’ house which is about an hour and 40 minutes away. But, I know that God provides what I need to follow His will. That can sound like He’s saying, it’s my way or you’re sick, but that’s not what I mean. God’s plan is in line with what I really want. I loved every second of my trip to Brugge.
I’ve gotten a bit off track now. I’m just trying to explain that part of my faith is comfort and peace of mind, but the other part is passion, hope, motivation, stepping out in faith before the details are set. It’s frustrating in some ways writing this blog post because I can’t possibly explain my story fully and I know that leaves me open to people picking holes. I also know that some readers may be suspicious of why I’m writing about this, thinking I’m trying to pick on vulnerable people and win them to my faith. I haven’t preached, I’ve just written about my faith. When I began writing this blog, I said I would be honest and raw, laying intimate details of my life bare, if that’s what it took to tell the whole truth about living with a chronic illness, I’m sticking to that. My faith is a huge part of my life, I couldn’t write a daily blog about my life without including that. I’m open to questions or comments on this post on my faith, just be aware that this isn’t a Q&A about questions of suffering or anything else, because I couldn’t give a full answer in a comment box. I’d love to talk more about my story though.
Love Katie x
For those of you who are interested, Paul and I go to Freedom Church. You can check out their website here, which has preaches, music videos, etc, and you can download podcasts of more recent preaches (including one on depression) here.
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Posted by chronickatie in Inspiration Tags: boyfriend, Bruges, Brugge, carer, CFS, Christian, Christian life, Christian walk, Christianity, chronic illness, Church, Church planting, depression, faith, fibro, fibromyalgia, free hugs, Freedom Church, God, God the Father, hope, inspiration, invisible illness, Jesus, living with depression, M.E., motivation, my story, pain, partner, passion, studying, suffering, summer, the best is yet to come, truth, university, wildfire
