Feeling like mom of the year around here. Or not… . Do you know the feeling when the cupboards are overflowing, but there is no milk and no bread, so it seems as if there is nothing at all to eat in the house?! That’s where I’m at this week. I confess I have not been feeling well and getting to the grocery store has just seemed like a mountain I don’t want to climb (and yet, I somehow find energy to do other—much less necessary—things with my time).
Last Sunday at church I had a bit of a flare up with my MS. I had told Brian it was coming. I can feel it coming. It’s like our oldest cat, Sammy, on the prowl: he just hangs around, dancing in and out of the chair legs at the kitchen table, until at last we let our guard down and he can make a run for the chicken (who am I kidding—he goes for the chicken when we’re at the table!). But seriously, it’s not a secret. I know when I’m doing too much, and yet sometimes I’m just not willing to help myself by slowing down.
It has a very predictable pattern, and this week it has progressed as usual: first physical exhaustion and then emotional exhaustion. I can cry at the tip of a hat. After those two months of feeling so well, I am having a hard time accepting this reality again. I get mad at myself: Suck it up. You’re not tired. You’re not worn down. Everyone feels this way. You are weak.
I feel guilty for being exhausted. And I feel badly asking for prayer when people have already prayed so much: Aren’t people tired of hearing I’m tired? Shouldn’t I just pretend?
And for the most part I pray for strength and keep moving forward. And I feel confident most people don’t know how I feel on the inside. God graciously allows me to get done in the day what I need to get done, but He is also reminding me what it means to be obedient—to choose the things that are honoring to Him and use my limitations as an opportunity to prioritize. To say the least, this is a work in progress.
But most importantly, as I write this, He reminds me that while I can be angry at my MS, it is not necessarily my MS that is at work against me. There is a greater enemy on the prowl. In my prayer time this week, I have come across these verses several times, and I’m certain the Spirit has not placed them on my heart by accident:
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
1 Peter 5:6-9.
And I am humbled by the blessing of God’s Word. I am humbled that I can cast my fears on Him, that I can tell Him about my anger and frustration—that I can recognize the “flaming arrows” of bitterness and fear and uncertainty. I am thankful that God’s Word reminds me that he cares for me and loves me and knows I have MS. And I can also take comfort in sharing these things with you, dear reader, and trust that you will not judge me as a complainer or a whiner; instead, I trust that you are undergoing a very different and yet very real and possibly more challenging trial and that hopefully, you too, may find encouragement in these verses.
I have been praying that I would know God and then know Him more. He is such a faithful God. He hears us and He answers. It’s just not always the way we desire—but it often leads to “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”
Once again He humbles me by allowing me to see the blessing in my MS: without this week of struggle, I would not have stopped to consider these verses the way I am now. When the cupboard seems bare, sometimes we need just pause to look around and see the abundance surrounding us.