I am having a rough week! I thought it only fair to write on days like today since it’s much easier to jump on here and write encouraging things on the “good” days! I like living wide open, so here’s the truth of it…and maybe it’ll be a little therapeutic for me as well.
I know I am extremely blessed, first of all. Just this week the Lord gave me this picture in my mind: I was thanking Him with my daughters for a long list of blessings, and I saw an iceberg. The blessings I can see are just the tip of the iceberg! The blessings I can’t see (how God is at work, spiritual blessings, my life hidden in Christ, a home prepared for me in Heaven) are the miles deep solid iceberg. So…yes, I am blessed and I know it.
As anyone reading this knows, I have struggled with adrenal fatigue and a sleep disorder for over 10 years and this past year I had a wonderful year of relief from it. It was still there, but managed. Slowly, I have felt some fatigue and exhaustion come back. Sometimes it feels related to stress, sometimes to allergies (because of waking up a lot at night I think), and sometimes there is just no reason. Since coming home from vacation I haven’t felt great but it was manageable. Then on Sunday, after coming home from church and lunch in Louisville, I was just finished. I figured I’d wake up Monday morning back to at least a tolerable normal, but I didn’t. I have felt this way all week.
Even Sunday morning before church I felt in a daze, and today is the first day I’ve even started to feel the fog lift, but only for a little while. I love my life so much, and sure everyone gets a little down and unmotivated sometimes, but I feel down for the count! I don’t feel like doing anything that I’m supposed to be doing, so I’m doing the bare minimum of everything. It’s stressing me that I have events on the calendar, plus leading worship on Sundays and the daily activities with the kids, that I do not feel like doing. I swing back and forth between judging myself and freeing myself to just relax.
I have a small list of steps I am taking to try to get this under control again and since I have no idea if this will be short term or long term, it gives me a sense of peace to say if I’m not feeling better in one month, I will go into a different mode…back to what I used to do, which is only take care of my home and family, no work, no singing events, no commitments. I’m not happy about this, but I genuinely have meant it when I have said and prayed that I love what I’ve learned and how I’ve changed through having a chronic illness and if God has more to teach me through it, may His will be done. Also, I know that my worth is not caught up one bit in what I do and God is not disappointed in me, therefore I will have joy and peace whatever the outcome. (After many tears of submission, let me not leave that out! It’s a loss to grieve…but there are much greater losses.)
It’s the limbo that is hard, I think. Trying to keep fulfilling commitments without making a big deal about telling people what I’m dealing with…deciding whether or not to say yes to something I’d really like to be able to do, and that I very well MAY be able to do…All of a sudden, living the one life I have to live is just a completely different situation.
I cling hard to the verse that says to serve with the strength God provides. That means if God doesn’t provide the strength, I’m no longer supposed to be out there. It has to be Him doing it. I’d appreciate your prayers, mainly that i would know what to do about commitments for July. I have 3 concerts and church every Sunday. These are not stressful in themselves, but they are when I don’t feel like preparing. Thanks for reading!
Praying for you Lyndsay! I am praying for a short term slow down and that with rest, God will give you energy and the strength you need. I read your struggle with this and I so relate with your symptoms and how you deal with it. Thanks for writing, it is nice to know that other people struggle with not being able to force beyond being tired. I am much better than I have been too but I still get this way at times too, and I also know how scary it is to not know how long you are going to be in this place. Praying for you friend!!! May He restore your soul, always!!