Category: Chronic Lessons

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Four Things Satan Uses Against the Chronically Ill: Part 2

Last week we saw how Satan distracts us from our joy, our family, our ministry or work and even God’s Word as we struggle with chronic illness or issues. The next tactic he uses is deception.

What is the one thing you long for? What is the one thing that helps you get through any trial? What was the one thing that helped you get through the excruciating pain of natural childbirth? What’s the one thing we all need to feel about living any life? Purpose!

“So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” – Revelation 12:9

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t have taken the pain of childbirth with no end in sight and no REASON for it. Sadly, that is what many of us live with on a daily basis inside chronic illness. The pain doesn’t end. The fatigue never abates. But worst of all, there is no reason for it and, even more devastating, we feel like we serve no purpose!

I can only speak with any detail about myself, but even though I love the Lord and I work daily to keep my joy and serve others as best I can, I have times when I feel useless. No time epitomizes this more than just recently when my son left for his second year at Purdue this past month.

I usually wake up in joy looking for funny videos and creating memes that poke fun at the weird things that happen. One day, I woke up to an empty house. I thought about how my daughter is married and living in a nearby state giving her all to the things she loves, the job she excels at, and the people in her life. I thought about how my son is working hard making the most of his college years living on campus, running a club on campus, and learning about leadership as he is one of the founding members of a fraternity recolonizing the campus this year. I thought about how my husband works so hard at his job and comes home to do things for me or our children.

What struck me that day was not as much the loneliness which I’ve felt for quite some time on and off, but the pointlessness of my life…or at least what struck me as a total lack of purpose. I used to work full time. At one point, I had three jobs! I stopped working an online business not too long ago due to my growing fatigue.

After watching Dr. Stanley’s sermon that day, I realized that this is one of the Enemy’s tricks he uses to deceive us. He wants us to believe we have no purpose to take away our joy so we give up our dreams without a fight. Even though I had come to accept that I could no longer work outside the house and even though I knew I was contributing with this blog and the Life Beyond Surviving Facebook group, he got me to feel I no longer had a purpose.

I had begun feeling sad, crying during the day, reminiscing about all the things I did, and all the things I thought I’d do when I had more time. Life after 17 years of homeschooling wasn’t supposed to be like this. What I realized is that life may take twists and turns, but no matter what happens I have a purpose in Christ. It may not be grandiose with me appearing on TV or as a YouTube sensation, but it is a purpose none the less.

There are things I know that can help someone else struggling through their trails. And if I can help just one person, that is reason enough not to lose hope and to move forward in joy to reach any and all who need to be lifted up out of their own despair the devil has devised for them.

What is your purpose? Not what did you want it to be. Not what did you think it could be. Not what you spent years training for it to be. What is something you can do right NOW that will make a difference for someone else?

Close your eyes. Find even one thing you can focus on right now that will give you a purpose, allow you to feel joy, and bring something positive to others. Now, open your eyes. What is it?

“So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” – Revelation 12:9

Take that, Satan!

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Four Things Satan Uses Against the Chronically Ill: Part 1

I was listening to Charles Stanley a little while back. He was discussing four things Satan uses against us: distraction, deception, division, and destruction. Dr. Stanley was speaking in general, but as I listened to him, I began thinking about how he specifically uses those very same things against those with chronic illness and it moved me to write this series.

I’ve said it many times before, but it’s worth repeating. The chronic part of chronic illness is what makes it so different from any other trails I’ve struggled with in my life. My Bradley childbirth instructor told me that “people can stand just about anything for a short time. so when you feel like you can’t stand the pain anymore, that’s usually when the baby is born. ” She was spot on for both of my children’s births.

The fact that you know the pain will end and that you will get a beautiful baby at the end of it gives you hope. There is no such hope in chronic illness because there is no cure and often there isn’t much relief either. That hopelessness that exists for many chronic illness sufferers is the reason Satan targets us the way he does to distract, deceive, divide, and destroy not only our strength but our faith.

“and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” – Mark 4:19

The first thing that Satan does is to distract us: from our jobs, from our family and friends, and from our purpose in the Kingdom. It’s hard to follow the Lord’s leading for our lives when we are so consumed with pain, fatigue, or overwhelmed by the money problems that are so common with chronic illness.

It usually happens so gradually that we don’t realize we’ve been distracted until we look back one day. We remember how we’ve been too tired to participate in church events like we used to. We notice how we’ve been so overwhelmed that we forgot that we used to love to listen to praise and worship music. We suddenly realize that we haven’t read our Bibles in a few days…or a few months.

Fatigue, pain, overwhelm, and financial struggles are all things Satan uses to distract us from the things we love, from God’s Word, and from feeling God’s love as well as from the work we were designed to do for the Kingdom.

I have noticed this several times in my life and in my walk with God. I don’t think it happens only once. It can happen with each new diagnosis. It can happen with each new difficulty. It can happen with each new flare or an unexpected bill that now requires time and focus to figure out how to pay it.

Now that I know this is how Satan works, I’m ready. I have my Bible reading on my To-Do List for each day so I’m less likely to miss a day. I catch myself being overwhelmed and I turn myself around if I’m feeling distracted by pain or fatigue as soon as I notice myself being distracted from the things I feel I was put here to do. I’m not saying it’s easy and I’m not saying I don’t get distracted. I’m just saying I’m a lot more conscious of it and I take measures to focus more on my purpose than my problem.

“and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” – Mark 4:19

I’ll be talking more about this in the weeks to come as distraction relates directly to deception, division, and destruction. For now, I’ll leave you with this thought: in what ways are you distracted and what are you going to do to make sure you get back on track of living a joyous and productive life no matter what life throws at you?

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Change Your Terminology

Chronic illness is not only isolating because it takes away some amount of our ability to get out and do things. It is also isolating because it’s not understood. WE are not understood. It came to my attention last month that this could be partially our own fault. Now, before you look for that stone to cast in my general direction, please read on.

How many times have you not told someone how you really feel for fear of being told you’re “complaining?” How many times have you under-reported to your friends and family how MUCH you hurt? How tired you REALLY are? Part of what I’ve shared here is not to talk about our issues too much with those who don’t understand it in order to minimize the frustration that comes from being questioned, grilled really, or told we don’t look sick or are making mountains out of molehills.

However, recently I reflected on my training in speech communication. The titles of most of my communication studies start out, “Say What You Mean…” and I wondered if there is a need to do that in our chronic life. Maybe it’s time we started saying what WE mean.

Replace Overused Terms
“I’m really tired today” sounds like every Tom, Dick, and Mary who had a tough day yesterday. “I’m REALLY tired.” doesn’t sound much better. How many times have you heard someone who doesn’t have a chronic illness say that? What about when YOU said that and had someone reply with, “Yeah, I worked late last night.” It suddenly occurred to me that uttering overused terms might be part of the reason we aren’t taken as seriously when we try to share how we feel with those who don’t have the same point of reference for chronic illness as we do.

Terms like tired and pain have been used to mean anything from “I was up late studying last night” and “I cut myself shaving” to “I’m too exhausted to take a shower” and “I had my wisdom teeth out without benefit of novocaine!” Instead, it might be better to…

Be More Specific
In some cases, it might be better to use more specific terms. Even words like exhausted, worn out, and run down are overused. Often it’s more descriptive to use words the medical profession refers to like weak or fatigued. Pain can be referred to by the scale of 1-10 as it is by most chronic illness physicians.

At Other Times, it’s Better to Spell Things Out
Let’s face it, even exhausted doesn’t describe how we feel. Sometimes it’s best to give a short example of how tired we are that illustrates better what we deal with. “I’m so exhausted, I had to rest after taking a shower.” “I wake up feeling like I can’t get out of bed.“

Another way to describe your pain is with the specific word for the type of pain you are experiencing: ache, twinge, throb, sharp pain, stabbing pain, or excruciating pain.

Don’t Use Terms That Don’t Mean Anything to Them
Lastly, though we who have these conditions know what they are, many who don’t have never even heard of the name of it let alone what it means for those who struggle with it.

While most people probably have heard of Fibro or Chrones, or Lupus, they have no idea what it means. Many people think Fibromyalgia is just pain and I don’t think many have any idea what Chrones or Lupus is at all. In some cases, it makes sense to give a good friend or close relative a more in-depth description of your illness or situation in order for them to be of more support. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time conversing or being with a person, it makes sense to give them the tools to understand why you may not feel up to getting together.

Some conditions are much less known that even the name of it isn’t ringing any bells for most people. I never heard of Essential Tremor until I was diagnosed with it. Not only is Essential Tremor not descriptive, but it’s counter-intuitive. Sounds like something you NEED. lol

Another term neurologists use is Benign Essential Tremor. Benign? Try living with shaking so bad you stab yourself in the eye trying to put on mascara or spill hot coffee on your lap! Instead of using the specific medical diagnosis, I often refer to it as tremors or as a neurological disorder.

In the case of Fibro, it’s more descriptive to use the term, Central Nervous System disease. That gives it the proper respect for the havoc it causes in the lives of Fibro Warriors and the kinds of issues we need to deal with on a daily basis.

Finally, the term chronic illness, itself, isn’t fully understood by most people. I can’t tell you how many times people have asked me if I’m all better now. It amazes me, but people don’t get the chronic part of chronic illness.

Chronic means there is NO Cure and the best that can be hoped for, without a miracle of God, is for it to be managed. Believe it or not, that is something that must be explained from time to time. People who don’t live with a chronic issue have no frame of reference for this. To them, long-term is a few months at most.

I pray this has ministered to your soul. I pray that this helps you get across to those in your life who need to know what your chronic illness means for you and I pray that it allows you more support from family and friends.

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Sometimes All You Can Do is Laugh

I don’t know about you, but the last few years have been difficult. I keep thinking the next year will be better and, in some ways, each has been. BUT…in many ways each year has been full of trials, and struggle and it gets old after a while, right?

2018 is coming to a close and I will leave it with a few more diagnoses: Essential Tremors and neuropathy being two of them.  But it has been a difficult year financially. Another year of temporary assignments for my husband may leave him without a job for the holidays again. We are trying to fill the financial void by revamping a couple of our small businesses.  My Grape Stuff website is currently in transition to carry some awesome purple products and I have started a freelance copywriting business.

I am happy to say that I have two copywriting clients who have a fabulous ministry and business presence on social media that I am working for them.  It really helps when you believe in what your clients are doing and they are AMAZING!

However, as the holidays approach, it is difficult to face the fact that very few companies will be hiring. It’s not always easy to rely on the Lord in the interim as we wait on a job. Maybe you’ve felt that way too during your life beyond just surviving.

I keep coming back to my sense of humor. While it doesn’t take much for me to see the humor in things, it does get more difficult to find the humor in things as those things go from temporary to what feels like eternal.  It’s been almost four years that we have been on this particular financial roller coaster.

Sometimes the only thing we have left in our quiver is humor – if we can find it. So, I challenged myself to find the humor in the absurdity of what happens to me from day to day.  Here’s something I wrote when in a Fibro flare this happened:

So far so good.  How about you?

P.S. For those waiting on my Vlog series, 20 Steps for Finding Joy in the Trials, I promise I’ll get more out soon!

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Pet Peeve: Someone has it worse than you!

I’m in the middle of working on the rest of the Finding Joy in the Trials series. I promise to get some more out soon, but until then I had to share this.  Over the last several years, I’ve seen several memes on Facebook that said something like:

“I’ve heard that no matter what you’re going through, someone has it worse.”

Not only is that dismissive of someone’s trials, but it causes people to feel afraid to reach out to those who can be supportive and helpful.  Further, while we are all dealing with struggles, each one handles things differently. What we need during times of stress is uplifting not shaming.

It doesn’t help you to know that somebody has a more dire problem or is more in debt. What you need are answers.  It most certainly can help you to know that you aren’t alone, but the first thing someone needs when they are hurting is to know they are understood and that their feelings are valid.

Can we all agree to be uplifting rather than dismissive? Could we choose to help and support first before we tell someone their needs aren’t important?  Let’s let the first thing out of our mouths be, “I understand” or “I’m so sorry” or “What can I do to help?”

Thank you.