This is something that is really affecting my life right now. At a time when I really want and need to be downsizing I'm finding myself looking at a pair of shoes with just a slight heel and I think, "I can't get rid of these. They're so cute and when I get better, they will look great with (Insert description of an outfit 4 sizes down from where I currently am.) There are two problems here. 1) I will never wear any kind of heel again because my ankles are fused at 90* and it's impossible to tolerate the pain heels cause me. The other problem is the size of said outfit. I'm frequently on steroids and when I'm on steroids I'll eat anything that doesn't run faster than I can. lol. My weight is not something I can control. Especially now when I've begun to retain fluids and can gain 10 lbs in two days.
Then there comes the exercise equipment. Piles of workout videos, hand held weights, recumbent bike and treadmill, yoga mat... Well you get the idea. (Oh and let's not forget the cute spandex workout clothes.) It is real effort for me to get up the six steps to my deck in order to get into my house. I almost never go downstairs inside the house...and pretty much everything down there has got to be donated or pitched. But I keep thinking...When I get better I will NEED this stuff.
That's what I said when my roller blades were hanging in the garage for a decade before I finally (tearfully) gave them away. I tell people that Jesus is going to meet me at those gates of pearl...holding a pair of roller blades for me. He knows how much I loved to fly on those...Surely he will make it possible there for me to skate again.
Some years ago, I was wheelchair bound because of the muscle damage done to me by a month of IV steroids which I need to save my life. I spent three months in inpatient rehab. I worked myself HARD and then came the day when they told me I was leaving soon. ...and I sputtered "but, but, NO....I'm still in the wheelchair, my work is not done!" And then came the sad news, "Cynthia, you are never going to get better. This is as far as we can take you. You will not walk again.." And I cried. And inside I vowed that one day I would WALK back up to the rehab floor of that hospital.
And it took a long time...years of refusing to accept the permanency of my plight. But eventually the day came when I walked (with crutches the first time) back to that floor and took great joy in the tears those therapists shed as they celebrated with me. And now? what's different now?
Psoriatic Arthritis ...
That's what's different. It's in every single joint of my body. I've had many many surgeries and daily I suffer mind-blowing pain. The thing is that my brain does not get it....it refuses to compute the fact that this damage cannot be fixed. My spine alone is enough of a train wreck to bring the strongest locomotive to a grinding halt. My logical mind knows it. But my emotional mind does not allow it to compute as fact.
The two biggest areas that foster this type of thinking are the kitchen and my art supply cabinet. I have come to the place where I know I should sell my juicer. It is simply too messy and too labor intensive for me to manage anymore. And also my Ex-caliber dehydrator. They are the relics of my years of being a raw vegan. A happy, healthy time in my life. Can I really say, "it is now and forevermore beyond me to live like that again"? And my inner gourmet chef groans as I pull out yet another Lean Cuisine from the freezer and call it "dinner." The good china? My Thanksgiving turkey platter? Are they really relics of a different place and time in my life? One that I cannot ever go back and re-live?
Please hear me. I'm not saying I'm going to quit living. I'm not going to quit hoping and working to make things as good as possible. But kicking the same dead dog over and over is NOT going to make that dog get up and run. It's so hard to really assimilate the fact that this time there are no ways around the ugly fact that this disease has me hog-tied. ...that no matter how much I struggle or argue with myself or deny my crushing pain...the fact is, that it is inexorably progressing, running me over and then dragging me behind it.
God can do miracles. And, oh, how I have prayed for one. Far more than the Apostle Paul's three pleas for God to remove the "thorn in (his) flesh". Paul knew when to quit asking. And deep down, I know it too. There are still plenty of things to pray for but as far as asking God to remake every joint in my body goes....well. I have to say that my spirit knows this not to be a reality. So now, I pray for courage, high tolerance for pain, understanding from my friends and family, financial resources to help with these medical bills. Most of all I pray for daily increasing intimacy with Y'shua because "with my God, I can scale a wall."(2 Sam 22:30, Ps 18:29)
What do I do about this obstinate voice that tells me to keep all these accoutrements of a past life? I'm trying to turn a deaf ear. Little by little I am paring away at things: giving what I will never be able to use again to people in need; donating to charities and thrift stores. And some go in the "circular file"....I've made way too little progress...partly because lots of it are things that I cannot possibly do myself and I really just haven't been able to get downstairs in order to put in any time cleaning out the piles of stuff down there.
But some of it really is a "work of heart"--I need to detach myself from the past and from my current love of the material things I own and more importantly: from the dreams of going back in time to period of life when I could use and create and enjoy. And you know--I'm not the person I was those years ago. The changes have been slow and difficult --as renovation of a heart tends to be. It seems like daily I learn something new about myself and honestly? Much of it is NOT GOOD... God is opening my eyes to see myself as I really am and I'm not the person I'd imagined I was. And this fact is no surprise to my family...(isn't that always the case?) The people who see you day and day out "uncensored" are the most knowledgeable about the selves we truly are. And it took a lot of wounded feelings and arguments and slammed doors to make me begin to see that there is work to be done in clearing the shelves of my soul as well.
So as that bumper sticker from the 70's said "Please be patient; God is not finished with me yet.." Some of the losses have been out of my hands but some are losses I'm SEEKING to lose. There's a lot of junk on these dusty shelves. And while I cannot be in control so much about the junk in my basement, it is up to me to take care of the junk in my heart.
Then there comes the exercise equipment. Piles of workout videos, hand held weights, recumbent bike and treadmill, yoga mat... Well you get the idea. (Oh and let's not forget the cute spandex workout clothes.) It is real effort for me to get up the six steps to my deck in order to get into my house. I almost never go downstairs inside the house...and pretty much everything down there has got to be donated or pitched. But I keep thinking...When I get better I will NEED this stuff.
Some years ago, I was wheelchair bound because of the muscle damage done to me by a month of IV steroids which I need to save my life. I spent three months in inpatient rehab. I worked myself HARD and then came the day when they told me I was leaving soon. ...and I sputtered "but, but, NO....I'm still in the wheelchair, my work is not done!" And then came the sad news, "Cynthia, you are never going to get better. This is as far as we can take you. You will not walk again.." And I cried. And inside I vowed that one day I would WALK back up to the rehab floor of that hospital.
And it took a long time...years of refusing to accept the permanency of my plight. But eventually the day came when I walked (with crutches the first time) back to that floor and took great joy in the tears those therapists shed as they celebrated with me. And now? what's different now?
Psoriatic Arthritis ...
That's what's different. It's in every single joint of my body. I've had many many surgeries and daily I suffer mind-blowing pain. The thing is that my brain does not get it....it refuses to compute the fact that this damage cannot be fixed. My spine alone is enough of a train wreck to bring the strongest locomotive to a grinding halt. My logical mind knows it. But my emotional mind does not allow it to compute as fact.
The two biggest areas that foster this type of thinking are the kitchen and my art supply cabinet. I have come to the place where I know I should sell my juicer. It is simply too messy and too labor intensive for me to manage anymore. And also my Ex-caliber dehydrator. They are the relics of my years of being a raw vegan. A happy, healthy time in my life. Can I really say, "it is now and forevermore beyond me to live like that again"? And my inner gourmet chef groans as I pull out yet another Lean Cuisine from the freezer and call it "dinner." The good china? My Thanksgiving turkey platter? Are they really relics of a different place and time in my life? One that I cannot ever go back and re-live?
Please hear me. I'm not saying I'm going to quit living. I'm not going to quit hoping and working to make things as good as possible. But kicking the same dead dog over and over is NOT going to make that dog get up and run. It's so hard to really assimilate the fact that this time there are no ways around the ugly fact that this disease has me hog-tied. ...that no matter how much I struggle or argue with myself or deny my crushing pain...the fact is, that it is inexorably progressing, running me over and then dragging me behind it.
God can do miracles. And, oh, how I have prayed for one. Far more than the Apostle Paul's three pleas for God to remove the "thorn in (his) flesh". Paul knew when to quit asking. And deep down, I know it too. There are still plenty of things to pray for but as far as asking God to remake every joint in my body goes....well. I have to say that my spirit knows this not to be a reality. So now, I pray for courage, high tolerance for pain, understanding from my friends and family, financial resources to help with these medical bills. Most of all I pray for daily increasing intimacy with Y'shua because "with my God, I can scale a wall."(2 Sam 22:30, Ps 18:29)
What do I do about this obstinate voice that tells me to keep all these accoutrements of a past life? I'm trying to turn a deaf ear. Little by little I am paring away at things: giving what I will never be able to use again to people in need; donating to charities and thrift stores. And some go in the "circular file"....I've made way too little progress...partly because lots of it are things that I cannot possibly do myself and I really just haven't been able to get downstairs in order to put in any time cleaning out the piles of stuff down there.
But some of it really is a "work of heart"--I need to detach myself from the past and from my current love of the material things I own and more importantly: from the dreams of going back in time to period of life when I could use and create and enjoy. And you know--I'm not the person I was those years ago. The changes have been slow and difficult --as renovation of a heart tends to be. It seems like daily I learn something new about myself and honestly? Much of it is NOT GOOD... God is opening my eyes to see myself as I really am and I'm not the person I'd imagined I was. And this fact is no surprise to my family...(isn't that always the case?) The people who see you day and day out "uncensored" are the most knowledgeable about the selves we truly are. And it took a lot of wounded feelings and arguments and slammed doors to make me begin to see that there is work to be done in clearing the shelves of my soul as well.
So as that bumper sticker from the 70's said "Please be patient; God is not finished with me yet.." Some of the losses have been out of my hands but some are losses I'm SEEKING to lose. There's a lot of junk on these dusty shelves. And while I cannot be in control so much about the junk in my basement, it is up to me to take care of the junk in my heart.
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