Sound of Surviving Blog

I write this not to get sympathy or pity, but to encourage others to keep going, to keep on fighting. For months now, I have been dealing with excruciating headaches that sent me to the ER multiple times and wound up putting me in the hospital for almost a week. As soon as I felt like my headaches were under control, the day my parents and I left for our 4-day vacation to Ocean City Maryland, my back started giving me horrible pain, to the point where I could barely stand up for more than a few minutes at a time; and just like that, we were in the Emergency Room again. The next day, I got into this terrible funk, where I felt like I wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love, & where I felt like my parents deserved a daughter who could do fun things on vacation, better yet a daughter, who, at 28, wasn’t still going on vacations with her parents, but was living her own life. While neither my parents nor anyone else weren’t making me feel bad about this, I still had these thoughts. I kept wondering, why God would allow me to be in such awful pain after I just stopped having headaches for a month straight, during the one chance I had to get away this summer. I didn’t get it. And then, one day while my parents were still asleep, as I lay in bed reading, it hit me. Maybe God was telling me to slow down. That I don’t always have to be doing something fun and exciting to live a good life, or to have a good time. Maybe, I just needed to slow down, take a look around, and appreciate this chapter, no, just this page of my life, I’m on right now.  So, after that, even though I wasn’t able to go to the beach during my beach vacation, I began relishing the things I could do, like sit in the pool nearby, play cards with my parents, & go out to eat dinner, to be able to sleep in. I was actually okay with the fact that I couldn’t do practically all of the things I’d been looking forward to on this trip. Then, the night before we were supposed to come home, my throat started hurting and I felt so congested. I figured it was just allergies since I hadn’t been able to take my allergy medicine for a few nights; it had side effects if it’s taken with the medicine I was given for my back that I needed to take. We drove home, the next day, and I was still feeling bad, but was grateful to rest that night when I got home Thursday night, and into the next day.  On Saturday morning, I woke up still not feeling great, but okay enough. I helped my mom and dad entertain my nephew since he was going to be there through the next day. My mom and I had decided we would take him to Sunday school at our church the next morning, and that I would stay with him while my mom went into the church service. Saturday night, however, God once again had different plans. I realized something was wrong with my eye, and my dad took me to urgent care. I had pink eye. “Great,” I thought, “Now I can’t go with Easton to Sunday School”. I was upset; since I was a little girl, I’ve looked forward to the day when I could take my own son or daughter to church, or Sunday School, to learn about God’s love. After my brain tumor and all of its effects, I’m still not positive I’ll be able to have children of my own, and thought to myself, “Well, at least I can go with Easton for his first time at Sunday School”. Nope. Wrong. I was so upset. So my mom left with Easton, to go to church, and I returned to my room, upset about not being able to go along. I opened my devotional book, figuring I’d try to read something positive. The devotion I opened up to talked about keeping a positive attitude. The verse was Proverbs 15:15, which reads, “All the days of the afflicted are bad, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast”. I have been trying since the first day of our vacation almost a week ago, to have a positive attitude about things, and find joy in my days, while I endured my problems, but have struggled to do so. I literally prayed to God that morning, saying, “God, I’m trying to find the joy in my circumstances, but it’s hard God. Help me”.  I read these words in this devotion that morning, and felt God saying, this is what I’ve been leading you to. You can do this. No, I haven’t gotten more positive or full of gratitude since then, but it’s something I’m working towards, that gives me some light, even a tiny beacon, in a world of darkness. This past week, it’s felt like every other second, the devil was attacking me in every way possible. Just as one thing would start to get better, I’d get hit with a whole new tornado of problems. There’s a song I love by Anne Wilson that’s lyrics are, “When she whispers Dear Jesus, Heaven can hear it, and that devil gets back to hell, running”, and I like to think that every time the devil throws something bad my way, that my prayers to God, saying, “Stay with me Lord, help me”, or “dear Lord, this is awful but thank you for time with my family”, are enough ammo to cause the devil to get back to hell. Not that that means that I’m completely safe from any more harm or trials. It doesn’t. But my trials, as Paul states, make me stronger and closer to God. In my weakness, in my struggles and hardships, because of my weakness, I am strong. I am not brave, or strong, but refuse to let the devil win. I know I can’t fight my battles alone, but I have the creator of all the universe, the conqueror of death, fighting alongside me, holding me up, reminding me that I am his, and he is mine.

Written July 21st, 2024