Sound of Surviving Blog

I’ve often found the limits put on my body to be frustrating. Chronic illness has caused me to endure endless fatigue, pain, exhaustion, as well as vision loss, and limited mobility. Living with a chronic illness means one week, no one day, can be a really good one, and the next, it all catches up to you again. I read a quote about brain injury yesterday that describes this perfectly. It stated, “At first, brain injury is an ocean, that pulls you under. With time, it becomes a river that you learn to swim in. But these waves, they never stop coming.” The most exasperating thing for me is my fatigue. Last week, I had an amazing week, and my fatigue wasn’t bad at all. Then, as I’m waking up today, I can feel it slamming into me, before I even open my eyes, making it impossible to even crawl out of bed. It constantly feels like a vicious cycle that keeps repeating itself, no matter what I do.

But there is hope. A hope that keeps me going every single day.  I have a God who is greater than all of my physical limitations put together, times ten thousand. And he’s on my side. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:16 that the suffering we endure on earth is merely temporary, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

I may never be cured this side of Heaven, of all of my ailments, but this battle has given me something much more valuable than all it’s taken away. It’s given me a promise, that God is on my side, that he is walking each step with me. That he won’t leave my side, no matter how hard my journey gets. But more than that, my battle has given me the promise of Heaven, and a hope to look forward to as I forge on, that this exhaustion, this pain, the limited mobility and vision, this world, is not eternal. But Heaven, where all is perfect, and we are made new again, is. And one day, I’ll be able to fully see again, and these chains of fatigue, these shackles of exhaustion will fall off, and I’ll be able to run into my father’s arms. And that, is worth enduring whatever suffering I’ll face on Earth. Because no matter how endless these bodily limitations of mine seem, I know only God, is truly eternal, and I know he is good, always. So, I put my hope, my trust, not in the things of this world, but in Him, and that is how I don’t lose heart.