I’ve been really sick lately, and have battled up and down for about a year now.
I constantly pray for some sort of relief. It comes in waves, but it’s always temporary.
Everything gave way this weekend and I had a bit of a break down. I have been accepting these lingering mono symptoms of a part of my current life, and have been dealing with them day by day, but lost the battle with surface deep optimism and reassurances that have become stale over the months.
If I’m going to be sick with anything, this is an okay thing to be sick with. People struggle through much worse.
However, I miss my friends. I’ve been turning down invites and get togethers just to snag a couple more hours of sleep.
I miss my ‘go get ‘em’ attitude. I struggle through a fog of aversion each day, scraping through the hours with my sights set on getting home to crash.
I miss trying to better myself. I have been sacrificing workouts, reading time, and writing songs, for naps, home remedies, and doctors appointments.
Every morning, I journal and pray. I’ve had a continuous prayer over this past year to be healed. I desperately hoped to feel better, and asked God to just take it away so I can get back to living like myself again.
This morning, I learned about temptation. I learned that temptation isn’t as bad as it sounds, because all it’s doing is presenting a choice. I learned that God positions you in the places that would enact the exact opposite responses to the virtue he is trying to teach you. For example, if God were to teach you about peace, he would throw you into a chaotic and distressful situation, where peace would have to be a choice. Anyone can find peace watching a sunset, but you learn to look to God for peace in the mayhem.
This opened my eyes to the right and wrong kind of prayer. I found myself in an unfavourable scenario, and asked God to take me out of it, like he had maybe been mistaken and would put me back where I belonged once I asked Him to.
I learned this morning that I had prayed the wrong prayer, and instead of looking for an escape route, I need to search for a users manual.
Why am I feeling like this? What is mono teaching me?
If God places you into chaotic places to help you find peace, then he must be teaching me how to feel the opposite of the negative things mono makes you feel.
He must be teaching me joy, because the weight of exhaustion has caused me to focus more on getting through the day than adding light to it.
He must be teaching me patience, because every morning I’m met with little improvement, but am learning that I can’t wait to see how I feel to determine how the day is going to be.
He must be teaching me the importance of the now, because trying to find my footing in this spin cycle has felt impossible, but I can tackle moments at a time.
He must be teaching me trust, because with every lump sum I fork over with high hopes to specialists and homeopaths, I lose a little more faith in fully recovering.
With every faction of this illness that frustrates me, I’m no longer asking for it to be taken away, but I’m buckling down and getting through it, collecting lessons and fruits of the spirit along the way. No pain without a purpose.
This morning, I thanked God for my ongoing mono, and how much I’ll have learned by the time I get to the other side.