As most of you know, I have extreme health challenges, and that makes life difficult. Just normal life is difficult. Maintaining a job when I catch a lot of the bugs that go around is really hard. As of the writing of this post, I hadn’t worked a five-day week in the three weeks since I’d been home because I got a cold and then pinkeye. (Since then I’ve continued to have days where I have to leave, go home, go to Urgent Care, or whatnot.) For someone who’s paying her way through college, that’s absolutely nerve-wracking. I keep finding myself worrying about finances, doing math over and over and over again to see if there’s any other way I can swing it without going into debt.
Then you get into college, with eighteen credits, countless rehearsals, concerts, being on the leadership for the on-campus pro-life club, doctor’s visits – oh, and work again. Guys, I’m really not sure how I’m doing it. It’s hard. It takes trust in God. And that is really, really hard. I find it easier to just hang onto things, worry about it, analyze everything from every angle. Try to make my time more efficient. Make complicated schedules and plans only to try to stick to them for a couple of days and being too sick to do it all. And you know what? That doesn’t work. It just makes everything worse. Worrying, analyzing, making new, detailed plans doesn’t work, especially when your body is extremely unpredictable. It just takes valuable time away from what you should be doing instead, though, granted, sometimes that can make your brain less crowded. Yes, knowing what needs to be done when is good. But taking tasks one at a time, taking days, even hours, one at a time, and leaving the big picture up to God is where your strength will be utilized. I’m preaching to myself here. While I’m writing this, I’ve missed two days of work and am worried that I won’t be able to go in tomorrow, either. My brain keeps going back to the endless loop of, “I need to make money to pay for tuition and a car… And I need a new viola… and a new camera…” Dani, it’s okay. God’s got it. He provides. He takes care of us. But that was a tangent. My main point comes from a story. I’m not gonna lie, this past year at school has been so overwhelming, so often discouraging, and God has felt very far away. But God brought back a reminder for me as I entered my summer with a lot of worry and a lot of residual stress. I was looking at other people’s summers, pictures from the beach, family vacations and whatnot, then looking at my summer – work five days a week, sleep the rest of the time, hoping to get better, studying for two CLEP tests and finishing memorizing Romans – and getting very covetous and discouraged. My first Sunday home for the summer, my sisters and I got to hang out with some old friends. After lots of conversation, my good friend David reminded me (a couple of times) of a passage that we had memorized for Bible Bee a long time ago: Job 23:8-12 “Look, I go forward, but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; When He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; When He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food.” David reminded me that even if I can’t see God working in my current situation, I’ve kept His way. I’ve treasured His word. He sees the big picture. He has a plan. And when that plan is done, I will be refined like gold. Guys, let me tell you about gold. I work in a place where I am surrounded by gold. I live in a city where, as our boss reminded us the other day, “the streets shall be paved with gold” is kind of a reality. Gold doesn’t come out of the ground clean and pretty. Often it’s pulled out of rocks, or has other metals contaminating it, pieces of dirt, other minerals. Do you know how they clean it? They put it through a retort, which is like a big metal pot kind of surrounded by a furnace. They heat it up. Really, really hot. The impurities come out, rise to the top, and get skimmed off. But they don’t do that just once. No, they do it again. And again. The more you put the gold through the retort, the more pure it will be. See, God does that with us. He puts us through the heat. Over and over again. But He’s the one who sees the big picture. He’s the one who knows what we will be after the trials are over. He’s the one who gives us the strength to go through it. And one day, He’ll be the one who shows us what they were all for. So keep pushing through. Keep your foot on His path. Keep your mind on His word. Don’t try to be God. Don’t try to have the whole picture in your mind. Your mind is not big enough. It can’t handle that. Relax. Focus on what you can do. Leave the rest up to Him.
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A lot of you who know me well probably wonder why I post so much about my health problems on social media. After all, I am a very private person who doesn’t like to be the center of attention, doesn’t give much information about myself to others, and at least tries not to bring attention to problems I’m having. There’s a lot of information that I keep quiet about online for a lot of reasons, but I’m pretty vocal about my physical health.
Well, there are a few answers to that. First, one of the reasons I started my blog was specifically to create and share food items that I can eat. I needed that push to keep myself creative with what I have instead of falling into the same boring food habits. And the problem of my food allergies is directly related to the rest of my health. My only social media presences (Instagram and Pinterest) are dedicated mainly for the purpose of my blog. Another reason is that my physical health has caused a lot of discouragement in my life. I serve a faithful God who is pulling me through that, but it is so easy to feel alone through all of this. I don’t want others to feel this way. I want to share my experiences so that others who maybe can’t talk about what they’re feeling, what they’re struggling with mentally from their health issues can see that they’re not alone. Finally, I’m not a perfect person. My life is extremely messy. I don’t want to portray the perfect life on social media. Yeah, I’m striving for a much better, neater, prettier life. (See my post about minimalism here.) But most of my life right now is discouragement from work, messy living areas, and doctor’s visits. If I’m going to be honest about who I am, that’s going to show up a lot. But through it all, I hope to remain pointing others to God and reflecting His joy through that. As I continue my health journey, we’re finding a lot of links to my mental health. That is probably where I’ll scale back some on what I share publicly. But as far as my physical problems go, I have few hesitations (though plenty of insecurities!) about sharing them on social media, because ultimately, I want to give an accurate representation of what my Father is doing in my life. |
Dani M
My mind is a strange place. I am a Christian first and foremost, but I'm also a musician and an artist. I love science and natural health. I love the ice and I love to dance. This page will contain as much randomness as myself. Archives
July 2019
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