I don’t know what it’s like to live pain free anymore. I don’t know what it’s like to be able to work without my body screaming at me with every move I make. After I persevere through the job I’m doing, my muscles shake for days from weakness and my joints continue to have shooting pain. I tried to do some gardening for my family yesterday, and with every shovel full of dirt I moved I wanted to cry out because of how much my hands killed. It felt like every bone in my fingers were breaking or already broken and the pieces of bone were going to pierce through my hand at any moment. I kept working however, through the tears and out of stubbornness and dedication. I got the job done thankfully, but now for the last day and a half, I’m paying for it. I don’t want to get out of bed. Or off the couch. Or get up to get some water. But I make myself, ofcourse. At dinner my stomach, reacting to all the work, felt so sick and rejected strongly anything that I put in my mouth. I ate it anyway, because I’ve learned that listening to it only leads to more problems. I’ve learned that listening to the warning signs my body puts out at all times can be ignored, but it all comes back to hit me as soon as I sit down for some rest. I want to be able to serve my family, to help work at my church, to be able to meet with friends and just have some fun together, but it seems so incredibly hard and every muscle in my body is so unwilling. The only thing I know how to do is to keep going, and I hope that it won’t kill me in the long run to keep pushing on.

“With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Mark 10:27.