Before and After

I've been blessed to have one of my dearest friends, my former college roommate Deb here for a visit.  She and I have been through a lot of ups and downs together and its been nice to talk to someone who's known me for so long.  She's moving to Mexico next month to start a Montessori school in a fishing village so this time together has been extra special.

As we were driving through the cute downtown area of our little town, she asked if we ever went down there to hang out.  I replied, "We did before I got sick."  It got me thinking about before and after and if my after will be much like my before.   How much of what I could do before will I be able to do after?  Will there even be an after or will my quality of life be permanently changed by this disease?

I've worked hard in my life to not be vulnerable.  I had some rough times emotionally growing up and its been somewhat of a defense mechanism against those times.  Perhaps it created a false sense of security in me that my work and my effort will be sufficient.  This illness has really made me face just how fragile and vulnerable I am, regardless of all my work to minimize that.

There have been times where I've really had to rely on God to get me through....when Alan was downsized in 1995, when my mom died in 1998...but lately things had been running smoothly and, perhaps, I was relying too much on me and not enough on God.  I've had some rough times the last few days both physically and emotionally.  My stomach really hurts when I try to eat a normal amount and it frustrates me that something so necessary causes me discomfort on a regular basis.  Which then sends me into a bad place emotionally because I get frustrated with what I perceive is, at best, a lack of progress and at worst, the return of the Amyloid production.  I get really scared when I think this might be my after.

So, as I told Deb, I walk a tightrope....between needing to eat a lot and not wanting my stomach to hurt, between trying to get back to before but being in the after, between wanting to work hard on my recovery but needing to trust God for the results.  It gets emotionally draining at times and regularly reduces me to tears.  But, I need to face up to the mountain I need to climb and push myself to take the next step God wants me to take.  I also need to stop every once in a while to appreciate how far I've come.

As the lyrics of one of my favorite Christian songs, ''Faith My Eyes", go

So keep' em coming these lines on the road

And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load

And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise

And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes

I pray that I have the strength to trust how God is transforming me so my after is better than my before.