Our reality is that much of the time we feel horrible—we’re in a flare, we’re slammed with fatigue, pain is screaming in our face, we’re passing out, joints are popping out of joint, bags and tubes and ports aren’t working properly, depression and anxiety and ptsd are constant companions, you know the drill—and when we feel horrible, life is not much fun.⁠ ⁠

AT. ALL.⁠ ⁠

And I don’t know about you,⁠ ⁠but there are days, tbh, when it’s all I can do to not pop a benedryl or a dramamine and sleep my way through.⁠ ⁠

 

Today’s been one of those days.⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠

 

And normally, that would be cause for a hugomongous pity party, all in my honor.⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠

But I’ve discovered over the last few years that I really don’t like parties now that I’m sick,⁠ ⁠ and I DEFINITELY don’t have the energy to clean up the mess the morning after.⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠

 

So, then what?⁠ ⁠ If not self-pity, if not anger, if not despair, if not denial, if not envy or resentment or disappointment or depression or rage, then WHAT?⁠ ⁠ When you’ve grown up believing, as I have and do, that we were meant to live an ABUNDANT life,⁠ ⁠ WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE????⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠

 

I can’t tell you what it looks like for you, but I can tell you what it’s beginning to look like for ME…⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠

 

It looks like believing I still have value and something of worth to offer people even if I feel like I have the flu 24/7.⁠ ⁠

It looks like believing that I am here for a reason and that sickness cannot thwart that reason but only sharpen the point on it.⁠ ⁠

It looks like believing I am not being punished or tested or tormented by some capricious small-g god but that I am being transformed from glory into glory by a big-G God who is not content, for my own sake, to leave me whiny, sniveling, and immature.⁠ ⁠

It looks like believing I am loved, deeply and unconditionally, just as much when I’m lying in my bed all day as I am when I’m preaching or writing or leading or creating.⁠ ⁠

And it looks like…⁠

 

 

It looks like—in the good moments, the moments when my battery still has three bars or my head doesn’t feel as if it will explode or I can sit fully upright without the room spinning—ACTING like I really believe these things, and then acting ON them. For five minutes, for five hours, for once every five days or weeks or months—it doesn’t matter.

 

Every opportunity I can, I attempt to live out of my purpose.

 

And those are the moments—in the midst of all that isn’t WELL in my life— in which I finally feel alive again.