Tuesday. April 8, 2014- Being Real

A few months ago someone posted a blog to parents of older children and how blogs/pictures are not shared as much because let's face it, they aren't as cute as they used to be :). Who wants to post about your child failing their math test, or having to have a meeting with the principal (for the second time this month), or share the new song your child made up about farting in their bedroom. I guess this season in our life has not warranted a great deal of blogging and I guess that I could use that as my excuse for taking such a long break from blogging, but the truth is that it has mainly been about my own personal struggle. I think I have shared before that blogging makes me be painfully honest sometimes about how I am feeling and I haven't trusted my feelings the past few months. I have had a rough time the past 7+ months. I actually described it to my sister as feeling like I did 10 and 11 years ago. 11 years ago was my cancer diagnoses and I celebrated this past March being cancer free for 10 years. The past 7 months has been filled with many of the same emotions and feeling of 10 years ago. I found myself feeling barren and forgotten by God. I found myself in a place in my life that was not at all the way I had planned it. And just like 10 and 11 years ago I let the evil one take hold of all those fears and disappointments and it literally controlled my life since September. 10 years ago I was left physically barren and could not understand why God had chosen this path for my life.I felt like God didn't care about my dreams and desires. He had taken them away from me even though I had tried to faithfully follow Him. These past months I once again felt like God didn't care about the desires of my heart. I thought I would be back full time in the classroom, after all the hard work I had done to get everything in order I had other people dragging their feet and I totally missed my chance to teach this year. I know it sounds great to only be working part time, but not for a person who struggles with trying to solve all their problems and the problems of the world when their mind is not engaged on some level (Yes, that would be me).  Heaven (and everyone I know or ever talked to) knows that I was not planning on still living in the apartment, yet here I am still living in this place that has only gotten worse. We followed God's leading and took our kids to our neighborhood school and the first few weeks were nothing but heartache for me. Then to top it all off the physical attack came. It started with the sore throat and swollen gland that would spark a whole new set of fears. The evil one had me convinced that God was striking me once again with cancer. That God was going to play some cruel joke on me as I looked forward to being 10 years cancer free. The stress and anxiety only made my fibro worse and once again fear would take over. I would be found in the kitchen many nights pacing the floor because I was having an anxiety attack. One day my arm was hurting really bad in Target (day before my birthday) and I literally was saying "Jesus is my Healer, Jesus is my Healer" over and over until I calmed down. Every time I went to the clinic for my throat my blood pressure and heart rate would be high. I would tell the doctor "I am freaking out on the inside!" and there response, "Yeah, I can tell." I spent many nights on the bathroom floor begging God to take away the fear. Begging Him to make the gland go down and the sore throats to stop, but I would get up and I felt like nothing had changed.
Now, some of you might be reading this and not at all be surprised at what I am saying. Some might be thinking that they had no idea I was having this struggle. See, sometimes I think the worst part of the months after my surgery is that I got really, really good at hiding my struggle. I even hid the severity of this with Jeremy. Well, one day it hit me how much my life was being controlled by fear. I realized that I was just jumping from fear to fear. God would totally come through with whatever I was fearing and then I would start fretting about something! I think the final straw was one afternoon it had snowed (surprised I know) and I was literally having a panic attack about the possibility of not finding a parking spot after I got the kids from school! I was loosing my mind over something so silly that had not even happened yet! It was also the same week that I had mentioned something to the teacher I work with about the gland and she mentioned that she noticed that I touch the back of my neck A LOT checking on it. That is when I vowed to stop the insanity of feeding my fears. I realized every time I touched the back of my neck the fear would just take over. So, for the first time in months I sent a plea out for my friends to pray for me. I finally admitted that I needed support and prayer. I poured myself in the Word and memorized verses about God's faithfulness. One day on my walk I gave God control of everything that I had been holding on to. I asked God to forgive me to not truly trusting Him with my kids, my job, my home, my life. I had been fighting this battle about trying to work things out to get my kids back at school with me next year. A few weeks ago Sam and Emma both declared that they wanted to stay at the school they are at this year, (Chloe we are not sure about yet :) ) I was in these events that I started to really let go of my selfishness and see what God was going to do. God led me to nurse practitioner that looked at my throat and listened to all my systems (which were not pointing to cancer) and gave me some tips on getting all the drainage cleared from the back of throat. The drainage was really thick and terrible looking and was believed to be causing the issues. It included drinking some apple vinegar and ordering a sore throat gargle from Australia :)  The gland went totally down and no new sore throats for several weeks. The drainage is starting to come back with the change of the season, so I am trusting that the gland does not swell again. The Lord is also working concerning my job for next year and I am confident that it will be worked out.

If you made it to the end of this blog post, ( Congratulations!) you might be wondering why in the world I felt the need to share all of this. I guess it is the step I needed to take to keep working out my anxiety. It's a step of letting people see and help me along with my struggles. It also explains my constant requests for prayer on FB :). It is also a plea for others who are struggling with life to talk with someone. We were never meant to carry these burdens alone! Those of us that have the hardest time sharing our feelings are usually the ones that tend to take on everybody's problems. Those of you that have those friends that listen to every one of your struggles, next time you give them a call about your struggle please ask them how they are doing and take the time to be quiet and really listen to their struggles. Don't judge those who are having a hard time or questioning God's plan, love them and bring them to Jesus. When God lays on your heart to encourage someone with a kind word or small token, do it! You never know who is "freaking out" on the inside! :)

Lastly, I know that God is working out some really amazing things in our life and I did not want to just jump back into blogging without airing out these struggles. God has been faithful even in my unfaithfulness. God has been good even when I did not see the good. God has been providing even when I was unhappy with the provision. God healed only when I could see all the areas of my life that needed healing.

Love to all!