Welcome to our second issue of Christians with Chronic Illness Blog Carnival. What is something you miss since you have had your chronic illness/pain? How have you been able to adjust and accept the fact you can no longer do “it”? What new hobbies or activities have you found you enjoy that somewhat replace what you lost? What has your family missed concerning your illness and how have you found a way to change the way you do things so you can still participate in family activities?
We are excited to introduce you to some wonderfully gifted writers and hope that they encourage you on this chronic illness journey. Our month carnival highlights the best articles from many blogs that we have visited, and we’ve gathered them together for your encouragement.
If you’re interested in submitting an article from your own blog the instructions are at the end. We also appreciate you sharing this post with your friends at Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking, wherever. We are excited to reach as many people as possible with the Good News.
Lisa & Michele
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Who of us haven’t thought I’d Rather Laugh Than Cry? These are the sentiments of Michele at Beelieve You Can! Michele’s Morsels.
In her post, My Loss, My Salvation, Kim Franz shares that through her loss of health due to her chronic illnesses she found the real meaning of life and gained something more valuable – salvation through Jesus Christ. Kim’s shares her heart, struggles, and most of all her growing in grace relationship with her precious Savior on her encouraging blog, Humbled.
As a young married couple, David and Ashley share that they have lost their youth, money, pride, self-reliance and ability to have children due to his psoriatic arthritis. Through Ashley’s blog, A Young Wife’s Tale, she share what they found was the love of burden bearers such as family and friends who have blessed them through their willingness to assist them with their needs.
Wonder where the ‘old’ you went? Are you comfortable with the ‘new’ you? In Joy’s Journey to Wellness, the author shares her special journey to wellness which is “one day, one step, one choice at a time.” As she shares in her very first entry, “I will gain control of my life through God. The presence of pain or sickness does not have to mean it is the landlord, the owner or the manager of my “building.” Share with the author of the post “Finding Myself” as she travels the journey to wellness.
Cyndi from God Nuggets shares an old, yet thought provoking journal entry regarding times of loss. She suggests that maybe God doesn’t want us to have the answers. Perhaps instead He wants us to rest in the questions and find Him there.
Living with a chronic illness or as Deni Weber prefers to call it, chronic challenges, provides many opportunities to examine the way one views the world. While there are many losses that are part of a chronic illness, there are gains to be had if one looks for them. Walk along side Deni as she takes a look at one of her favorite Scriptures about the losses we face and how we can choose to look at them – through God’s eyes in her post, Loss or Gain?
In her post, Faith is All I Really Have, the author from Just Me shares with us how through loss of certain abilities due to her illness she found renewed faith through the realization that God accepts her by grace, not by her works. God knows just want she can and cannot do and accepts her unconditionally.
Kathy Carlton Willis brings some thought provoking questions in her post, Pain Breeds Creativity. One of those questions is: Do the trials CAUSE us to want to write, or do we write in spite of the issues we face? Kathy challenges us to write loud and clear through our pain or healing, but always through the growth that has first occurred in us.
Shawn Ellis has a cherished wife who has battled “invisible” chronic illnesses for years. On his blog, Peace in the Storm, Shawn shares a simple message from the book of James that in the face of trouble, there is always–as his post names says –an opportunity for joy.
In her blog, Fly With Hope, Kelly Wahle shares before chronic illness she was performance driven. After her Migraine disease started to debilitate her, Kelly lost her self worth. Read how through her counselor she found that her self- worth is not in “doing” but “in Christ”.
Empty spaces — we all have them in our lives. What do we do with them? Do they have a purpose? What can they give us? Learn how to make peace with the in-between times of emptiness created by illness and the seasons of life. Read “The Empty Spaces” at Lisa notes.
Before Kerri got sick, she, like most people, thought of loss as in losing an object or losing someone through death. Never could she imagine the other things she would lose to her myasthenia gravis. Check out “Loss Comes in Many Forms” on her blog “Living with Chronic Illness.”
Lauren from ‘chronic fatigue syndrome – the road to recovery blog’ wrestles with certain issues and questions most of us with chronic illness have been forced to deal with at one time or another. Such as questions from well meaning family and friends like: “How are you Coping?” Lauren asks us to examine our answer and what would be the real answer if God was asking the question? See how Lauren has answered this question in her post titled, “How are you Coping?”
In her post titled Given a Thorn, Jenni Saake compares how a trivial thing like a thorn in her flesh may seem so small to compare to a chronic illness, but she has learn to accept the “thorn” of chronic illness and has learned to work around the negatives and accept that God is God and she is not. She shares how she has accepted that God is in control and knows best for her life.
Joy Goff shares her Journey to Wellness on her blog. In her post titled The Grieving Process (your lost health), Joy discusses what she believes most people go through when they begin to experience long-term illness/pain. She shares her experience with loss, grief over her lost health and how she is able to cope with this loss and move on with God’s help.
If you have ever found yourself feeling angry and can’t understand why, or even do not want to accept your chronic illness and its limitations, Debbie McLaren’s post titled, Chronic Illness & Loss, shares her journey of acceptance and spiritual healing from the help of the source of her strength, God.
The next Christians with Chronic Illness
Blog Carnival will be June 15th, 2009. (It will always be he 15th)
Deadline for submissions: June 5, 2009 (It will always be the 5th)
Send in your submissions here.
Filed under: Carnival - Christians with Illness | Tagged: blogs about illness and faith, christians with chronic ilness blog carnival, chronic illness blog carnival, loss in chronic illness
Dear Lisa,
It is humbling to read of the challenges/battles many of the chronic illness population face with hope, joy, new strength, and new purpose. This encourages me in my walk with my illness as life continues to bring changes that will alter most of the social interaction I enjoy with my son’s family. I pray that God will be merciful and show me new ways to surmount this new mountain. God is always faithful and always at work in our lives. It is our job to look for and acknowledge His hand in our lives. I prosper within the confines of my illness because it is the perfect will of God for me.
Believing in Him,
Nancy
I love all these blogs! This is really amazing. But I do have one question….. could you ever include some entries from people who are at the beginning or middle of their struggles rather than only entries from people who seem to have exited the tunnel already??
Erin-
Please don’t think all of us who wrote these entries are out of the tunnel. I can only speak for myself, but I promise you, right now I’m doing well. I can write something that sounds like I have it together. That doesn’t mean tomorrow I can. If you look at my blog I guess it doesn’t sound like that, because I am better and have been for a while. But I think this topic (loss) kind of lends itself to discussion by those who have had time to gain some perspective. 18 months ago we thought I was going to lose my ability to work very soon, thus losing my house, possibly my car, destroying my credit, and probably forcing me to live in my mother’s guest room. Then loss was EVERYTHING. Now I’m at a point where I might lose everything at any time, because chronic illness is not predictable. But I’ve managed to find a compromise that keeps things relatively even, and so I can see loss as less that the entire definition of what my illness means to me. I guess what I’m trying to say is that a year ago I couldn’t have written about loss because it would have had no conclusion. “I’ve lost this and this and all my friends. I am likely to lose this and that. I’m afraid” would be my essay. It is after more loss than I even imagined that I can say “I’ve been fired for being sick. I’ve lost many friendships. I struggle to work even now, after reducing my hours to 32/week, making me the youngest partially retired person I know. But I have this and this and this instead, and this is why this is ok”.
I haven’t read all the posts, but I’m pretty sure that will be an answer. I have a feeling another topic will have another slant to the posts.
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I would like to encourage Erin by saying that we are all in the tunnel… it’s just that every once in a while we come to a lighted area where we can look back and see how far we have come. Then we must turn and face forward again and move on until we come to another lit area.
Never fear, you’ll have a respite somewhere along the line… it may be only a few hours in one day in the middle of a string of bad days… but be heartened to know you too will be able to look back and see God’s hand with you throughout all those bad days you left behind.
I miss terribly being able to ride horses. I love them. There is little strength left in my arms to get in and out of saddle and my right hip has been replaced with the doctors orders not to fall off a horse! I also love golf and don’t get to do it as much because of the sunshine. I deal with Lupus and those patients have a hard time tolerating the sunshine.
As a result, I have gained more unwelcome weight. I try to grow more flowers indoors and am working hard on getting my novels published and learning more about the computer! More sedentary work and weight gain! Sob! But….I rejoice and am happy to be alive and able to try to work for God’s glory in whatever capacity he has put me in. It is a beautiful spring day here in Colorado!
Blessings to all!
Paulette
Hello Everybody,
What is something you miss since you have had your chronic illness/pain?
Not that I had ever did too much walking but I do miss being able to stroll around stores and shopping malls. I always have to find an electric cart to use.
How have you been able to adjust and accept the fact you can no longer do “it”?
I can’t really say I have adjusted to it. The part that I have been able to work out is that I’m one of those people who, “Look too good ” to need a cart and if the greeter cannot accept the fact that I need one, that’s tough. I get one myself. And it another cart user looks at me strange I just return the look.
Ray
I was diagnosed with COPD/asthma around 1998. In early 1999, I started to go downhill very fast to the point that I had to quit working, go on O2 24/7 and was confined to a wheelchair. I received the Gift of a new lung on 08/16/99. One thing I miss is the interaction I had with my friends at work. After much soul searching, I came to the conclusion to accept what was and learn to live with it with a sense of humor. Since I have so much extra time on my hands, I’ve taken up photography, Bible study, a book club and acquired two Boston Terrier puppies. I have taken some computer classes at the University of Wisconsin – Waukesha to expand my knowledge of new computer programs. I am an avid reader and now have time to enjoy my favorite hobby. I do volunteer work at our local animal shelter. Since I didn’t want to have direct contact with animals that I didn’t know, I go in and fold newspapers for the cat cages. It gives me a sense of accomplishment in helping others. Family activities can be a very stressful time for me; my children sometimes have a hard time understanding that I can’t do as much as I did before.
Judy
Hi all. I have suffered from migraines since I was 11, and have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and CFS since 1992, although I’ve probably had them for over 25 years. Anyhow, I’ve heard that magnesium and malate, B6 and B12 are supposed to be very beneficial for fibromyalgia sufferers. Does anyone have any concrete evidence of this? Has anyone experienced great relief from these supplements? I’m asking because I’ve tried these and many other vitamins over the years with no change.
Sharon
Thanks for once again using one of my posts in your carnival!
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