Uncertainty and impatience.

When I was in my late teens and probably even early twenties, I would have told you that my greatest fear was uncertainty.  I feared the unknown, and I feared making the wrong decisions.  The good Lord knew this about me, and so he turned my life upside down to the point that the past seven years have been almost nothing but uncertainty.  (I don't pretend to know the Lord's motives or whether my suffering was from his hands, but I do believe he has used and is using it to teach me to trust him rather than fear the unknown.) I am learning to trust him even when I can't see past today, and I'm learning to discern his voice.  To be honest, the sicker I was, the easier it was to simply trust him to get me through the day, because that's all I had and I didn't have the strength to look beyond that day.

But now, even though it's slow and nowhere near where I'd like it to be, my health is improving to the point that I'm beginning to think about the future--beyond today, beyond next month, next year.  I have a million dreams and desires, some of which I truly believe are God-given, but my body is not ready for those desires to be fulfilled right now, which only leaves me discontent and impatient.  Why hasn't he healed me yet?  Why am I still stuck where I am?

There's another side of that, though.  A part of me--knowing the roller coaster of ups and downs that this migraine journey has been--wonders if healing will ever come, if there will ever be more to life than this.  Will I ever be able to live on my own without financial help from my parents?  Will I ever be able to have a fulfilling job, doing full-time what I believe the Lord has called me to do?  Will I ever have a family of my own?  Will I ever even be able to maintain a social life and have real friends?

Right now the "Will I ever..." side is winning--winning to the point that I'm grieving the life I'm afraid I will never have.  Perhaps it's the realization that I'm still in the same place I was 2 years ago.  More likely it's being given a glimpse of hope of this one tiny aspect of "normalcy" and then having it taken away.

So often I'm optimistic regarding this season of my life (oh, how I hope it's only a season).  But some days my only response is grief, frustration.

This disease has wreaked havoc on my life in so many ways, ways that most people don't even realize.  It has completely stolen my identity.  It has severed relationships with many of my closest friends.  I haven't been on a date in over 7 years. (Meanwhile, most of my friends or used-to-be-friends-that-I-no-longer-keep-up-with are happily married with children.)  It has changed not only how others view me but how I view myself.  Not to mention all the things I can't do and places I can't go, the accommodations I'm no longer shy about asking for.  The cognitive dysfunction that's present even when I'm not in excruciating pain.  The way no one (except the people I live with and a few God-gifted souls) knows how to talk to me or act around me.  (They ask how I'm doing but don't really want an answer because that will make them feel uncomfortable and they won't know what to say next.)  Having to live with my parents when I'm getting closer to 30 years old every day because I can't maintain a job that pays enough for me to be able to afford living on my own.  Meanwhile, getting reprimanded at the job I do have (and am truly grateful for because it is exactly what I need right now even if it isn't the type of job I want) because I can't work as efficiently as a healthy person could, even with getting to work early and staying late as often as I possibly can.

As my doctor so adequately put it at a recent appointment, "For a long time, you have not been Kaci; you have been a migraine with Kaci hidden in there somewhere." 

That pretty much sums up how I feel.  I want to be Kaci again.  The last time I didn't have a constant migraine, I was 16 years old.  The last time that migraine didn't control every aspect of my life, I was 20; I'll be 28 next month.

Holy Father, I lay my life in your hands.  I had placed it there before, but lately I've been trying to pick pieces of it back up again, foolishly thinking I can do something good with them.  Forgive me, and I know my weaknesses and know I will keep picking pieces of it back up again and again, but each time, Lord, gently remind me that you can do far more with my feeble life than I ever can.  Tune my heart to your voice and your voice alone.  Drown out the enemy's lies.  Help me to be content in every moment and in every aspect of my life.  Help me not to compare my life to others' or to some fairy tale idea of what I dreamed my life would be like.  Above all else, Father, use my life to bring you glory, whatever that may look like.  I do mean that wholeheartedly, but it's also a difficult prayer to pray because the way you choose to bring glory to yourself may not involve the things my flesh wants.  Your word tells me that if I delight myself in you, you will give me the desires of my heart.  That is my prayer.  Become my full delight, so much so that my desires for my life are transformed into the desires you have for my life.