Moving through it......

In my WIP, "work in progress" novel, Sara finds her deceased friend Brigid's journal.  Brigid recently died from Multi-System Atrophy, an extreme and almost always, fatal form of Dysautonomia. Here are some journal entries Brigid left behind.


 

January 8-  I am dealing with grief from the physical pain and emotional sadness of what this disease has taken from me.  More doctors.  No answers.  More questions.  More medicines. More pain. Yet another specialist.
 

I hide my pain from others.  "Thank you, I'm fine.  Doing great!  How about you?”  These are my ready responses to, "How are you feeling?"  I do not want to burden people with the details of my illness.  It is bad enough that I must go through it.  Dragging others along with me won't help anyone.  

My brain is thrown around inside my head like a rubber ball with no one in charge of its journey.  My head is so tired from the constant beating. The stress from this disease is evaporating the joy and happiness from my heart. Each time the pain surges, my heart moves one step closer to being a dried up, shriveled dead thing.  I feel my little raisin heart hardening and struggling to live.  I hate the person I am becoming.  

 As I watch everyone else move about in their life, completely unaware of the blessing of their good health, I feel as if my ties to the earth are being clipped and I am floating outside my life, struggling to stay connected to the people around me.

 

Despair is not a place to live. I can’t survive in this dark hole. So what can I do?  GOD I NEED YOUR HELP!

Please. Help.

January 28- Yes, I'm still alive.  After my recent and quite extended pity party, I went to bed, burrowing myself deep into the covers. I wanted to hibernate away from everyone.  I failed to drag my journal and pen with me into my den of quilts and blankets, therefore I have not written.

But, this morning, a sliver of sunshine, escaped from the blinds and traveled across my quilt. The warmth and brightness was a welcome call to come back to the land of the living.  I peeled back the layers of covers and eased the blinds open.  I had been burrowed for so long, I felt like an emerging groundhog, squinting and looking confused, as he comes out to make his yearly weather predictions. 

I picked up my bible from the nightstand and opened it to Psalms.  I like the Psalms.  These words make me feel, well, a little more sane.  King David is a nutcase some of the time.  Yet he was "a man after God's own heart".  Despite being a manic personality, with humongous mood swings, David was loved by God. Whew. That's good news for me.

Psalms is showing me that I have to own this pain.  David shouts out his pain, as he cries out to God. The scriptures have shown me that by expressing and owning the pain, God’s absolute majesty is revealed through His ability to raise me above the hurt and walk with me through this dark valley, instead of living in it. 

I have freed myself to feel the depth of the pain and disappointment.  I have stopped trying to push aside the grief from this disease.  I must own the loss and despair.  Only by owning it, can I move through it. 

Thank you, Lord.