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Lessons from Lyme

May is #lymediseaseawareness Awareness Month, and I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks, Lyme, for literally changing my life. Lyme is horrible and painful and terrifying and I would have never volunteered for the physical symptoms I have experienced, but it’s forced me to reevaluate so much and given me a priceless education on many subjects...

Health: health doesn’t just happen and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Health is not as simple as if A, then B, it’s complicated and takes unraveling and digging. I am responsible for my health from small daily choices like diet and toxin load to larger ones like choosing to follow a doctor’s recommendations or not and researching and asking questions when things don’t sound right.

Compassion: I had no idea how hurtful casual, dismissive remarks could be until I was told that I wasn’t that sick, it couldn’t hurt that bad, and I was probably just faking it to get what I wanted. Now I know that remarks like that can leave you scarred for a long, long time. I’m learning to consider the weight my words carry.

Mental health: Pre-Lyme I would have said, “What’s that?” I thought depression and anxiety were byproducts of wimpy attitudes... until I experienced them both. Once you have experienced panic attacks where you can’t breathe and you’ve felt so hopeless you’ve considered trying to die, you realize that there’s more to it than just “getting over it” and “praying about it.”

God: When all I could do was lie in the couch in pain, Lyme is what brought me to Christ for real and to understand that the gospel was a message of grace found in Christ’s already finished work, not a list of demands I had to meet. Lyme is also the cause of many tears and a lot of “why God” and “how long oh Lord.” But I’m learning that’s ok, God can handle my questions and my pain.

Priorities: I'm learning to say “no” to things when I’m overdone without feeling guilty. I’m learning to choose wisely where to put my limited energy. I’m learning to slow down and notice the small things. I’m learning to get real clear on what’s important to me and put those things on the calendar first.

There’s plenty of posts and info out there in the destructiveness of Lyme- it’s oh so very real- and I would encourage you to read up a little on it and TAKE TICKS SERIOUSLY! But instead of adding to the doom and gloom noise I just want to encourage especially those of us in the trenches dealing with it on the daily that it’s not wasted, and God uses it even when we’re mad and sad and super over it (which full transparency, I have been lately 🙄). The end.

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