Let me start first by apologizing. I’m more than a little raw today after spending the last month existing in what feels like a perpetual state of growing ridiculousness. Usually I can find some snarky little crumb of humor to laugh things off with, but not today.

Today it’s really just not funny. It’s just not.

I thought about simply staying quiet today. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day for me to speak? Maybe then I could write something a little more uplifting and comfortable for people to read?

Isn’t that what we want? To be kept comfortable?

But wouldn’t that also negate the purpose of what God has given me to do here? Didn’t He tell me to speak my heart with honesty? Good day, bad day – speak the truth. And be honest, Debi. Be honest.

This rawness started to burn when I was absolutely body-slammed with a Lupus flare four weeks ago today. I shared about this personal boogeyman of mine. And I then followed-up with an update as I waited for things to just calm the heck down.

What I did not share, though, was that after spending a week trying to fight back from all of this … I was then abruptly hit with the nightmare of vertigo which inspired the post about traffic and the many reds of red.

I thought I had been stopped by my flare, until God stopped me even harder. He showed me that the red in my stop light actually can get even redder. Or more red?

Isn’t it funny how your entire world can be chaotically spinning out of control, yet completely halted at the same time? Actually, no. It’s not funny at all.

What’s also not funny is that the setbacks could’ve stopped there. But they didn’t.

I went straight from the vertigo into an infection. Because my immune system had been so busy attacking me for the last few weeks, nobody had been watching the gate, and some little demons snuck in to complicate my already-complicated complications.

Now I had to not only fight an infection, I also had to stop all my Lupus meds, as well, because they disrupt all the good guy/bad guy battles that the antibiotics accomplish. That’s an ugly double setback right there.

Then … just as the antibiotics were ending on Monday … yes, folks … there’s actually more … the vertigo slammed me again. Life is stopped. More stopped. Again. The red just keeps getting redder. Or more red. It doesn’t matter. It just keeps doing it.

So this is why I’m raw. I’m even more stopped. Again.

I’m just so tired of this today. All the stops and more stops – they each hold such disappointment. For me AND for those around me. And anxiety. How can I not worry?

Will I be able to keep any commitments in this new normal of mine? I feel like I’m just barely scraping through climbing up one hill before I’m already concerned about the next. Will I be well enough to pull this next one off? What about the next?

Because there’s a darn weighty ripple effect for each of those hills I can’t make it through. And I definitely feel each and every little wave that drifts away from them. Yes, I do. Especially today.

But this is where I have to stop and turn it around. I just have to turn it all around.

There is not a darn thing I can do about any of this, except what I allow it to do to me. THAT I can control. Lupus has overtaken enough of my moments lately. I can’t keep letting it darken my heart and weighing me down.

I have to find the beauty in it. Right now. I have to shift the focus from what it’s doing to me, to what I can do with it, instead.

It’s a subtle internal shift, but it’s huge.

I’m going to stop worrying about the problems, and start praising the fixer of the problems. Right here. Right now. For all of us.

God is still God, no matter what is happening around us. He is unchanging and all powerful. He holds us in the palm of His hand, loves us with an everlasting love, and counts the very number of hairs on all of our dizzy little heads.

He knows our every anxiety-ridden, disappointment-laden thought, and loves us anyways.

He has ordained all our days to unfold exactly as they should, even when we think we know better. We don’t, by the way.

And He gives us every single breath we struggle so hard against Him to inhale. He’s holding us, people. Just trust His embrace. Relax in it. Breathe. Just breathe.

We don’t need to be weighed down by any setbacks we may face because we can rest truly comforted in the love and strength of the One who knows EXACTLY what we need, and is always, ALWAYS faithful to provide it just as we need it. Always has been, always will be.

There. My chest feels a little lighter already. I pray yours does, too.

Thanks for growing with me. ❤

“Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.  I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.’ Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.” (Psalm 77:10 – 15)