A Person That I Don't Know, Recognize Or Like....

Yes, I said it and I mean it. I have Crohn's Disease and PTSD  (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I have been living with the Crohn's Disease for fifteen years and the PTSD was diagnosed six years ago  (although now that I know the symptoms so well I think I have had it for much longer). Recently I was hospitalized for just over a month. Toward the end, the last few weeks were the hardest. I had doctors, the people who should have been helping me making accusations without looking at my chart. They wrote orders for their residents to not give me extra pain control medication no matter what often without bothering to come and see me themselves.

Unfortunately that wasn't even close to the hardest things that I had to go through while in that hospital; a hospital that I am afraid to go back to even if I desperately need medical attention.

The psychological effects were the worst. Much worse than hours and days in so much pain that I was starting to have a hard time telling what had really happened and what my mind made up on it's own. The doctors  (for the most part) treated me like I was an experiment or just a file number. Sometimes both. I was lied to, I was accused of being a drug seeking patient (which had they looked back in my chart they would have found no evidence of such behavior). I was accused of wanting to stay in the hospital. My very clear instructions left for the doctors in order to not "trigger" my PTSD symptoms was ignored by them. Every day the nurses were the people who I looked forward to seeing and being able to talk to for a little while. It was often my only human contact until it got bad enough that my mom drove the ten hours to come be with me. I don't think I would have made it out of that place without her fighting for me, without her holding me up.

Now I am at home. At least it is the house that I call home. The problem is it doesn't feel like home. Nothing feels right. The nightmares wake me at night often. I am still regaining strength. Except the problem is that I don't feel strong. I suffer from severe anxiety more often than not. I wake up  unable to move and scared. I try to find happiness in the face of all of this. I think it is the hardest thing I have ever done. I don't know if I can do it. I do know one thing though. I will keep trying....

Why?

I'm sitting at home, driving to get groceries,  sleeping (or sleeping at work.... don't tell my boss) and then the anxiety hits. Its not just that that little bit of anxiety. This is Fight or Flight "I feel like I'm gonna die" anxiety. Yes, in a large part it has to do with the fact that I have fairly PTSD but where does the rest come from? Seriously someone tell me. At those times when the anxiety from the PTSD hits and I feel like my mind is not my own it is the most terrifying thing I have ever felt. I try to be strong and trust that God has me go through this for a reason.  The problem is I feel like I'm at my breaking point. So my question tonight is why?

Happiness vs Depression

I have been thinking thinking a lot over the past few days about how happiness and depression often seem to coincide in my life at the the same time.  For example, right now I am laying in a hospital bed in pain and I am stuck in a room that used to be used as a storage closet.  I'm not even kidding. There are no windows, the walls are a dull colour, you can see where the shelves used to hang and it is a pretty small room. Now being in this room, sick, in pain, stressed about having to miss work I am feeling depressed. I quite often want to just break down and cry or scream at a God that I have been struggling to believe is even listening. But then again there is this white board in this prison cell like room that my girlfriend drew a picture for me on. Every time I glance at this picture I smile and I am reminded of her, the joy she brings to my life, how wonderful and beautiful she is, how my life life couldn't be complete without her. Then as I am looking at this picture and thinking of Fredylyn (my girlfriend) that depression that I felt consuming me just moments ago is fading away and being replaced by happiness.

Do you understand what I am talking about now? How it seems as though depression and happiness both exist in our lives at the same time? In my experience I have noticed that it seems as though as humans we think in a way where everything is either on or off,  right or wrong. I think that by thinking this way we are over simplifying everything. Yes, right now I am in a pretty crappy situation and over the last couple days I would say that feeling depressed has been dominating my thoughts and feelings for the most part.  However, there is that glimmer of happiness and hope for a better future, a different situation, a time that is coming soon where I will break through this depression that I am feeling at the moment and that time is coming soon.

I really want to encourage others that might be going through a hard times with this post. The way that I am really trying to look at this depressing situation I am in right now is that if I need to go through this in order to gain the tools to help someone else then it is worth it.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts. I would love to know what you think.

Cheers.

You Kick Me While I’m Down I’ll Break Your Legs

I know what those of you that are reading this are thinking right now ‘Strange title and this guy hasn’t written a post in a really long time’. Well you are right. It has been way too long since I have written a post on here so here I go….

Lately life has been feeling kinda crazy. It’s not just the crazy that you feel when you are really busy (although since the end of February I have been really busy) but it is the crazy that you feel when everything is well, crazy. As most of my readers know I suffer from a pretty serious medical condition that can sometimes just act up for what seems like no reason and land me in Royal University Hospital for a while. Due to serious complications from my condition last summer, two surgeries and then recovery/getting back on my feet I was unable to do much of anything until February except sit at home and have Social Services and my parents help support me (love you and thank you so much Mom and Dad) I felt like a really big failure. I didn’t really feel very inspired, I didn’t feel like my life was going anywhere and I was feeling depressed about all of it.

The turning point in all of this was when me and my psychologist started making some major progress with the depression and the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that I continue to deal with. Yes, I still struggle with feeling depressed about all of it sometimes and I still wake up yelling from nightmares sometimes but there has been a lot of progress as well. There is no way that I can give all of the credit for this progress in my emotional well being to myself and my psychologist. There have been several amazing people in my life that have really been there for me, stuck by me through the bad times and given me a lot of encouragement, support and helped me to take the situation at hand and reminded me to look at it in a positive way.

At the end of February I landed a job as a security guard with Commissionaires and have really done well in that job. At about the same time that I landed that job I also found myself a new roommate that has worked out really well. Then just a few days ago I met an amazing friend (TJ) and we have found that we have been through a lot of the same things in life so we have decided to help each other out as much as possible.

I guess what I am trying to say is that a few months ago I felt like I was completely down and out but I was able to take that situation and change it, learn from it and become a better person because of it. Yes, I did need to seek help to get back on track but for those of you that are reading this I want to let you know that there is no shame in that. If you are feeling down and out right now I want to encourage you by telling you that there is hope (I know everyone says that but it’s true), there is no shame in asking for help and stay determined to turn things around. You will get there.

Cheers.

No More

I know that it has been a really long time since I have posted on my blog. A big part of the reason that I haven't posted in so long is because I have been feeling confused, lost and very unsure of myself. The other reason as to why I haven't posted is the simple fact that I just haven't known what to say.

In the past while I have been really trying to find happiness and more meaning in my life but up to this point I have failed. I have looked for happiness in a dating relationship and failed to have that relationship work out and in the process I really hurt my friend. I allowed my own self interest to lead myself into a situation where I not only really hurt the relationship with my friend and I but I also hurt myself in the process. Even though I allowed myself to act selfishly in my own self interest while not thinking about how my actions could hurt my friend I mixed good intentions into my selfishness and then allowed myself to become sucked into self pity when even my good intentions were misread.

My other big mistake was allowing myself to believe that my relationship with God was in a good place and that I was continuing to grow in that relationship. As you know believing a lie that your relationship with God is in a good place when it really isn't can lead you into a bad place very quickly.

I allowed myself to believe this lie and it ended up leading to the point where I have come to be very confused, scared and falling into self doubt. Now I am at the point where I almost always feel confused, scared, lost and anxious. This place that I ended up in so quickly is a place that I am now desperate to get away from. I am not completely sure of how I will be able to get myself back to a place where I am in a better and growing relationship with God and feeling confident in myself again.

I don't know how I will repair my relationships with the friends that I hurt through my own self interest and selfishness in this pursuit of happiness. All that I do know is that this is not something that I will be able to do on my own strength but only through the strength of God.

At this point in my life my goal is to be able to repair my relationship with God, continue to grow in that relationship and to rely on God to help me believe the truth that only comes from him and nothing else. I need God's strength and guidance to get back to a stronger relationship with him that continues to grow, to work on repairing the relationships with friends that I have damaged and to get myself to a point where I can see past all of the self doubt, confusion and anxiety that I feel about myself.

I know that these improvements in my life won't happen overnight but I am determined to give everything that I have to God in order to allow him to work in me and effect change in my life. My flesh is weak but I do know that with God all things are possible. I ask for prayer from my friends and family as I work to effect change in my life with God's help.

Cheers. 

And It Hurts Again

Written On August 12th

“Enemy, Familiar Friend, My Beginning And My End, Broken Truth, Whispering Lies, And It Hurts Again..”

-Red

Pain. We all experience it at some point in our life. We see it every day in other people’s lives and it scares us. No matter what kind of pain it is we will eventually experience it.  We avoid it, run away from it and try to hide from it but in this broken world it always ends up finding us at one point or another. Even though we all know that we will run into pain at some point we are almost always shocked when we end up experiencing it.

Right now I am sitting in the surgical observation unit at RUH (Royal University Hospital) in Saskatoon. I see, hear and feel pain all around me. After the emergency surgery I began to wonder if the sharp pain that came from the open incision would ever go away. The only thing that kept me going at that pain was the knowing that I would be getting some more morphine soon and that in a few days I would be back in the OR (Operating Room) in a few days where they would open me back up and then properly close the incision. I also longed for the anesthetic that I knew would keep me asleep for a few hours and away from the constant pain that would never leave me alone and kept me awake all night. Knowing that I would be pain free and away from this broken world, this broken body and the anxiety that comes along with it comforted me a little bit.

As the nurses push the pain and anxiety medication into the port in my central line which I had found implanted in my chest while I was under for my first emergency surgery I feel a little bit of relief but it doesn’t last long. I fall asleep for about a half hour but then the pain comes creeping back. When it hits me it is like I have been stabbed in the stomach and I jerk awake. My whole body shakes and the muscles in my stomach that had been sliced through tense up along with every other muscle in my body. This only makes the pain and anxiety worse. It seems as though there is no escape and at the moment there isn’t. I will myself to pass out from the pain so that I can hide inside of myself but I have no such luck.

As I lay in bed waiting for my next surgery I try to get myself to another place, a place that I love, a place where I am playing music and feeling the rush of enjoyment with every beat in the drums, every key on the piano and every pluck of the strings on my bass guitar as I play. It doesn’t work. My thoughts turn to Christina, her beautiful long brown hair and her wonderful smile. I find myself missing her and being willing to do anything to have her here beside me at this moment but that will never happen. She is gone. It is August 12, 2011 and tomorrow will it will be exactly one year since she passed away. The emotional pain only makes the physical pain worse. I want to cry, I want to scream and ask God how he could have taken her from me like that. Alone and afraid very shortly after the car accident but I can’t do that because it hurts too much. When the medication is finally strong enough to put me to sleep I am thankful at first but then the nightmares come. They torment me as the images run through my mind. For some reason I am in the car with Christina when she has her accident. I’m not hurt but I can see her laying there broken. I try to help her as I hear the wail of sirens in the distance. I do everything I can but she has lost too much blood. I hold her in my arms and feel her leave me. I wake up crying as this all too familiar pain washes over me.

I can’t get away from it.

How do I deal with this?

I really have no idea.

Lost, Confused, Turned Around And Scared But Still Hopeful .... I Think

Hey all, I have a few major things that are going on in my life that I could really use prayer for. At the end of this last school year I became really sick and ended up being stuck at RUH (Royal University Hospital) for a few weeks. As some of you may have heard I am taking the summer off and doing nothing but trying to get my condition under control. This means that I will not be working at all and my summer will pretty much consist of seeing several doctors, resting/sleeping a lot and hanging out with friends. This also means that I will not be attending Bethany this coming fall because I will not have enough money to pay for school and I feel that it is best for me to take a school year off to work and get my life together. I am currently living in Saskatoon and I plan to stay here throughout the school year as well so I will be coming out to Bethany to visit.

I have gotten a new specialist at RUH because my old one was ignoring me and not really doing his job at all. My new specialist, Jenifer Jones, is amazing and she has ordered some very extensive testing that will take place throughout the rest of the summer. Please pray for wisdom for her as she reviews my case and looks through my charts (my medical chart is bigger than a phone book) for ideas on how to properly treat my illness and give me a better quality of life. She has already looked at some previous testing and told me that it looks like they may not have the proper diagnosis for my condition. If this is true my treatment protocols could change drastically. I am very happy with my new specialist so I guess that is a prayer and praise item.

I am also seeing a pain specialist now (Dr. Fern) and he deals primarily with methadone treatment. Methadone can be used to treat people with chronic pain issues like myself and it can also be used to help get people off of highly addictive medications and street drugs. Dr. Fern is slowly lowering the dose of my narcotic pain killers while he slowly raises the dose of the methadone. The goal here is that I will be able to get off of all of the high grade narcotics that the doctors have beein using to control my pain and we will be able to be on only the methadone for pain control. Unless God decides to heal me this methadone program will be a life long program for me. All of this change in my medications is hard to deal with and it would be great if you guys could pray that I can get through this and deal with the stress and anxiety of it all in a healthy way. This methadone program is very intense and because I am new to it I don't fully understand a lot of it and that scares me. Dr. Fern is also a very good doctor and he is very compassionate about the pain that I have experienced on a daily basis for the past ten years and continue to experience every day. This methadone program and Dr. Fern are a very good thing and will most likely give me a better quality of life but the beginning stages are difficult and at times very painful and stressful. I need to go to the pharmacy every day to pick up my methadone dose and have them watch me take it and then I need to sign for it for the next three months. This is because methadone is a highly controlled substance. For the past week I have been having quite severe pain that comes and goes and this will continue until Dr. Fern is able to find the right methadone dose for me. I could really use your prayer and support in this area. The methadone program is a good thing and it is beginning to work a little bit so that is a good thing. This is what I would call a praise and prayer item as well.

My other major prayer request is that I will be able to find a room mate to rent the two bedroom basement suite that I am living in. I will need a room mate that can move in at the end of August/beginning of September. If I am unable to find a room mate I will need to look for a one bedroom place that costs less and that can be very difficult to do in Saskatoon. The basement suite I am renting is not anything special but it is nice and in a nice part of town. It is only a few minute drive from 8th street and about a 15 minute drive from U of S. The whole suite is already furnished except for the bedroom that would belong to my room mate. The suite is located on Wiggins Ave South and rent between two people would cost $350 each. I would really like to stay here and not have to move because moving can be very stressful for me and getting used to a new place to live is difficult for me as well just because of some of the medications I am on. I have no gender preference as to who my room mate is because right now I just need to find someone. It would be great if you guys could pray that I will find a room mate and if you hear of anyone looking for a place to rent in Saskatoon please tell them to contact me.

So that was quite the long praise/prayer request but I guess I just had a lot to say today.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your summer.

Cheers.

Remember To Live

Lately I have found myself sitting here in this hospital bed at RUH thinking about what it looks like to really live. I sit here and wonder what it would be like and if I will ever be able to really live. As I think about this I am struck with fear, sadness and resentment. I close my eyes and wish that I could wake up from this nightmare leaving all of the pain, suffering and confusion behind to fade away like a dream. As I continue to think about this the more I realize that so many of us, myself included go through life wanting everything to be perfect and there is nothing wrong with striving for things to be better but we so often get so caught up in wishing life was better that it ends up passing us by and we have nothing to show for it. Even though life can be insanely hard and frustrating at times I believe that I just have to hang onto God and go with it while trusting that he has the best planned out for me. I don’t want to be someone that sits waiting for that perfect moment to really live. I need to remind myself that pain and hardship can never take away the amazing gifts of love, passion, friendship and community that God has given us. Even though we live in an imperfect and broken world we can stand up and decide that this is our time to live and not allow the hardships that come with life stand in our way.

Remember to live.

Cheers.

And Now You’re Dead Inside Still You Wonder Why….

Life. It’s messy, it’s scary, it’s painful, it’s intense and at the same time it is an amazing and beautiful blessing. We gain and we lose, expect the amazing and crash into disappointment but still we go on and tell ourselves that it will all work out, we hope and pray that it will be okay. We often don’t realize the change as God begins to work in our lives, while he hears us praying for life to stop crashing down around us. It is always great to have someone close from the outside looking in to stop us and show us what has changed and what God has built up in our lives when we are feeling like everything is still falling and nothing is getting better.

Right now this person is my mom. She has been amazing, given me hope and gave me someone close by in this world to hold on to during those hard times.

I want to encourage all of you that read this to just be thankful for the person or people in your life that give you hope and someone to hold onto those hard times in life and let them know how amazing they are.

Cheers.

Hope For The Paralyzed

I know I haven’t posted anything since March. I hope that I can blog more regularly throughout the summer. I won’t be working this summer; instead I will be recovering, physically and emotionally. Second semester at school was difficult for me. I often found myself feeling confused and discouraged. There was so much work to be done and trying to cope with my illness, get my homework done and deal with feeling confused and discouraged left me feeling as though I could never catch my breath and like my world was falling down around me. I still often feel this way but I have hope that this summer will be a time when I can heal and begin to understand the place that I am in and rebuild all of those parts of my world, my life that I felt falling down around me. I know that I will need to make changes as I begin to heal. The thought of these changes sometimes leaves me feeling lost and insecure, uncertain of what comes next and wondering if I will be able to make it through this.

Right now the constant struggle to breathe (something I have always taken for granted) is definitely adding to my anxiety. My chest almost always feels like it is about to collapse. This is due to a flash pleural effusion. I was admitted to Rosthern SK Hospital with severe symptoms from my colitis which deteriorated into a colitis attack while I was in emergency as the nurses tried for the ninth time to get an IV line started on me. After they got a line started on me they were able to get the colitis under control fairly quickly. Due to the severe nature of the attack I was hospitalized for a week and given IV fluids and medications. At the end of that week is when the flash pleural edema occurred. I have had to deal with colitis and severe pain for the past ten years and while it can be discouraging, frustrating and scary at times, there is no feeling like having your lungs fill with fluid as you gasp for air and feel like you are drowning. Lucky for me the nurses responded before I needed resuscitation and got me to the ICU. They managed to drain enough of the fluid within two days that I was able to breathe without a full oxygen mask infused with medication to keep my lungs open.

Even though I realize that because of my illness I need help from others to do things that a healthy twenty two year old guy would be able to do on his own but right now I am finding myself frustrated and depressed by how little I am able to do and how much I need to rely on others just to get through one day. I am unable to play bass or drums right now and because of my love of music this is very difficult for me. Even as I type this I find myself frustrated by how difficult it is to type because of how shaky my hands are from my medication.

Through all of this I have really been able to see how blessed I am to have so many people that care about me and are willing to help out when I am unable to do much. I would really like to thank my mom for her willingness to come out to Saskatoon area to help out as I recover. I would also like to thank my dad for his sacrifice of being away from his wife that he clearly loves with all of his heart for the summer and my grandparents for letting us stay at their place until me and my mom can find somewhere else to live for the summer. I would really like to thank all of my friends for their prayers and encouragement through this hard time.

Right now I can’t help but wonder why God has allowed me to have even more health problems to worry about right now and I also find myself wondering why I can’t seem to find him on those long nights when I am awake all night because I am in pain, unable to breathe, feeling anxious and restless. Through my faith and my relationship with him I know that he is here with me through this hard time even when I can’t feel him close to me. I also know that he is not allowing me to suffer for no reason and that something good will come out of this situation even if I can’t see what good could come of this at the moment.

To all that read this please continue to pray and know that I am incredibly grateful for you guys and your love and support. Please also feel free to comment on my posts and share your thoughts on what I have written.   

"In The Hearts Of The Blind Something You'll Never Find Is A Vision Of Light" - Flyleaf     

Cheers.

Hallelujah For The Blood Of The Lamb That Was Slain

Lately I have been having a hard time. I often feel like I am not even in control of my own emotions. There are times when I feel desperate, alone, forgotten, angry at God and myself. There are times when I feel like I feel like a burden to the community that I live in and that for some reason God is nowhere to be found in my life. The good thing is that I know that these are my imperfect emotions speaking in a broken world. Yes I do have a body that is broken and I have found that all too often I allow Satan’s lies to enter my thoughts and then I make the huge mistake of believing them.  

Even though I feel desperate, alone, forgotten, angry at God and there are times when I feel like I feel like a burden to the community that I live in and that for some reason God is nowhere to be found in my life I know that these thoughts are not true.

Right now I am asking my readers to pray for me, pray that I can have the strength to not allow myself to believe these lies and live as the wonderfully made person that He made me to be. I also want to reach out and encourage those of you that may be feeling the same way and challenge you to join me in asking for prayer and fight the thoughts that Satan puts into our minds in order to tear us down.

I would like to share the lyrics of a song by Tenth Avenue North that have really been helping me through this hard time.

Hallelujah – Tenth Avenue North

At first I am afraid but not because of fear

But the Holy of Holies is drawing me near

Your voice like thunder shakes the ground I’m on

So hide my face in the shadow of Your wings, oh Lord

Hide my sin from the beauty here before Your throne

Your throne

Hallelujah for the blood of the Lamb that was slain

Hallelujah for the blood of the Lamb that was slain

And so we enter in to see Your face, yeah

We enter in to see Your face, oh God

Well I’m falling to my knees. I feel the earth beneath

With the weight of my sin, and this crushing unbelief

Could You really love me with all that I’ve done, oh Lord

You spread Your hands

And made a refuge for the weak and blessed

The weary, bruised, and broken

Took our sin. Inside Your wounds we hide away

Inside Your wounds we hide

Lyrics And Music By Tenth Avenue North

Cheers

Frustrations

Most of you that know me are aware that I struggle with a chronic medical condition that causes me to have to deal with pain all day every day. Right now my condition has been flaring up a lot and it has been very difficult for me to see how all of these hospital stays can do anything but make focusing on the rest of my life and my studies at Bethany College harder for me. When my condition does flare up I need to deal with more pain than I would on a normal day and it has been a challenge for me to stay positive through all of this.

Even though having to deal with increased flare-ups has been hard and discouraging I have been doing my best to be positive and remember that God isn’t allowing me to go through this for nothing. I am just trying to smile and be thankful for what I have in spite of this situation. My friends and family have been very supportive and the community at Bethany College holds me in their prayers. This is a huge encouragement for me. I know that I can’t that do all of this on my own and I would like to ask my readers for their continued prayer and support.

I would like to thank everyone for their support and help when I am weak.

These songs by Fireflight have been an encouragement to me in times when I wonder if it is all worth it and I would like to share them with you. They are a great band and I would like to encourage you to buy their CDs.

 Recovery Begins (By Fireflight)

I talk, I talk too much
I never open up
To what You need to say
My words get in the way

I search for stillness
But worry kills it
I need to clear my head
I'm tired, I need to rest

It all comes down to this
The quiet in the end
I listen for Your voice
Recovery begins

The times I hear You most
Are when You bring me close
I'll follow as You guide
While darkness turns to light

Whisper to me, whisper to me
Whisper to me, whisper to me

All I Need To Be (By Fireflight)

Hoping with each new day
I'm moving forward, I push the fear away
And I let go
'Cause I'm so through with barely hanging on
Leaving what's in the past behind
I come closer to crossing over the line
And I won't stop
Until I get what I've been fighting for
You've said it all before

Tell me again that I am strong
Tell me again that I won't fall
I need You here to fix me where I'm wrong
Take me beyond what I can see
Break me, make me believe
You have made me all I need to be

Knowing all that I can do is be open when You start to move
In my heart
And now my God, I finally hear Your voice
You've said it all before

Who I am is all I've got
And I can't be who I am not anymore

(I am strong, make me believe)
You have made me all I need to be
(I am strong, make me believe, make me believe)

Realizations

I have been thinking about a lot this past year and one of the things that has weighed heavily on my heart and mind is the trials that I have had to deal with every day for the past ten years because of the chronic and painful physical illness that I will have to continue to deal with for the rest of my life. I have realized that over the past year I have been focusing on the negative effects that this illness has on my life and allowing them to control what I do and how I feel.

I have realized that what I should be doing is focusing on the lessons that I have learned and how living with this illness has shaped me into the person that I am. It has also strengthened my relationship with God. It has taught me that I can’t always rely on myself and that I need to be open to accepting God’s guidance and the support of those that care for me. I have realized that instead of looking at what this illness has taken from me I need to focus on what I have gained through this experience.

Through being sick I have learned to rely on God as he has allowed me to experience his grace, mercy and teach me amazing life lessons as I have walked through this difficult experience. The good that comes from having to deal with this illness doesn’t just stop with me. God has given me a story about how he walks with people through hard times and brings great things out of a seemingly impossible situation if we would only be open to looking for them and focusing on them. God has given me several opportunities to share this story with others and work through me in order to help others.

As this New Year has begun I have decided that it is very important for me to work harder to only look at the positive things that have come out of the hardships that I have to deal with and not allow myself to get caught up in being angry or depressed when I am having a harder time working through being sick.

One of the people in my life that has played a major part in helping me come back from looking at the negative impact that my illness has in my life instead of the good is my friend Rachel. I am incredibly grateful for her encouragement, advice, care and understanding that she shows me every day. I also admire the patience that she has for me when I am going through a hard time because I know that I can be very stubborn sometimes. 

I greatly respect and admire her and want to thank her for being honest and being my friend. Thank you for seeing me for the person that I really am and not just the broken exterior shell that I and rest of the world just can't seem to see past sometimes. That means so much to me. You are a great friend and one of the only friends that I have that has told me that they don't even see the sickness that hurts me every day but instead sees me for who I am as a person instead. That means more to me then I could ever put into words. I have learned that because I have been unable or maybe partly unwilling to look at myself in a positive way when I am feeling down about not being able to do many of the physical activities that other people my age should be able to do. She has helped me get back on track and into a frame of mind where I focus on the great things that I can still do with my life despite having this illness as well as the things that I am better at because of the trials that I have had to deal with because of having a chronic illness.

One thing that she told me just the other day that really hit home for me and helped me come to these realizations is; “You let your body rule you. You are not broken, your body is just the way God made it, and God doesn’t make mistakes. You let this one part of your life rule you and it shouldn’t”. This got me really thinking about why God has allowed me to experience this illness and look at the amazing things that I have experienced and learned because of it.

I guess what I would like to say is that my friend is right. I Am Not broken, God doesn’t make mistakes and I need to really work to look at the good that he has done in my life, the good he will continue to do and the good that I am able to do for others because of the experiences that he has allowed me to go through.

I still have a ways to go before I am able to get to a completely positive frame of mind but I am determined to get there. I know it's cliché but I guess this is my new year resolution.

Cheers

We Came Together But You Left Alone And I Know How It Feels To Walk Out On Your Own

Maybe Someday I’ll See You Again And You’ll Look Me In My Eyes And Call Me Your Friend

I’m not sure why but lately I have had a lot on my mind about brokenness and being abandoned or just having people start to distance themselves from me when they start to realize just how broken I really am. I notice them start to fade away and then one day they are no longer there.

When I think about this I find myself drawn to the thought that me being sick and having a broken body and the broken emotions that come with that is the reason for people leaving. Maybe the constant pain over the past ten years and that constant reminder from that pain that I am broken plays a big part in that but at this point I’m really not sure. Maybe a part of it is that profound sense of loss that I feel from Christina passing away that has made me feel so alone. I really don’t know.

When people come into my life and hear about what I have had to live through and the constant pain and sickness that I will live with for the rest of my life I am often told that they think that I am a strong person because I haven’t given up and I know that I never will because I know that there is a reason behind me having to deal with this. To be honest right now I don’t feel strong; I feel broken, scared and somewhat lost.

I can’t even say why I felt that I needed to write this down and post it today. Maybe someone out there needed to hear this. The one thing that I have been learning through not giving up in the midst of feeling lost, scared and broken is that just because I am broken and I am reminded of that every day through physical pain that isn’t the only thing that everyone else around me sees. I have a friend that I respect and admire a lot tell me a while ago that through getting to know me she no longer sees me as someone that has this broken and often quite useless physical body but instead she sees me for who I am underneath that. Those words have made me realize that in times when I feel that all I am is broken I need to learn to see myself the way my friend does.

That is what I want to strive to see myself as right now. I want to look beyond being sick and having a broken body and see that there is still good within that can't be broken, a good that can help others.

We Came In Search Of Answers, We Left Empty Handed Again….

We Still Have Faith And Hope

When I have been looking back on my life lately I have found that I have been searching for answers. Some of the questions that I have been searching out answers for have come from me, some from my friends, my family and the world. I’m not even sure where some of these questions have come from but one thing that I do know is that in my search for answers I have come up with nothing or an answer that just creates more questions every time.

The thing that I want to talk about today is how a few of the major situations in my life have affected me and how they continue to affect my day to day life. I was diagnosed with severe Ulcerative Colitis when I was twelve years old. Through a series of doctors not taking the fact that I was a very ill twelve year old kid that was in need of proper medical care and testing in order to slow the progression of my condition down seriously and the fact that it took them several months to properly diagnose me I am now stuck with a very painful chronic illness that I will have to deal with every day for the rest of my life (as far as science and medicine are concerned).

Dealing with having any type of illness chronic or not is difficult for anyone. These difficulties don’t only include what a person can see from the outside like constant physical pain in my case, but they can also consist of emotional trauma and questioning/loss of hope and faith. One of the biggest emotional difficulties that I experience is a profound sense that I am broken and that people will leave me or I won’t be worth as much to them when they see how broken I really am. My body doesn’t work properly anymore and I have been told time and time again by doctors that it never will. I believe that part of the reason that I feel that I am broken is because our culture gives us such a high physical standard to live up to. With a body that can’t handle much physical activity at a young age I feel that when people see me and realize that my body is broken I am no longer worth as much.

One of the questions that I ask God and think about is why? I think that all of us ask him the same thing whenever we face events in our lives that are hard or just seem to be completely impossible to overcome.

The latest struggle in my life that has left me asking God why is the passing of my friend Christina in August this last summer. Christina was a bright young woman that spread the love of God wherever she went, no matter who she was with. On August 13^th, 2010 Christina passed away after a car accident while EMTs were trying to save her. There is a quote by W.S. Gilbert that reads; “Its love that makes the world go round”. If that’s true, then the world spun a little faster when Christina was in it.  I don’t understand why God let this happen and I’m not sure that I ever will in this life but what I do understand is that God doesn’t make mistakes and although things happen in our lives that we can’t begin to find answers for we need to trust that God can see further than we can and he doesn’t let us suffer for no reason, otherwise what is the point in even trying to keep going?

I guess what I am trying to say is that over the past few years of being at Bethany College while learning about God and experiencing him in the community there I have learned a lot about trusting him and being open to the changes that he wants me to make in my life and allowing him to work through me. I have learned to come to a place where I feel that I have peace about having an illness that causes me to be in pain all day every day and often forces me to spend time in the hospital. I have learned to look at my life and the suffering that comes with life in a broken and fallen world in a different way. I have seen God work in other people’s lives when I share my experiences and how he gets me through the hard times; how I wouldn’t want to and couldn’t even begin to make it through without him. In my mind I feel that if the hardships that I go through in my life are worth it if by me living through it and sharing with others can help just one person grow closer in their relationship with God or one person start a new relationship with God then I’m okay with living with this illness and this pain. I will continue to live with it for as long as God needs me to if that is what it takes right now to work in my life and the lives of others.

Christina used to say “Just because your body is broken it doesn’t mean you have to live like the rest of you is”. That is something that I need to be sure to never forget and live my life in that way.

And We Built These Dreams On Sand, Will They All Slip Through Our Hands....

Dreams, they are something that we all have. I'm not talking about those crazy dreams that we have at night and then forget the instant that we wake up while we desperately try to hang on to that last glimmer of happiness in that pain free world. I'm talking about our dreams and hopes that we have in every day life. Some of them fall away and break apart but some of them bring us to the most amazing places. Lately in life I have found that the dreams that I am the most excited about, the ones that seem like they will be perfect are the ones that are falling away and breaking apart at my feet. I don't understand why life is like this right now but I am desperately trying to trust God and keep hanging onto him because I know that if something is supposed to work out then God will make it happen. Knowing this and being able to let go of those dreams that have fallen away and broken are two different things. I have found myself upset at times about what could have been or what I think should have been.

A lot has happened in my life lately and I can't even begin to uunderstand it and that is why I need to trust God but even in my attempt to trust God with all that is going on I still feel helpless. Right now I feel broken, lonely, lost, scared and confused. I don't think I know where to go next so I am doing my best to look to God for direction.

I have noticed that many times in life when someone is going through a hard time people start to pull away from them. These people that pull away aren't bad people, they are just afraid of being around someone that is hurting because it scares them that they might say or do the wrong thing and make it worse. From what I am experiencing right now it hurts a lot more for people to pull away from me when I am having a hard time then if they were to say or do something wrong. I often just want to stand up and tell everyone that yes I am hurting right now but please don't pull away because you don't know what to say or do! Just the fact that you are with me makes getting through this so much easier for me. It takes a lot for a friend to upset me by saying or doing something wrong so please just try to forget about that fear so that whenever anyone in our community is having a hard time we can leave our fear behind us and gather around them in loving support.

I guess that is all I have to say for right now, I started writing this post knowing that I needed to get this point across but I had no idea how I would do it so I guess this will have to do. Everything that I have written here is my personal opinion and it is from my point of view so please use the comments section below this post to let me know what you think.

Cheers.

The Cure Is If You Let In A Little More Love, I Promise You This, A Little's Enough....

My question for today is this:

In a fallen and broken world, is it possible for us to experience pure joy?

Please use the comment section below this post to answer the question and explain your answer.

Cheers

Wake Me Up Inside….

So after being stuck in the hospital in Rosthern for a week and being a bit depressed I am back at Bethany where I have access to the internet and I can post a much needed update to my blog! As I’m sure you can understand, I don’t have anything really exciting to post because hospitals are not the most exciting places in the world. In my previous post I wrote about how I was feeling down and wondering how I went from being happy just over a year ago to feeling like I wanted to give up a few days ago and even though I know that I don’t completely have the answer yet I do know that things have changed. I have experienced loss lately and found myself stuck here wondering about what could have been and in many cases what I believe should have been. I think that even though my week long stay in the hospital ended up putting me a week behind in my homework schedule and made me bored out of my mind it was good because it gave me a lot of time to think through what is going on in my life. I have come to the realization that I need to keep moving forward. I know that it sounds obvious and maybe it is but I guess I needed a week to get to the obvious. After Celeste and I broke up last year I stopped. Looking back it makes sense because after a three year long relationship ends sometimes you need to stop to get everything together again. The problem was that once I did start moving again it seemed like nothing worked out for me anymore. A relationship that I thought would work out failed horribly, and then I got really sick in April of last year and ended up stopping and feeling stuck again. Once again I was stuck in a hospital unable to depend on my own strength to get through each day. Once I managed to convince myself to keep going summer and working at camp came along. Camp was an amazing time for me where I feel like I was able to grow in my relationship with God and also the people I worked with in great ways. When Christina passed away in August I once again lost momentum and felt like I had become stuck. This brings me to now; a time when I feel like I can move on and let go of wondering what could have been had things gone according to plan. I can stop being upset about what should have been and learn to be glad that I still have what is.

I really have no idea if any of this post will make sense to any of you readers out there but I decided to go with it and post it anyway. I don’t know why it took me so long to come to such an obvious realization but it did and now I’m ok with being happy with what is.

If you happen to have any comments on my insane ramblings please feel free to post them. I would love to know what you think!  

I Walk Around Like I’m Alive Again But I Know It’s Just Not The Same….

Written October 28, 2010 (Not Posted Due To Lack Of An Internet Connection)

I’m still stuck in the hospital at this point in my life. The days take forever to pass and then when night and my hopes of losing myself in sleep and maybe peace for a few hours comes I am faced with the same restless anxiety and sleeplessness that I used all of my energy trying to push through during the day. Sleep and peace doesn’t come though, not for me, not right now. As I sit alone in my room wondering how I got from being so happy just over a year ago to wanting to give up now. Yes I know that some really hard stuff has happened over the past year but I thought I should be able to work through it….

Trust And Grief

W.S. Gilbert Wrote, “Its love that makes the world go round” and if that’s true, then the world spun a little faster when Christina was in it.

Those of you that know me have most likely heard or read on my blog that my friend Christina passed away as the result of a car accident on August 13 this last summer. Missing her and dealing with her death has been hard for me. I desperately want to trust that God loves his children and is devastated when something like this happens but that he also lets it happen for a reason. I have been searching for that reason and how something good could possibly come from this situation. I know that God wants me to trust him, to believe that he knows why things like this happen and leave it in his hands. This is something I have been unable to do up to this point but I do know that as time passes I will get there. If you are reading this I want to ask you to pray for everyone that was affected by Christina’s death, that they would be able to find peace and comfort in God even though this is a hard time for them.

Here are a few things that I wanted to say about Christina:

Christina’s death has caused me to stop and take stock of my life, to measure who I am and what I have become. I don’t have all of those answers myself, but I know who Christina was. Christina lived and died in a broken and unjust world, a world where young women like her that have a fierce love for God, her family and friends. I know that if Christina were here today she would tell me not to mourn her death but to celebrate her life. She would tell me to love my family and friends unconditionally and to stay close to Christ because in the end that’s all that matters.

Christina  

October 10, 1989 - August 13, 2010