From Misery to Ministry

WHEN WE ARE DEALT A DIFFICULT HAND, IT DOESN’T HAVE TO INCLUDE A “MISERY MINDSET”.

The Lord brought me to this reality fairly early on in my season of chronic illness, and I have been so grateful for that.

I was hospitalized when I was 12 years old with a completely foreign confuse-all-the-doctors sort of issue. Several specialists in the Seattle area poured over me and they recorded my problems in medical journals. When I was 18 years old, I had a difficult heart condition that was deemed life-threatening. I wasn’t allowed to drive because of the possibility of my heart suddenly giving out, and I had to stay as sedate as possible–sitting still in my house, not getting too excited, not laughing, etc.

It was a pretty difficult season. I remember feeling like it was just utterly ridiculous that the doctors were trying to put regulations on my LAUGHTER. 😉

I wasn’t exceptionally healthy through the next several years, but managed all right and life returned to fairly normal for awhile. (“normal” for me, anyway, whatever that was! haha.)

It was a few years later in 2012 that things really got worse and my health plummeted severely.

I went downhill so badly that by the beginning of 2013, we weren’t sure I would even live to see 2014. I did. Obviously. 😉

Everyday life has been painful ever since, and that has just become normal. Surgery happens every few years to take care of recurring issues from one of the diseases I have. Experimental attempts to treat symptoms as they occur is the battle plan to fight another very rare incurable disease.

In the midst of all of this, there has certainly been much bait for depression, discouragement, frustration, anxiety…

…BUT…that is never the end of the story when Jesus is involved!

There were so many opportunities to be down in the dumps, and thus there were so many opportunities to turn away from that misery and make it a ministry–to let the difficulty and pain and trauma drive me to my Savior because I had no place else to turn. It was a choice in those moments to take my eyes off my self and my own issues and turn outward–to pour myself into other people…whether through prayer or sending a card or letting someone sit on my bed and listen to them or coming up with ways to bless other people or whatever it may be.

“Depression, discouragement, frustration, anxiety . . . [these things] are never the end of the story when Jesus is involved. There were so many opportunities to be down in the dumps, and thus there were so many opportunities to turn away from that misery and make it a ministry.”

As time has passed, the reality of what it is to live with a chronic daily debilitating disease has only become more real. More raw. More glaring. Back when it was first happening and everything was new, there wasn’t always an understanding of whether these issues were long-term or not….now there is. And I’m here to announce to the world at large that the reality and understanding of the long-term-ness of Jesus’ faithfulness has grown right along with the physical pain and progression of the disease.

There is no doubt in my mind of the goodness of God.

And I so long to let the world know of His greatness. He has turned my misery to ministry, and part of that is this website, this blog, this art, these paintings. It’s something I can do even from bed while in pain most of the time. It’s a way that I can spread beauty to those around and encourage people I come in contact with and point to Jesus–because He is worthy. And I’m so thankful. So incredibly grateful to have the humbling honor of being able to do that.

Oh, let us never gloss over the honor of bearing the name of Christ in this world!