Wise words for today...

"At some point, I learned to happen to my days rather than letting my days happen to me."  Ruth Stricker.  As Ruth also said, I will choose this attitude today, "I consider myself a well person in a diseased body.  I could have let myself become a victim...but I am not a victim."
~At


For more of Ruth's story: http://lupusnews.ecndigitaledition.com/magazine.aspx

A Choice to Dance

The choice is clear but so hard to see.  In the midst of a very hard week, I have not seen the choices in front of me.  The fog of shock, fear, and utter frustration have made it difficult for me to see that my journey  involves a choice each day.  Each day as we journey through good and bad or easy and difficult, there is a choice.  Most of us will choose to dance but first we have to see that there is a  choice  to be made.  A choice to believe in hope, to have faith in the unseen.  We have to make a choice to persevere in joy or to mourn in sadness or defeat.  Regardless of how out of control life is, each day has a choice!   

Today I chose to make it through today, not worrying about tomorrow but to have hope that I can do it.  I did not start the day with this attitude but it came just in time.  I chose to look up today when life had me down.   I can live with a chronic disease that has stolen so many hopes and dreams.  I can do it because I know it has given me more insight and empathy into the difficulties of life and to see how hope grows from suffering.  Nothing is harder than living with a disease that continually challenges every day living in ways that are often invisible to those around me but I choose to dance.  I am choosing not to fight it but to dance- at times the dance is a gentle ballet and at other times it is a fighting tango.   I am choosing to live being okay with chronic disease because any other choice would be one of defeat.  Defeat does not allow us to journey for today.  This week I felt defeated- I became idol.  I am choosing to dance.  I am choosing to move with my body- I will move as slow as it needs to go but I will keep moving.  I will keep dancing.  

I cannot make choices for tomorrow because there are enough choices to make in each moment of today.  Today I choose to be okay with my feelings of shock.  I choose to be okay with frustration.  I choose to be okay with these things because I know it is just today and tomorrow I will have the strength to be stronger.  I have been given what I need for today- I can be as strong as I need to be today, and tomorrow I will be given a new strength.  I cannot control my disease but I can control my choice to persevere.  I can choose to be strong when my body is weak.  I can choose to dance. 

Choose strength.  Dance your journey today.  ~AT

P.S.  For those of you who are curious what my burdens have been this week that inspire this post:  About 3 weeks ago I started to develop a very painful rash.  The rash led to inflammation in my hands and elbows, which caused my fingers to curl up and tingling from my elbow through finger tips.  Throbbing pain!  I have had a lot of fatigue in addition to migraines and a lot of dryness in my eyes and mouth.  I also believe I had a seizure this week.  The inflammation in my hands led to a biopsy, which shows a rare inflammatory process of cells invading healthy tissue that causes degeneration and atrophy.  It is consistent with myositis or lupus. I usually do not share  a lot about my physical problems on this blog but perhaps that helps clarify my predicament of having to choose.  I spent much of the week feeling emotionally numb. In a sense my spirit had given up.  Today, I was reminded that I CAN DO THIS.  I have been given the strength I need to get through today.  I cannot control the test results and more frustrating, I cannot control when nor how my symptoms will progress.  I cannot control this pain-- I don't know how much longer this flare-up will last or what else it will stop me from doing.  BUT I have chosen to share my emotions with those I love.  I have chosen to take control over what I can control--- which is surrendering all to draw strength from my Lord Jesus.  In tears he lifted and filled me.  With Love, Anna