Strength from Thorns

I don’t want this anymore.

I am having a weak moment, and I’m choosing to be raw and real about it.

So just let me be vulnerable in my weakness and please don’t hold it against me when I feel better because I’m not always strong. I don’t always hold it together well.

Some moments I am full of faith and fight. Other moments I am tired, discouraged, and undone. I am learning that I don’t need to be strong all the time and crying is not a sign of weak faith.

The Bible says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

So maybe this in this moment the tears, the frustration, the unraveling — isn’t proof that I’m failing. Maybe it’s the very place where God’s strength meets me most. Even if I don’t feel that way.

If you see me strong tomorrow, just know I was on my knees today. If you see me smiling later, just know I wrestled through the night.

I am learning that weakness doesn’t disqualify me from being used by God but in fact it positions me to depend on Him.

I sometimes feel like a prisoner to my own body… and to these walls. Ive been here before.

In 2019, during my Graves’ disease flare, my world got very small. When it finally went into remission after years of suffering, you would think relief would be the only emotion left. But it wasn’t. I became a nervous wreck constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Afraid that one stressful moment, one virus, one trigger would set it off again.

It felt like a ticking time bomb inside of me.

Doctors told me I had PTSD from being chronically ill. And honestly? That made sense. When your body betrays you long enough, you stop trusting it. And now… here I am again. This time it’s a neuroimmune illness,MECFS but I will do another post when I process this diagnosis better.

I’m now unable to do the simplest thing like sweeping the floor or washing dishes without triggering my arms and legs to go numb.

They call it Post-Exertional Malaise. PEM.

A sterile definition for a brutal reality: severe, worsening of symptoms -crushing fatigue, pain, cognitive dysfunction after even minor physical or mental effort.

Meaning the more I move… the worse it gets.

So I lay here. My mind wants to go but my body won’t.

And when the body is forced to be still, the mind can get loud. I sometimes feel trapped in my own thoughts. The mind is definitely a battlefield.

Are my kids going to resent having a sick Mom?

Will I ever be able to go back to Disney?

Will I be able to see Phil Wickham next month?

Will I make it to one of my kids’ lacrosse games? My daughter is playing right now… and I’m missing it. What about summer lacrosse?
The Morgan Wallen concert in June?

I truly don’t know.

That’s the hardest part — the not knowing. Having multiple diseases have taken so much from me. From my family. I just want to be the best Mom and I feel I’m failing because I’m not there. Things that once felt small now feel impossible.

I hear it in my own voice — how it shifts from strong to weak. My clothes hang off my waist as I force myself to eat. I used to never leave the house without makeup. Now I’m just grateful to feel well enough to drive to the school and back in my pajamas.

The grief is layered.

The guilt of what you used to be able to do.
The ache of who you used to be.
Even mourning what you used to look like.

July 2025 changed me. I didn’t know it then, I thought it was just something random would go away in a few weeks, never imagined I’d have a neurological condition. You never think it will be you. Don’t take your health for granted every day you can feel your body is a GREAT DAY!!!!!

The person I was before that month is gone.

And that realization feels heavy.

But here’s what I am slowly learning in the middle of this unraveling:

God uses everything and none of this will go to waste. He will use it ALL and turn it for good.

Even when I don’t recognize myself… He still does.
Even when I feel like I’ve lost pieces of who I was… He is still forming who I am becoming.

I don’t know if I’ll make it to Disney but I will celebrate there when I am stable!!!!
I don’t know if I’ll sit at that concert in June.
I don’t know how many games I’ll have to watch through videos instead of from the sidelines.

But I do know this:

The same God who carried me through Graves’ disease will carry me through this.

I may not be the woman I was.

But I am not without hope💜

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