When you live with chronic illness, you walk in a deep, dark valley. My valley was sponsored by mold toxicity. In the valley, my path felt never-ending. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. I couldn’t make sense of my symptoms. There was so much unknown. So much fear. From the valley, I cried out to God. I turned to him again and again. Sometimes, I felt like he wasn’t there. Or that he didn’t see me. But I continued to ask him for help. I continued to pray for healing. I spent five years in that valley. From the other side, on the mountain top, my life looks a lot different. This is what I’ve learned from my life after chronic illness.
MY PHYSICAL RECOVERY FROM CHRONIC ILLNESS
You can read about my experience with mold toxicity here. My list of symptoms included fatigue, brain fog, infertility, blurred vision, frequent headaches, weight gain, anxiety, hair loss, joint pain, muscle pain, dizziness, sensitivity to light, elevated liver enzymes, word finding difficulty, short term memory loss, difficulty concentrating and making decisions, multiple chemical sensitivities, and mast cell activation syndrome. By the time we found the mold, my most severe symptoms involved my gut health. I had consistent abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and bleeding.
We lived in the moldy environment for five years. After leaving the house, it took me a full two years to recover from the symptoms listed above. During that time, I used biofilm-busting supplements, binders, and targeted minerals to nourish my body. I also used IGG powder, prebiotics, and probiotics to repair and improve the health of my gut lining. Even with all of that, I could only get my body back to 80% or so. The Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) got me from 80% to 100%. The healing solution was not just in my body, but in my mind and my thoughts. You can read about my experience with DNRS here and here.
This was my valley. Thanks be to God, I made it through.
HOW SOON WE FORGET
I have so many time commitments this year. Some are choices that I’ve made because of personal preference or personal desires. (I’m a stay-at-home spouse who cooks and cleans and manage the finances. I homeschool my fifth grader and coach his robotics team. I write for this website and two others. I’m working on two separate book manuscripts.) Some choices I made for more immediate income. (I teach Personal Finance, Creative Writing, and Book Club at my son’s homeschool co-op. I privately teach or tutor Pre-Algebra, Algebra II, Eighth Grade English Language Arts, and High School Writing.) For whatever it’s worth, this list of responsibilities had me feeling overwhelmed recently. Even though I chose these things, even though I want them, I felt burdened by them. But in my moment of impending defeat, I remembered something important. Something I had forgotten. Seven years ago, I was struggling to cook and clean and keep up with the bills. Every day was a deep, dark valley. Aside from the housework, I had one ball in the air. One thing that mattered. I was in search of healing.
Isn’t it funny how quickly we forget a struggle once we’ve made it to the other side? We block out the pain we endured. We fail to remember the journey that got us to the mountain top.
How soon we forget.
WHEN COMFORT BECOMES NORMAL
For many years, I struggled to complete ordinary daily tasks. I remember being unable to hold a hair drier. My arms lacked the strength needed to dry my hair. I remember walking through Trader Joe’s with my father-in-law by my side. I wanted to do my grocery shopping independently, but I had to use the shopping cart like a walker. My legs were not stable enough to step away from it. I remember sitting through church when everyone else stood for the gospel reading or a hymn. I was too weak to stand alone.
In that time, when I was so helpless, I remember praying to God. I constantly asked him for strength. I asked him for guidance. For direction. I asked him to help me find the right doctors. The right path to healing. I was in constant contact with my Heavenly Father. I’m going to be honest and say that this has waned as I’ve healed. When comfort becomes normal, I think it’s easy for us to run through such normalcy without a thought for where we’ve been. It feels so good to stand and move forward, that we forget the valley we traveled to get there. We forget the prayer, the relationship, that brought us to this point of healing.
Maybe I’m overgeneralizing this experience. This is what I’m feeling now. My comfort has become normal, and instead of rejoicing for the things that my body and mind can do, I’ve resorted to complaining. It’s too much. Too heavy. Too overwhelming.
Why are we wired this way?
WE ARE SLAVES TO COMFORT
In so many ways, comfort feels like freedom. When I’m comfortable and healthy, I don’t have to think about the energy needed to dry my hair. I don’t have to lean on a shopping cart while at the store. I stand in church to hear God’s word, sing, and receive forgiveness. I’m free from the pain and fear and weakness that once kept me down. But in another sense, comfort is my master. It keeps me from seeking my Father in moments of need, because I have less need. I lean on this sense of comfort rather than God. I become so complacent in my comfort that I complain about my blessings. I’m not the only one.
In the Bible, we see the Israelites do the exact same thing. God sends Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery. Families who have only known slavery, never freedom, leave Egypt and follow God’s cloud into the desert. They’re free. Completely free. God miraculously feeds them every day. He provides water in the desert. They should be comfortable. They are cared for. Their primary obstacle, the affliction they’ve carried for generations, has been lifted. But even in this freedom, they complain. They focus on the part that feels hard. They focus on the heavy. The overwhelm. Their comfort becomes their master. So much so, that they dream of their Egyptian masters and crave the “comfort” they felt in actual slavery.
HILLS AND VALLEYS
My favorite song during my years of illness was “Hills and Valleys” by Tauren Wells. One part goes like this:
On the mountains, I will bow my life to the One who set me there.
In the valleys, I will lift my eyes to One who sees me there.
When I’m standing on the mountain, I didn’t get there on my own.
When I’m walking through the valley, I know that I am not alone.
I think it’s sometimes easier to turn to God in the valleys. It might be hard to see him there. We might feel alone. But we turn to him. We ask for help. We cry out. On the mountains, I think it’s harder to bow to the one who set us there. I think it’s hard because the view is nice from the mountain top. We can see clearly. The path ahead is visible. Unobscured. We just forget. We forget to bow to the one who set us there. Comfort becomes our master. It demands our attention. Comfort is busy. It’s scheduled. There’s routine. We forget to bow. Or pray. We forget that our mountain top is a blessing. Our schedule is a blessing. Our busy routine is a blessing.
My prayer tonight, is that even from the mountain tops, we might each look out at the view, and thank God for the journey. My prayer is that we might continue the conversation. Strengthen the relationship. May we continually thank God, that for a little while, maybe for a long while, there are no valleys in sight.
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