Acceptance. Surrender. Gratitude. Joy.
These words have been circling in my thoughts over the last 3 months. Circling with no place to land inside my head. No place inside my mind that I’ve been willing to open up for them.
I’ve been too angry. Angry. Frustrated. Exhausted. Weary.
These words – acceptance, surrender, gratitude and joy – have surfaced from the deep places in my heart. These words were at the center of the transformation I’d experienced in my road to recovery 5 years ago. These words were what I’d re-built my whole life around while I was finding a mentally, emotionally, spiritually & physically healthier version of me.
I’ve let these words slip away. They’ve been replaced with angry, frustrated, exhausted and weary.
I loved the life I had found on the journey I started 5 years ago. The discoveries I was making about myself. The things I was learning and unlearning. Not just about me but also about God and my relationship with Him. I discovered that I’d been living a life driven by shame. I learned that the voice of shame sounds nothing like God’s voice when you clear away years of churchy judgement and expectations that were never about God to begin with. I learned about the kindness of God. That He actually thought I was deserving of His grace and His love.
I learned that I was enough. I was seen and heard. That I mattered. I had purpose.
I’ve let that slip away, too.
Over the last 2 years, I’ve been dealing with a condition called disembarkment syndrome or MdDS that was triggered by a flight to Charleston, SC and a boat ride that we took while on that trip in October 2021. Among other things, this condition causes a person to feel like they’re in constant motion with a rocking/swaying sensation 24 hours a day. I’ve tried all kinds of things to be rid of this but it appears that this debilitating condition will be here to stay.
Most of 2022 and the first part of this year, my symptoms were low level but still being triggered every day causing me to deal with extreme fatigue, brain fog and instability with my balance. I was grateful to not have the sensation of constant motion to deal with anymore but was still battling depression for how this condition had completely derailed my life. However, I was starting to come to a place of acceptance. Thinking this is my life now and asking God how to deal with the reality of that. A step towards surrender.
3 months ago, my symptoms randomly spiked to the highest they’ve been since the initial onset in 2021. The constant feeling of rocking/swaying was back. Most days I could barely function. Could hardly walk just from one room to the next in my house. Couldn’t drive. Could barely think and while there’s been some improvement over the last 3 months, it’s still with me. I feel like I’m in a boat rocking back and forth even as I’m writing this.
The step towards surrender that I was approaching 3 months ago made a U-turn directly back to angry, frustrated, exhausted and weary.
I’ve said it many times over the last 3 months to anyone who’s cared enough to listen:
I know God has a plan and a purpose for my life. I know His ways aren’t my ways. I know He can use my story and my struggle to help encourage someone else. I know He’s working in my life in ways that I can’t see.
I know all those things to be true.
But He could fix this. He could take this away. He could heal me. He could change this.
And He hasn’t.
I know that He’s still kind. He’s still a good God. He’s still loving and compassionate.
I know all those things to be true.
But this is not the life I want. This is not the life I asked for and it’s rocked my faith in a big way. I said these exact same things in a blog post about a year ago and here I am. Still facing the same struggle with no new thoughts and no obvious way forward.
I don’t like the person I’ve become in having to deal with this condition. This is not the me I want to be. This is not the me that I was becoming.
And I miss the me that I was. The me that was growing and flourishing. The me that didn’t have to be consumed with just trying to get through the day. The me that could just get up and go for a walk. The me that could go on trips with my family without worrying about how miserable I’d be the whole time. The me that was the kind of wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend that I wanted to be.
Not this shell of myself that I am today. And what was the point of becoming a healthier version of myself only to have her disappear in the struggle?
So all the things that I know to be true about God feel like a drop in the bucket of despair and hopelessness I’ve been carrying with me.
The question I’ve been asking myself lately is – where do I go from here?
If this never changes, if this condition never goes away, how do I want to live my life?
If I have to live a life I didn’t ask for, what do I want that life to look like?
Acceptance. Surrender. Gratitude. Joy.
Acceptance. That God could change it if He chose but He’s chosen not to.
Surrender. That I choose to let go of my desire for a life free of struggle, where I get everything I ask for and have no reason to rely on God.
Gratitude. That God already knows the battle inside me to give this over to Him. He sees my anger and frustration and still He loves me. He sees my exhaustion and weariness and has carried me through every single day.
Joy. That doesn’t seem to existent at the moment but there’s hope that joy still comes in the morning.
I can add that to the list of things that I know to be true as well.
The growing and flourishing version of me has written so many things about wanting God to take me to a place of deeper surrender. And asked God so many times to take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.
This is not the path I thought I’d have to walk to get there but here I am and knowing that God rarely leads us anywhere expected, why would I be surprised?
What I also know to be true is that God doesn’t lead us down a path just to leave us on our own.
It has felt like that for me in the darkness of wrestling with the anger, frustration, exhaustion and weariness. Eyes shut tight to what I know to be true.
But finally choosing to open my eyes, I see that the me I was becoming is still part of the me I am today. She may have been lost for a time but she is not gone. And is it possible that the me I am today is still here, still hanging on, still surviving, not giving up (at least a little bit) because of the work I did on the me I was becoming?
I can see now that this path I’m on is just leading to more learning, unlearning and re-learning. Lessons I might not have been able to learn if I wasn’t struggling every day with this condition. Lessons that lead to the deeper surrender I’ve previously asked for.
And so, if this never changes and if I have to continue living a life I didn’t ask for, what do I want this life to look like?
Acceptance. Surrender. Gratitude. Joy.
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Shining His Light 