A Not-So-Black Friday

Fitting very well into the Thanksgiving season, this Friday in our house was radiant with color.  No blackness here!  Today, for so much more than just quick moments and with very bearable pain, I was able to walk.  I was able to hold my babies.  I was able to write and paint and create.  I was able to love and serve in ways that come so naturally to me but have been outside of my reach ever since I developed CRPS.  And I could feel God's power and the prayers of His people giving me strength.  As I write, the more intense pain and fatigue have returned, but I'm still focused on what a glorious ray of hope this day has been!

While my condition has seemed to be moving rapidly on a downward spiral, my pain level earlier today was half of what it has been for the last six weeks.  The grace and power of Jesus have been so evident to us throughout my journey of wearing this life-altering disease, and today has been a beautiful and tangible example.

"..thanks be to God, Who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place," (2 Corinthians 2:14 HCSB).

CRPS is tricky when it comes to "good pain days."  Physicians advise surrendering to a moderate lifestyle, rather than pushing extra hard on the easier days, because the pushing can cause excruciating days afterwards.  This has been the first day that I have even been remotely capable of moving the way I did, and I'm going to have to learn, through trial-and-error, what "moderate" will mean for me.  I'm so thankful to have Sean by my side to figure it out with me (he would say that I tend to lean more towards the "error" than the "trial" side of things when it comes to doing anything in a moderate way).  We don't know what tomorrow looks like, but we won't waste time worrying about it.   Today, I got to use my legs.  I got to use my hands.  I am thanking God.  He is faithful no matter what the day carries.

If tomorrow comes with more physical strength, I will love and I will serve--whatever that looks like.  I will choose joy.  If tomorrow, I am in more pain and have less mobility, I will love and I will serve--whatever that looks like. I will choose joy.

To all of you who have been faithfully praying for me and for my family, thank you.  It's most certainly not in vain.  God is so good.  

"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong," (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV, emphasis mine).