His Grace Is Sufficient

Twenty-twenty seems to be quite the year so far, doesn’t it?!

The world seems to be trying to open back up slowly. And now we are seeing the media flooded with more devastating news. Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd are just two sad examples.

My whole life, I saw a difference in our skin color, but it didn’t matter. To me, skin color is like hair color, or eye color. It may not be the same, but it doesn’t mean that any of them makes a human life less valuable.

Race is not something we read about in the Bible. The Bible doesn’t say “white male and white female He created them.” It simply says “male and female He created them.” It does not say “I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully and whitely made.” And it certainly doesn’t say, “Let Us create white people in our own image.”

You see, God created one race, the HUMAN race. We are all the same, but we are all different. That is part of what makes us special. The world would be incredibly boring if we were all one skin color, had the same abilities, and all had the same opinions. We were created for His glory, and we were created differently.

No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.”

P.T. Barnum

I firmly believe that all humans are created equally. I believe that human life is valuable. I believe that human life is sacred.

My black brothers and sisters, I see you. I see your color, and I see your value. I see you and I stand with you.

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

It’s almost the end of May already! That means it is almost the end of EDS awareness month. I’ve been trying to think of something to sum up EDS well, so I decided to see if I could describe EDS in one word. Here goes!

My initial thought was “terrifying.” It is absolutely terrifying. I can control nothing my body decides to do and it isn’t uncommon to have new and wonky symptoms. I know that I will live with this for the rest of my life this side of eternity, and it’s so hard. There aren’t always answers. There are so many unknowns. But it isn’t all terrifying.

My next thought was “painful.” Normally, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t face pain. Right now that pain is minimal and manageable, but it hasn’t always been. There have been many sleepless nights, many hours spent crying, many times when I wanted to give up, and many days when all I wanted to do is sleep because I couldn’t take the pain. While pain sums up a lot of EDS, it leaves out many factors, like all the incredible people who have come alongside us during the hardest times, like all the times I knew joy, comfort, hope, and peace like no other because of the hard that made me run to Christ, like all the laughter and love and just living that has taken place in these past hard years.

After going through more, like hard, frustrating, and infuriating, I finally found it:

Growing. Living with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome is growing. It’s hard, it’s scary, it’s frustrating, it’s painful, but it is changing me for the better. I have learned so much from EDS. I am still learning and growing as the Lord leads me. He is teaching me, slowly and painfully, how to look more like Him. I’m so far from where I want to be, I’m so far from where I need to be, but I’m growing.

Slowly, I am growing into who the Lord has created me to be- with EDS. So, while it is hard, it is growing me. I still don’t like EDS. I still hate the fear, pain, and frustration that are associated with living with it. But there have been so many things I have learned on this journey. I am growing.

Praise the Lord, I can look at the trail behind me, and I can see the growth. Thank you Lord for growth.

In this time of stillness, I have been doing a lot of processing. It is Ehlers Danlos Syndrome awareness month, and in this month and time where I am doing really well physically, I am pondering where the Lord has brought me from. I share a lot about EDS. From the beginning, I wanted to raise awareness for what this rare disease is really like, but as my condition worsened and I began to see how little people and the medical field knew about it, it lit a fire under me to share even more so. That is why I share these facts, all these things that I share so that maybe one more person can be helped. I want to share so that those with EDS know that they are not alone and they are not crazy. I want to share so that maybe one less person has to go through what I went through. I want to be real, but in that realness, I don’t want you to feel bad for me. I am not asking for pity. Yes, this is hard and it sucks, but I have learned more than I could ever put into words from it, and I know that I was knitted together fearfully and wonderfully by God with EDS.

A year ago, my shoulder was in its socket for the first time in six weeks and five days. Severe muscle spasms like nothing we had ever seen in my pec ripped my shoulder out of socket and held it in that position for all that time. At that point, I was no stranger to pain. My shoulder had been lax and came out of socket easily, but the spasms gave me no break. There was no relief, no break, no nothing. I had struggled with the spasms a bit before. They would pull my shoulder out, and then it would relax and drop back into socket and then pull and so on for thirty minutes or so and I would be in TONS of pain for that thirty minutes, but it always went away. Then one day, it didn’t.

I hope yall never have to experience a dislocation, but if you do, you know that pain. It is completely sickening. You know those football players that dislocate something and start rolling across the ground and screaming? That is what a dislocation feels like. Nothing else is going on, nothing matters except getting some relief. Your mind is constantly searching for a way out and you can focus on nothing. My body was doing this to itself and I had no control. My pec muscle was shaking from exhaustion, but wouldn’t let go. That is still the most terrifying feeling I know to this day.

We immediately went to a doctor asking for help. I remember sitting in that waiting room with Mama and my awesome physical therapist rocking back and forth because I couldn’t hold still for the pain. I remember thinking, hoping, and begging the Lord to have this doctor do something or know something. I remember sitting there in the room with the doctor, feeling like he wasn’t taking this seriously. I don’t think I said anything the whole time. It was all I could do to fight the pain and not be the one rolling in the floor and screaming in pain. He prescribed something and then said, “I’ll see you back in four weeks if this doesn’t work.” I remember screaming inside, “If it doesn’t work, I don’t think I can live like this for four weeks!” It didn’t work and we went back sooner because I couldn’t take it. He then suggested a motivational speaker or a psychologist and referred me to someone else.

The next doctor looked at me and said, “I have never seen anything like this.” and scratched his head. He said he wanted to help and referred me to someone else to get their approval on a treatment option. After going to the doctor he referred me to, who told me I was purposely making my pec muscle dislocate my shoulder, we called his office back. He dropped my case.

All that time I was rarely still; I couldn’t be. I cried a lot. My only relief was sleep, but it still hurt in my sleep and it was so so hard to go to sleep, but eventually, my exhaustion would usually win. I would dream that someone was stabbing my shoulder or shooting it or anything that might hurt, and it actually hurt and I often cried in my dreams.

My parents would stay up at night researching doctors or anyone who might help just so that they could tell me that they had someone to call in the morning so I would have some hope.

It was so terrifying. I was afraid of having to live like that for the rest of my life. I could barely function. I couldn’t sleep, do school, or anything I loved because my mind was so overwhelmed with processing extreme amounts of pain.

After that first appointment, I learned something: I couldn’t hope in things of this world. That sounds like such a good lesson, and it is, but it felt so ugly, so broken, and so desperate at that time. And it was until I learned to fully hope in Christ. I was still so desperate and I could often barely cope with the pain, but I knew for the first time the joy of truly hoping in Christ. Even today, I can’t say that as deeply and truly as I could then. That was something I only knew to full extent when I had no other hope.

If you saw me during that time, you probably know, I still smiled most of the time. That smile wasn’t there because I wasn’t hurting, it was there because I knew Hope, it was there because I had been so disappointed with the things of this world that I had learned of the Hope that cannot disappoint. That smile was there because I knew that Christ would not disappoint me and that He would fulfill all of His promises.

That was the beginning. It has been a hard year since then. I’ve been through a lot. That hard has been my reality often.

I have not walked into a doctor’s appointment since then hoping in that doctor, but hoping in Christ, the Hope that does not disappoint. I cannot be disappointed like I was that day. I prepare myself for the worst from that doctor and know that it will be ok because we are almost home, and this is not how it ends. The words of For King and Country from the song “Need You More” come to mind here and were often exactly how I felt and prayed.

Prepare for the worst

Hope for the best

Won’t You steady my heart

For whatever comes next?

I am not always disappointed in doctors either. I have met a couple that have changed my life, even if they couldn’t help, but because they did everything in their power to.

I still cry often, sometimes tears of pain, often tears of joy. Now my shoulder is in socket, I can walk well, and my pain is minimal. I have no doubt more hard will come. Hard comes with life and especially with EDS, but I have my family beside me, some incredible friends and church family, and the Hope that does not disappoint. He has a sovereign purpose for every ounce of pain we suffer. Knowing that does not always make the pain better, but it makes it worth it.

This my life with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and it is a beautiful, hard, and worth-it blessing.

Tonight, the words of Paul Tripp come to mind.

Suffering exposes the illusion of strength.

I find these words to be so true. Before EDS really started presenting, I wasn’t really strong, but I was sturdy. And you’d better believe I was stubborn, so I could pretty much do anything I set my mind to in a physical sense. Then my body started falling apart, and I felt so strange. I was really physically weak. At certain points in time, it took all I could do to walk through our house. I had to learn to live without the use of my right arm pretty much completely for almost two months. At that time, I couldn’t do what I needed to do, much less what I wanted to do. And it hurt. It was terrifying.

Even more terrifying than that was that my life was completely out of my control. Sure, it had always been, but it took a lot of suffering for me to realize the gravity of my dependence. I realized that my life is completely out of my control, anything can happen to turn my world upside down at any second.

Right now, the same realization holds true for much of the world. We are realizing the illusion we had that we were in control in a way like never before. We had no idea this was coming.

But God did.

He was in control before the pandemic.

He is in control in the midst of this pandemic.

Now, we must learn to lean on Him in a way that we never have before. We must realize how truly weak and dependent we are.

When I first began to grasp how weak I am and how utterly dependent I am, it felt terrible. I felt disgusting. Why? Because I like to be fiercely independent. I like to think that I can control where I go to some degree. I like to think that, if I set my mind to it, there’s nothing I can’t do. Realizing how wrong I was made me feel so small, so insignificant, and something that I despise more than both those- weak.

Then the Lord started to teach me another thing that He continues to teach me even now.

Want a hint? My blog is named after it! 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distress, with persecution, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

We all know this passage. I knew it. It always sounded so wonderful and strong and even glorious when I read it in the Bible. Then, when it was me realizing how weak I was, it was something different. Weakness feels like something to be ashamed of. I certainly never want to boast about the fact that there have been days when I slept every second I possibly could just to cope with the pain, or that I needed braces to hold me together, or that, after surgery, I used a walker and couldn’t even put my pants on myself.

But Paul isn’t boasting about the fact that he couldn’t dress himself, He was boasting in the strength of His God.

There is something beautiful and glorious about realizing just how utterly weak you are when you can give yourself to the strong, sovereign Lord. It is in weakness that we realize His strength. In surrender, we find Hope.

My weakness went from disgusting and heart-breaking to something the Lord could use and make beautiful.

These times are scary. It isn’t easy to realize our dependence. But I encourage you to ponder it tonight in light of His sufficient grace. Give up control.

Let’s boast in the strength and sovereignty of God in and despite our weakness.

P.S. I also highly recommend Suffering by Paul Tripp. It is where I got that quote. It is a really incredible book!

I am writing from my happy place- the goat pen! I am surrounded by goats, big and little, and enjoying every second of it. I love their sounds, their attitudes, their love, and almost even their smell (not because they smell good, but because their smell is familiar). The sun is setting, the moon is rising, and there is the sound of a John Deere tractor bush hogging in the distance- pretty much a farm girl’s fairy tale! Of course, there are some, less fairy-tale-like elements, like the fact that one of them is trying to eat my hair and another is stepping on my bible, but, I’m not complaining!

Out here, everything seems so much easier. I can see God’s goodness all around me, and my fears and worries seem less pressing when I am laughing at a baby goat. From here, the world is a distant place. But I know that soon this peaceful silence will be broken, and life will go on. And life isn’t like a goat pen, where their biggest concern is with how much food they can inhale at once. 🙂 It is hard and scary. It seems as if there is always something someone is facing that breaks my heart. While life is hard, scary, and even heartbreaking, it is also beautiful.

When we suffer, when life gets hard, and we are brought to an all-time low, I think Satan likes to have a thought ready for us. Why would God let such bad things happen? How can His plans be good in this?

Though I never really wavered from the fact that God is good, in my suffering, this thought sometimes crept in. It is hard to fight the devil when you are lying awake at night in pain. It led me on a quest to search for the answer to those questions that crept in. Here are my thoughts:

I love pondering God’s will. We know that the Bible says that God is good, sovereign and faithful., and Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.'”

That’s part of the answer.

Because God is truly good, and He loves us, “He works all things together for the good of those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28) But, His ways are not our ways- they are better and higher than ours. In His sovereignty, He sees and knows things that we can’t. So even in those sleepless nights, He is working for our good and His glory, even though we can’t see it. Those sleepless nights have a purpose, that pain, that suffering, that sorrow, it all has a purpose, but one too high for our human minds to comprehend.

Repeatedly throughout the Bible, the Lord talks about His glory. As Christians, ones who are “called according to His purpose,” we are commanded to do all things for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). So there is the rest of the answer. When we suffer well, when we hang on to His truths, trust in Him, and give thanks in all circumstances, He is glorified in our suffering.

In fact, the trouble that you endure has a purpose: in it you are displaying the reality of Jesus to the world in a unique way. The kingdom of God is most clearly shown on earth when Christians gratefully suffer present trouble because they see a future weight of glory coming that makes everything this world throws at them as ‘light momentary afflictions’ in comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Jon Bloom, a Solid Joys daily devotional

Recap- why does a good God let ‘bad’ things happen? For our good and His glory. Because His ways are higher than our ways, and He can see what is good for us better than we can. In the same way that a parent knows what’s best for their child better than the child does, so our heavenly Father knows what is best for His children.

Our heavenly Father is so good, and it is a blessing to glorify my Creator in suffering.