LET MY WORDS BE FEW

 Is Facebook really just FakeBook?

Is it only the highlight reels, never the reels in between?

I’ve always been an OpenBook—to a point. You probably fall somewhere in between these categories.

One consistent theme of my life is this: Will I fear God and not man when I tell my story? Will I be real with my life and share both the “bad” parts as well as the “good”? After all, it’s all good, eventually when God is working it all together. 

What does someone’s opinion of you or me really matter about our reality?

Will I tell my story as it unfolds and remember, “It’s really not about me,” but about how good and faithful HE has been in it and through it?

Recently, I shared a celebration post about being undiagnosed with many diseases after 20 years. You know, the good reel!

I’m so grateful.

But after a long season without a flare, diverticulitis returned with a serious attack. I’m now home on bed rest, recovering from serious complications and waiting for healing. 

Warning sidebar: DO NOT EAT PEANUTS WITH THE SQUIRRELS 🐿️ 

All jokes aside, it has been difficult, but I am so grateful not to be managing eight other health issues at the same time. And I serve a Great Physician, so I continue to believe there is always hope for miracles.

Why share this deeply personal part of my story?

Because someone else needs hope. Someone else needs to know they are not alone in their daily battles.

WE ALL HAVE TRIALS TO BATTLE

Our lives are books still being written. Every page is a new day in a chapter that matters. I’m learning again that difficult pages refine us and reveal us. They show what we truly believe about God—not merely what we say when life is easy.

Do I still believe He is good when I don’t understand? Yes. I do.

Am I ashamed to share the downs of my life? Not at all.  Shame had no place in my story.  Unexplained Illness is not something you or I have chosen nor willfully caused.  There is nothing to be ashamed of.  It just is.  For a season.  

I know how my story ends.

It’s a good ending—a place of peace and abiding health. A brand-new, glorified body where pain and sorrow will never touch me again.

But this is now and the story isn’t done.

We all have a story—a book with many pages and chapter titles. Hills and valleys. A beginning and an end.

Whatever page you or I are living today, it is only a page. Maybe a chapter.

So we hold firm in our hope. For me, HOPE IS A CONFIDENT EXPECTATION THAT GOD IS GOOD.  No. Matter. What.  In every circumstance.  

What feels enormous today is but a grain of sand on the shore of eternity. A “temporary” affliction, disappointment, heartache, trial. 

The chapter will turn.

Joy will come in the morning.  

The story is not finished. 

Yet.  

Our days are numbered, every last one of them.  But the good news, is He knows our frame, never leaves us in the process of life, always watching and refining us and never allowing it to destroy us but rather to make us more closely into His image. 

We fight a good fight of faith in 

the Author who is Love. My prayer for each of us is to persevere in trials and to have the Prince of Peace within us and to keep us.  

The highlight reel may or may not come sooner than later but 

THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE.  I WILL REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT.  

Love y’all 💛