Where the Rubber Meets the Road

So, things have developed quite a bit. I saw a specialist at Vanderbilt. I got a diagnosis of conversion disorder. If you would like to learn more about this you can follow the link: http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/TOPIC112.HTM to read up on it. Basically it is a psychological disorder with physical symptoms. The good news is that I don't need to be on medication. The bad news is that until the psychological issue is resolved there is nothing that can be done about the episodes. I have had an episode each week through all of October and now in November. I had a small episode this morning. It has been hard lately. I have been battling depression which has caused increasingly intense pain and fatigue. It is a daily battle to decide whether or not to get out of bed in the mornings. Some days it just doesn't seem worth it to do anything. Still, through all this the Lord has been faithful. He has provided timely emails from friends when I needed truth the most. The hardest thing lately is that I have been withdrawing from activities and even just hanging out. I just don't have a desire to hang out with people. Every time I hang out with people the entire conversation is about what is going on with me. I know that people are trying to care for me and want to know specific ways to pray for me, but it is causing me to dwell on what is going on. I do that well enough on my own. The Lord has been teaching me that if I dwell on what is happening I will fall into depression and lose hope. I have to lift my gaze above what is happening and look to Christ and what he is doing for me and how he is caring for me through this. When I focus on Christ I remember that my greatest need is met. I am saved. Sin, my greatest enemy has been defeated. Even if this is something I struggle with for the rest of this mortal life I have eternity in the presence of Christ with a perfect body to look forward to. It is just easy to say you are going to focus on Christ and hard to actually do it. When your circumstances loom over you and seem to be in control it is hard to have faith to look above them. But when we do it is only because of the grace of Christ. It brings him glory when we look above our circumstances. He is sovereign over our lives and he will not give us more than we can bear. We must have faith in that. That is why we have trials. Our faith is tested. Untested faith means very little. But if we can come out the other side of the trials with our faith intact that faith is pleasing to the Lord. This life was never promised to be easy, but if our hope is in Christ the problems in our lives will not seem in control. That doesn't mean that we won't struggle in trials or give in to our anxieties when we are saved. But it means that we serve a faithful God who will enable us to fight the anxiety and overcome it sometimes by his grace. That is what keeps us going and that is our hope.