Supporting the chronically ill, living life and finding hope
April is done and dusted. What did you get up to? I read several interesting posts – on topics ranging from the difficulty of waiting, what to do when you are not healthy enough to read the Bible, and the unexpected blessings of a mangled toenail!
Let me know what you think!
Who doesn’t like to receive answers or healing straight away? Yet so often we are forced to wait. And waiting is hard. This post reminded me:
https://www.biblicalcounselingcenter.org/why-do-we-have-to-wait/ Continue reading “What I’ve been reading April 2018 (and what you’ve been reading too!)”
Why am I sick?
Will I ever get better?
What am I supposed to be doing with my life?
It can take courage to ask these questions. But sometimes, it can take even more courage to answer them.
Today’s post is the first in a series of articles called ‘Talking about Suffering’…
Figuring out the truths about illness, suffering and the big problems of life is difficult.
It’s a different sort of hard when you are not sick yourself. How often do you feel helpless in the face of such questions? How often do you feel ill-equipped to answer your sick friend’s frustrations?
Even if you ‘know’ the right response (whether that’s an answer, rebuke or piece of advice) you might not know ‘how’ to say it.
Is this you? It’s often me!
Continue reading “Talking about suffering: Why pure motives don’t always make things right”
Something exciting has happened.
Indeed, it happened a while ago, but this seems as good a time as any to announce it!
There’s an organisation called Chronic Joy.
Continue reading “Can Joy be ‘chronic’ too? (I’m a resource!)”
How’s your mum? How’s your sister?’
These are questions I get a lot. They’re great questions. They mean people are thinking about my sick family members, and it shows that the people around me understand that their illnesses are a rather large part of my life.
Most of the time I appreciate the time taken to ask a question like this, and the implied preparedness of the Asker to listen to a ‘deep’ response.
The other week though, I got asked this question twice, and each time it left me feeling guilty.
I bumped into my landlady as I was leaving my house, and she stopped me with a smile, and asked, ‘How is your mum going? And your sister’s health – how is it?’
I smiled in reply – and then froze.
“You are not your illness.”
You don’t have to say it aloud. I’ve read it in your sighs, your looks, your actions.
The confession.
The apology.
My sickness has damaged the happiness of my child.
I, who brought them into the world, who had all these plans, these hopes – have been able to do one percent of all I dreamed.
I wasn’t the one to bake with them, to take them to the beach, to bushwalk, to laugh – someone else did these things, and sometimes, no one did them.
A
m I a failure?
Continue reading “A letter to the parents who are chronically ill (You are not a failure)”
The Bible has some pretty in-your-face things to say about prayer and healing. Jesus, as He walked on this earth prayed some big prayers.
But where do these truths fit in my life when my loved ones are not healed however much I pray?
I’m continuing my mission to make the resources on this website easier to find – so here is my second ’round up’ of prayer related posts. The first post included the articles:
Prayer + Chronic Illness = ? (or why we need to make up our minds about prayer)
and
Why you should pray for healing in Chronic Illness (and 3 reasons why it is so hard)
As I watch people in my life suffer yet cling to the knowledge that I serve a good God, I have struggled with the Bible’s teachings on prayer. I used to read the verses which seemed to promise immediate physical healing with great cynicism.
At last I decided it was time for me to look into them properly, and I was somewhat surprised at what I discovered when I left my pride and preconceived ideas at the door.
It’s all very well for me to know that I OUGHT to pray – but how do I really go about praying for someone with an ‘incurable’ disease? I decided to look at the sort of prayers Jesus prayed – and also whether or not they were answered..
// What sort of struggles have you had with the idea of prayer? I’d love to hear about them!
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Most of us know someone who struggles with their health. Perhaps they’ve been diagnosed with a physical chronic illness, or they struggle daily with their mental health. As their friend, we seek to love and serve them in their suffering.
But how often do we remember their children?
What about the children with chronically ill parents?
Helen recently shared her story of caring for her chronically ill daughter – and now it’s time to think about what it’s like when the situation is reversed…
READ MORE (first published on the Glorious Table as a guest post)
[Don’t have time to read right now? Pin for later!:]
//Do you know what it’s like to be a child of a chronically ill parent? If so, I’d love to hear your story!
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I’m also on Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter! Meet me there for more interesting reads, resources and community.
They say you never stop learning. Though sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what you’re learning while you’re learning it!
Often I come away from a season in my life with the sense that I’ve just learned something: that my character has been shaped, that my knowledge has grown… but am unable to put into words exactly what.
That’s why I Iove reflection. Over the last few months there’s been an increasing pressure on my soul because I learnt something in 2017 that is important, and I don’t want it to dissipate as the calendar flips over.
Instead I want to cradle this truth close as I march out into 2018. So here’s my attempt to put it down in letters on a white screen, so that the lesson might be worth the learning.
//What about you? What did 2017 teach your heart?
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What I’ve learnt from blogging about chronic illness on Called to Watch
At the moment, even as I’m preparing to look forward to Christmas, 2018, and the future – I’m also looking back.
Blogging over the past year has taught me that Watching is a ‘thing’. By this, I mean, loving someone with a chronic illness is a state of being worth talking about. It’s a relationship worth sharing.
It’s actually an important part of who I am – just as it’s a crucial element to who a lot of people are!
Continue reading “Why my blog will never go viral (reflecting on 2017 as a Watcher)”
As the shops get busier and my drive home after a late night shift becomes increasingly well-lit thanks to the current Christmas light epidemic, I’ve decided to introduce a new blog ‘series’.
Many of my posts are either ‘answers’ or ‘explanations’ relating to the difficulties and loneliness-es of loving someone with a chronic illness.
I’ve never proposed to have the ‘only-exclusively-right’ answers to every situation of course. (Unless the Answer is Jesus, in which case I do!) But I write what I’ve learnt and I describe what’s encouraged me.
But for a while now I’ve been nursing a fear that perhaps these posts are portraying me unrealistically.
Eight hundred polished words are not the same as a polished life.
Continue reading “The gift that wasn’t for her (LTCI #1)”
