Tag Archives: fibromyalgia

Living at the Intersection of Faith and Chronic Illness

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One of my best friends in the world is my guest here at Hope in the Healing today! My friend, Joy Terrell, is a survivor and you will be forever blessed by her words. She lives with chronic illness and has been a lifeline for me the past few years in dealing with fibromyalgia and my SI issues. I have quoted her famous line many times that she uses to encourage me when I think that MY ailments and struggles are not as BIG or important as hers: “Just because I have two broken legs and you only have one doesn’t mean that YOUR broken leg hurts any less.” Enjoy this real, raw and encouraging post and please share.

I live at the intersection of Faith and Chronic Illness. I have never really cared for the neighborhood; however, I do not know how to move elsewhere. I have been living here for almost 30 years, yet it has never felt comfortable, or too homey.

I was born into a family with a strong Christian heritage. My family’s religious beliefs defined so much about who we were, and still are.  Our upbringing was all about things being black or white, with no room for gray. Either you fit neatly inside our beliefs or something was wrong with your love for God.

As an adult, I have found that this seemingly simple way of approaching spiritual matters sometimes has me in a quandary.

I have been diagnosed with several autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and lupus.  These chronic, debilitating, and painful diseases have affected every facet of my life. Things are drastically different from the ideal life I had imagined. I cannot say it is all for the worse. RA and lupus have taught me enough about compassion and empathy to merit at least a Master’s degree in each!

Now, to get to the topic at hand, having a chronic disease has had a major impact on the spiritual side of my life. I really do believe in God, and in His power to miraculously heal and deliver. I also believe in His ability to walk alongside and give grace to go through the valley.

Many Christians believe that God will always come with healing or deliverance. The scripture in James even lays out a formula, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray…Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up…” (James 5:13-15, KJV.) Sounds simple enough, right?  However, why does it not always happen this way? This question has caused me a great deal of emotional stress!

Many ministers, as well as saints in the pews, have prayed for my healing. Seemingly, every revival or special service included a session of prayer for my physical needs. Nevertheless, my condition only continued to become more disabling.

Because the Bible seems clear about healing, the conclusion reached by many is that there must be something amiss in my spirit.

Living at the Intersection

Maybe I do not have faith. That assumption is quite puzzling. I think I have faith. Maybe I just need more of it. How and where is it that I get more? (They do not offer it for sale at Amazon.com!) Maybe my problem is that I am a realist. Either it truly happens, or it does not.  I have a problem understanding Sister Saint, who claims healing from her migraines only to show up at the next service wanting prayer for her migraines. What is up with that? I guess I am being transparent here. My interest is in the real deal.

Others have wondered if I just do not want healing. I must enjoy living this way. After all, I can just sit at home and draw disability. I have a great excuse to attend services at my convenience. Oh, what a life it is!

Maybe I like the attention of others. Perhaps I do not really have a disease, but am just “overly sensitive”.  I am not joking; I have actually heard it all. These kinds of reactions can really do a number on a person.  Regrettably, I have to say it is usually my fellow Christians drawing these conclusions.

This intersection of physical and spiritual matters can be an awkward place.

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In order to maintain my belief in the goodness of God and others, I have had to work through some tough questions. Why am I continually trudging through this valley?  The simple answer is, “I don’t know.”

I do know that it is NOT a punishment from God.

We are subject to diseases, bad genes, and other things because we are fallen creatures. Life is no longer a perfect paradise. I also know that through it, I have learned a great deal about others and myself. I have learned that God’s grace really is enough to get me through any given day. I can walk in the assurance that God will give the measure of strength each day requires.

Why do folks with chronic illness find themselves being the subject of some not-so-nice comments?

It is an instinct people use to insulate themselves from the reality that bad things could also happen to them.  People do not want to face the harsh truth of chronic disease. It is easier to blame and isolate the sufferer than it is to get too close to the facts. If they can ignore it, it cannot affect them.  People blessed with good health cannot begin to comprehend life on this side. It is not their fault; it just is what it is.

I feel compelled to remind all of us not to judge a situation we have never experienced.

Remember, the only people who want a truthful answer to “How are you?” are your doctor and your mother!

It is more comfortable for almost everyone else to hear, “I am fine”.  Living with chronic illness often becomes a lonely place.  Folks around you have moved on, but your reality remains.

How can I cope with all of this?  I need to know I am not alone.  There are plenty of you out there walking down a similar path. We understand each other! We know how to share compassion. We know how to listen, really listen to each other. We know how to encourage each other. We can share in the good and the bad times.

  • Being alone with thoughts is not a good plan.
  • Dwelling on what has happened, and the losses suffered, solves nothing.
  • Fretting about what might be is a waste of energy.

It is important to live in the present. It is only physically possible to get through one day at a time anyway.

It is important to continue to feel useful to others. Find someone you can help. It does not need to be some huge, difficult thing. Simply sending a card can make someone’s day.  Pay it forward in some unexpected way, like paying for someone’s order at your favorite drive thru place. These acts of kindness are a blessing to the recipient, as well as the doer. Try it!

Most importantly, I need to find a place in God that is right for me. This meeting place of faith and disease should not be a place of guilt, or blame. I have to know that God’s love and faithfulness are unconditional. (Take some time to think on that. It is almost more than I can comprehend.)

My spiritual walk is mine alone. I need to be at peace with it. God is not keeping a scorecard. There are no boxes to check off.  I am not forsaking my commitment, or leaving my spirituality to wither away. Here comes that reality thing again! I can only do what I can do. God knows the path I walk, and understands my struggles. My spirituality may look a shambles in the eyes of man, but I humbly pray that God sees me with eyes of understanding and compassion.

Be blessed today!

385665_437965479547500_1068992269_nJoy is a graduate of Purdue University School of Pharmacy. She is a licensed pharmacist, in early retirement. She is married to her favorite guy, Doug. They are “pet parents” to a golden retriever, Jack, and to Kenzi, a golden doodle. Joy has served her church family as a Sunday school teacher, church secretary/treasurer, board member, and a willing helper.

 You might also like He Heals Me, He Heals Me Not, along the same subject lines. Blessings.

Sharing with #TellHisStory

Chronic Pain, Why Me?

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I have wanted for quite some time to be able to have a place where people could find encouragement and hope along the way as they struggle with a chronic illness. I want you to share your experience and struggles with chronic pain and all that goes along with it. But yet this will not be a depressing place! We will discover insights in the Word, things that will make us stronger and may even find that what we think will be our lowest valleys will in reality be some of the most precious times in our walk with God. And we will laugh and have fun together!

“Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are.” Romans 8:18.

My first round of chronic pain started almost 20 years ago with a lot of muscle pain, especially in my hips and legs. I was only 30 years old, had just had my third little boy, Korey Ross, and was also experiencing quite a few migraine headaches. The muscle aches were getting worse in my chest and I was struggling to get deep breaths.

This went on for weeks, I had seen several doctors who had done test after test and I was getting worse all the time. My chest hurt so bad it felt like I was having a heart attack! But every test they conducted came back normal. It was so frustrating.  We finally found a specialist who diagnosed me with fibromyalgia, which was basically unheard of twenty years ago. He told me I wasn’t going into REM sleep; he definitely nailed that one for me, and put me on 10 mg of amitriptyline, only 10 mg! That night I slept ten hours without waking up at all for the first time in years and the pain in my chest was gone, as was the muscle pain! He told me that not going into REM sleep for so long was causing the muscles in my chest to contract and causing the pain in my chest to feel like I was having a heart attack.

I struggled with fibromyalgia off and on for the next few years, especially during inclement weather. It helped to stay active. But I managed to stay off of any other medication other than the amitriptyline for REM sleep. It can be so painful at times, your muscles ache so badly and some days you cannot get out of bed at all because the fatigue can be so overwhelming.

In 2004 I had a hysterectomy in Cincinnati; we were pastoring a church in that city at the time. During the surgery they dropped me; yes you read correctly, they dropped me!  They didn’t tell me right away. I went home the day after the surgery with no complications, but as soon as the morphine wore off I was in excruciating pain! I was in the ER so fast demanding they do something NOW! I didn’t wait for them to ask, “Mrs. Elkins on a scale of 1 to 10, what level would you say your pain is at?” They didn’t have a yardstick that could measure my level of pain!

First they take me back to look for kidney stones, no stones. I am in agony!! It seems like it takes hours to get the pain under control and they finally get me admitted. Sometime later my gynecologist comes to visit and delivers the news that they had dropped me during the hysterectomy and that he is sure they had injured my back and that is why I am in so much pain. What?!?!?! Friends, this is one of those “If I had known then what I know NOW…” But Christians don’t sue people, do they? Smile…it sure would help pay a stack of doctor bills today!!

That was the beginning of years of back pain for me. For the first few years it was an occasional, “Oops, my back is out.” The doctor would give me a Medrol dose pack and pain pills and that would take care of it. That would usually happen about two or three times a year up until 2009 and those stopped working for me. Things started getting worse little by little. In 2010 I was still walking three miles a day but it was getting more difficult and we were getting ready to go overseas in the fall of that year and I could tell something was just not right.

We arrived in the country of Latvia in May of 2011 for our first year-long associate in mission’s term. (See my post under Faith Journey.)We didn’t have a car the first three months so we relied on public transportation and we also wanted to experience everything we could about the culture by being out among the people. Well that really took a toll on me very quickly. It wasn’t long until all of the walking and climbing up and down the steps into the buses and down into the many tunnels had me lying flat on my back…again.219

But this time we could tell things were worse and I was having a really hard time even getting into our shower and rolling over in bed was extremely painful. Something was terribly wrong. I had a wonderful doctor in Riga, who was also the doctor at the American Embassy. She was Latvian but spoke fluent English and was very kind. She had already gotten to know me very well because I had contracted a very bad parasite about eight weeks after we had gotten there and I was so sick I couldn’t keep any food down for three weeks! I lost 15 pounds…a good thing…but not a good way to do it. So when all of this started up she sent me to a specialist and he did a series of CT scans and told me that my sacroiliac joint was disintegrating. I wasn’t familiar with the SI joint but started Googling and my symptoms were a definite match.

At Christmas time we flew home for three weeks and I made arrangements to see a doctor about getting a steroid injection in my SI joint. Unfortunately they couldn’t do it until the day BEFORE I was to fly back overseas! Our insurance declared it a pre-existing condition so this SI joint injection hit us for $4,000! It gave me about 50% relief and only lasted for three months. You don’t know until you try.

The Lord opened doors for us to be able to bring our work back to the States for a while and for me to get some doctor’s care. So the first week of April, 2012, we arrived back in Indiana and have been busy ever since traveling and sharing what God has been doing in Eastern Europe and around the world. My pain is still with me, I still cannot sleep in my bed, and I am sleeping on a memory foam topper on my couch! The softer the better, which is the opposite of the way I used to be.

My days start out slowly, a wonderful cup of mocha, my Bible, my She Reads Truth Journal, iPad and my devotions. After I finish reading I take a Percocet and lie back down on the couch to worship, and pray…just being transparent, I can pray as long as I want to on my back but wouldn’t be able to concentrate five minutes on my knees. By the time I am done praying the pain pill has kicked in enough that I can at least stand upright enough to walk and hopefully get in the shower. I share all of that to let you know I feel your pain.

I just recently saw a surgeon who was ready to schedule me for SI joint fusion surgery, to insert screws in my SI joints to fuse them back together. He was a little anxious and didn’t explain things too well, although very nice, he didn’t even examine me! My son is an RN and wanted me to get a second opinion so I did and this doctor was adamant that I not have the fusion surgery done. He thinks my problem may be my hips instead and is scheduling me for x-rays.

So chronic pain, why me? Well, why not me? We live in a real world where people get sick and people have problems and life is just life. But God has also shown me that we are much more able to help others if we have walked where they have walked. I have thankfully never had to bury one of my children so I couldn’t minister to someone who has just lost a child like another who has experienced that pain could minister to them. God uses us and works through us in unique times in our lives. We go through things for a reason, and we need to let God talk to us during those times so we can glean all we can out of what He is trying to tell us.

My heart goes out to anyone who suffers with pain on a daily basis. I know what it is like when you don’t “look sick”.  I understand how it feels when they can’t find anything wrong but the pain is so intense you can’t stop the tears from falling. The depression from being stuck inside day after day and the pressure to “Get out more, you’ll feel better!” is intense.  If they only knew how much effort it took just to run a comb through your hair! And I realize mine is minor compared to so many. But I have a very dear and close friend who suffers from lupus and RA who also reminds me, and chides me with this thought, “Just because I have two broken legs and you only have one doesn’t mean your one broken leg doesn’t hurt!” Can’t argue with that!

So we may not have all of the answers here but I am convinced there is a reason for every season in our life. I heard a message preached one time and the minister said, “Maybe the world needs to hear the wind blowing through your circumstance.”  I loved that! Maybe others need to see and hear your testimony IN your trial! You are stronger than you think you are and God will strengthen you and restore you in your valley.

“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13.

I truly believe we can glorify God through our sickness and our pain. When you hang onto somebody (Jesus) as your only Hope then you are showing that He is strong and you are dependent on Him. Then you are making Him look great! This is glorifying God! You are showing others that you rely on God for your strength and your hope in times of weakness. He IS your strength; there is nothing weak about that!

I’ve shared mine as a starter. We will give insights about what God’s Word says about where He is in our pain.  Please comment and share your story with me and we will heal together!