Too Stressed to be Blessed?

Have you ever heard the phrase "Too Blessed to be Stressed"?  I heard this the other day and wondered about how many times we have taken this and turned it into "Too Stressed to be Blessed".   We fly through life trying to be super-mom, super-wife and super-friend.  We allow ourselves to be pulled further and further away from God and the blessings that He wants to give or already has given to us.  We are too stressed with trying to control things and get everything we think should be done before the sun goes down that we do not take the time to stop and count the blessings we already have.  Sometimes our blessings are with held because we are too stressed running around holding on to things and not allowing God to take the burdens off of us.
I encourage you to not be too stressed to be blessed but to really focus on the blessings you have in life.  I am starting a Blessings Journal.  Daily I will write blessings in my life.  Depending on where you are at in your life it might be hard at first to come up with things but the more you do it the more your eyes are opened to the blessings.  This is going to be my focus this year.
My first entry will be the blessing of my salvation!

Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Weary

Isaiah 40:29-31- He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.     

Have you ever been weary?  I had a bit of a melt-down this morning when waking up to get my kids ready for and to school.  By melt-down, I don't mean yelling and screaming but by bursting into tears. The last week has been very difficult because I have been tending to three sick people in my household plus trying to sanitize everything to keep myself, as well as my youngest, from getting the flu.  My body has become more and more worn down with each passing day.  The pain has gotten greater and greater as well.  It is all you can do to just hold on to God's strength to get you through the day.
     My Lyme disease makes normal life difficult so you throw on extra demands and you have an all out disaster.  This next week is not going to be easy.  I had Valentine's to get ready for my youngest son's class and all this week is teacher appreciation week so every day there is something different all three of my boys must get and do for two teachers each.  I host Bunko in my house tomorrow night and I did not have a chance to get all the prizes for it till today.  Then this week we are having Missions Conference in our church.  We are hosting a family of six at our house for 5 to 6 days.  Lastly my middle sons birthday is Friday and I need to get his gifts and make sure I get the cake and such to celebrate for that.  Needless to say this is a very hard week and I have a lot on me.  When I woke up my body was just screaming at me from pain and pure exhaustion.  I got up and as I tried to put on my make up, I just burst into tears.  
     I cried out to God to help me just get through this week...none-the-less the day.  Trying to thank Him by faith for the disease that wracks my body daily and makes things extra hard.  I have learned very early in my walk with God that three things that help one get over the pity party is to one, thank God by thank for whatever the struggle is and two, reach out to others and three, counting the blessing I have.  There have been times in my life that I have started a "Thankful Journal".  I will write down things that I am thankful for.  At first it might be hard to come up with many things but the more you dwell on the good, the more good you see you have.  
     After my little melt down the Lord got me through the next couple hours to where I could at least press onward for the day and week ahead of me.
  

Kids minds

Today I helped a friend who is a director of a Mother's Day Out program at our church.  She had two teachers call in sick.  I volunteered to help as they were having their Valentine's Day parties today.  Yes, I am crazy.  I helped out in the four year old class.  It was very entertaining to see how the kids interacted with each other as well as with me.  I had one four year old ask me something that had me trying to not laugh.  You see I am what you would call blessed in the upper region of my body.  It is kind of hard to not notice.  This little boy comes over to me and points to my chest and proceeds to ask me why I have a very large stomach.  lol!  It was all I could do to not laugh.  I am not going to be the one to give him an anatomy lesson that that is not my stomach and my stomach is fairly flat, thank you very much.  That gave me my laugh for the day.  Got to love the thinking of little kids.  

Living with a twist of Lyme

     I have had health problems for most of my life but never knew what was causing them.  Had migraines and low energy among other things since I was around 7 years old.  I always just thought I was a sickly child and wondered what was wrong with me.  I am a pastor's daughter which added to everything in that you always have that feeling of "living in a glass house".  I learned quickly to buck up and put on a front that everything was fine when it was far from the truth.  I trudged through my childhood with my parents helping as best as they could with the resources they had.  My health took a worse turn after the birth of my first child.  I developed pain through out my whole body.  Pain that would not go away and only worsened on some days or lessened on others but was always present.  I also ended up with a herniated disc in my lower back all from just standing while holding my then three month old baby.  I continued to try to push on but finally went in search of answers after my third child was born and just could not take the pain and exhaustion anymore.  It was affecting my daily life.  After many doctors and tests, I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.  It was such a relief to have a reason as to why I was in extreme pain and having extreme exhaustion.  I trudged on trying nutritional and other medications to help relieve my pain and exhaustion.  It helped in some ways to at least get through the days a little better.
     Fast forward 8 years later.  Every treatment that I have tried for Fibromyalgia has not helped.  We start to look into my being misdiagnosed.  My mom had mentioned a couple times about possibly testing for Lyme disease.  Never thought much of it until I started getting even worse.  I went and did some research on Lyme disease and so many unanswered health problems would be answered if I had Lyme disease.  We decided to take the plunge and get me tested.  Now you would think "Oh that should be easy" but it was far from the truth.  It is hard to find a Dr that will treat you ,none the less actually test you for it.  Because of the way typical treatment is done (very high doses of antibiotics for a long time), there were issues with some Drs losing their licenses.  So Doctors basically do not want to touch Lyme disease with a ten foot pole.
     Praise God, we found a Dr only 40 mins from where we live that treats Lyme disease.  I made an appointment as quickly as possible and got in to see him.  He was not convinced I had Lyme disease and thought more than likely I was dealing with a thyroid problem.  He agreed to test though.  In the end, my thyroid is text book perfect and I was positive for Lyme disease.  Boy was he shocked.  Just goes to show that you know your own body better than any Dr does!
     We opted to try Ozone therapy weekly.  Ozone therapy is where they take some of your blood out, oxygenate it then put it back in.  It kills any Lyme in it and super charges the blood.  Man do the treatments get me down though because when the Lyme is killed it releases toxins into the body thus giving your body toxic shock.  It is going to be a long struggle till to battle this disease.  Lyme multiples very quickly and can hide in your body.  It can attack in and every organ in your body.  I am so blessed that as fas I as I know, it has not attacked my heart.  God's grace has been shown so clearly to me that even though I have lived with this disease for at least 28 years with out knowing it, I am alive.  Yes, it has not been easy and the pain and exhaustion that I live with daily is very hard but I still am blessed with my life, family, friends and church.
     I am the greatest pretender when it comes to how I am feeling.  I live with a disease that affects my daily life but I cover it up. I try to always put on a smile and it is hard for me to open up and show how I am truly feeling.  I never like to be seen as a complainer.  Even when my husband or friends, whom love me dearly, want to truly know how I am feeling, I find myself answering with out thinking, "Fine".  I am not trying to deceive anyone but it is hard to have a disease in which I look perfectly healthy.  No one can understand the amount of pain my body has daily or the extreme exhaustion among many other problems unless they themselves live with the same thing.  It is hard to explain to someone that every movement you make hurts (some days more than others) and because of that pain and exhaustion you end up sitting a lot.  My hardest struggle is to not feel like I am being lazy since I cannot just push and go, go, go like so many other ladies.
     Through it all, God has been there carrying me through the bad days, extremely bad days and the days that are actually decent.