Imagine for a moment that you’re in a workout class. You probably know the feeling — a hot room, a big whiteboard listing every brutal exercise you’re about to endure, and maybe a group of people beside you, sweating it out on the same journey. The intensity is high. Your strength is fading with each passing rep. You feel like you’ve given it all you’ve got, and you’re ready to call it quits and head home for the day.
It was a beautiful, early morning in June and the cheerful sounds of my one year old thump-thumping down the stairs caused me to cease my vain attempts at getting just a little more sleep. I would say I sat up and swung my feet over the edge of the bed, but the process of sitting up was arduous — I was seven months pregnant with twins, and the adjectives “slow” and “painful” applied to nearly every movement.
The season brought warmth, birds, and flowers, but I barely noticed the beauty and life around me. I was caught in a funk darker than the bleakest winter day. Physically, I had been sick with an infection I couldn’t shake. Spiritually, the enemy was assailing me through the bitter words of another. Emotionally, I was in turmoil because of the failing health of my husband.
Late into the night over cups of tea going cold, I heard her story and surveyed the landscape of her life from the outside listening in. My mind reeled and my heart ached as her words landed in my ears. There were problems I couldn’t fix; solutions I couldn’t provide. She was in a desert season — and I couldn’t change that.
I hopped on my Instagram one morning a few months ago to reply to some messages and make a post. As I did, I inadvertently noticed a piece of information about my account that was rather surprising and discouraging. Huh. That’s strange, I thought to myself as I closed the app and moved on to getting ready for the day.
My body had been sounding an alarm that something was seriously off, and my symptoms were growing increasingly strange. What began as a small rash had grown into an unsettling set of problems: numbness in my toes, tingling in my hands and feet, sharp and quick bursts of nerve pain throughout my body — it felt like my nervous system had been turned up to high. While laying down, my heart would pound and I felt like I was breathing through a filter.