Joints, Gymnastics, and a Pocket-Sized Paul

"Well, you have Rheumatoid Arthritis. I'm gonna prescribe you a pain killer now and we'll set you up with some disease modifying drugs next week. Here are your blood test and x-ray orders, so just take those downstairs and they'll get you in."

Three sentences just changed my life.

I don't think any 20-year-old woman really expects to be told they have arthritis. That's for people in their 80's who have lived a full life crawling around on the ground with their kids and baking cookies for their grandkids and spent hours and hours playing the piano and swinging hammers and lifting heavy things and all manner of other activities that use your joints. The people that earned arthritis by living a full life. At least that's kind of how I figured it worked. I mean, I'm 20... my hands are meant to be covered in shiny rings and brightly colored nail polish. They are meant to be held by some attractive man who plans to sweep me off my feet after graduation. Speaking of feet, those are meant to be squished into all manner of ridiculously cute shoes that no old woman could ever get away with wearing because they aren't orthopedic. They are not, however, meant to be so painful I can barely stand on... unless they're in some really stinkin hot stilettos. Just saying.

So what am I supposed to do with a diagnosis like that? This certainly was not part of my 10 year plan! How am I supposed to wrap my mind around the idea that pain, meds, and doctor's visits are going to be taking a prominent place on that color-coded iCal I mentioned in previous posts? I'll admit, the past few days have been full of some rather difficult mental gymnastics... apparently I'm not as flexible as I originally thought.

While I've been flipping and twisting and back hand-springing though, I keep coming back to the same spot: God is bigger than the boogie man... he's bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV.... ok, so maybe I watched a little too much Veggie Tales as a kid, but I can't seem to get the idea out of my mind that we serve a REALLY BIG God. This RA diagnosis has been a huge blow to me, but my God, OUR God, is SO much bigger. If he wants to heal me, he can. End of story. RA is only a life-long disease... our God raised people from the dead. Um, HELLO! And if he doesn't heal me, it's not because he doesn't love me. Look at Jesus, he was beaten, starved, pierced, and killed (get it, he DIED). Oh, and need I mention that he was God's only son?! Talk about love! As Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." I don't need to understand why God would put me in this situation or even how he's going to get me through it. I simply need to, nay get to, rest in the knowledge that HE LOVES ME.

So I didn't see this coming. Truth. That doesn't mean game over, it just means it's time for my TomTom to start "recalculating."

I'm not naive enough to think that this will always be easy. I still cry myself to sleep sometimes and I still fight to push myself up out of bed as pain shoots through my hands and wrists because I haven't taken my pain meds yet; it still hurts mentally, physically, and emotionally. The thing is that God never promised us an easy life, just the opposite in fact. The bible is full of verses warning us that this life will be HARD, but that's ok. This diagnosis has given me a whole new understanding of what Paul says in 2 Cor 12:9-10 'But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more in my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.' Paul's a pretty cool dude and he has a lot of good stuff to say. (Side note: It's times like this that I wish I had a little "Pocket-sized Paul" action figure with a pull string or something to carry around with me. He'd give me all sorts of little reminders for when the going gets tough.)

Speaking of Paulisms, I want to close with one more. I want this to be my commitment through this whole RA thing, so please feel free to hold me to it!
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." ~1Thes. 5:16-17

Keri vs Cooked Carrots

You know what would be great? If life went according to plan.


I mean, I didn't plan to be in pain all the time. I certainly didn't plan to mess up the most important class of my major. I didn't plan to be single this long. I didn't plan to watch close friendships slip away. But like the Joker in "The Dark Knight" says... nobody panics when it all goes according to plan.


It's like cooked carrots. Growing up, I HATED cooked carrots. They tasted gross and had an even worse texture. My parents must have gotten endless pleasure out of watching my face contort into the most grotesque expressions imaginable because my mom made them constantly... or so it seemed to my childhood mind. She was also big on other tortures such as vitamins, regular showers, and a regular bedtime. The indecency of it. It was so inconsiderate to my intended plans. I had it all figured out... I would eat pizza every night (plain cheese please) supplemented occasionally by McDonald's happy meals, the only vitamin's I would eat were the ones they snuck into my sugary breakfast cereal under a think coat of high fructose corn syrup, I would shower only in the sprinkler when it was warm enough, and I would stay up all night playing with my barbie dolls. When things didn't go according to my plan, I panicked. I fought my bedtime off like a knight in shining armor fought a dragon. I disposed of my vitamins in the bushes that would make a treasure-hiding pirate proud (all though I think I might not have made my X-marks-the-spot discreet enough because somehow mom caught me), and I thought of every excuse possible not to eat those carrots. If life had gone according to my plan though, I would be an elementary school drop out from sleeping through all my classes, my internal organs would be rotting away, and I probably wouldn't have any teeth. Not to mention I would have horrible vision because I refused to eat my cooked carrots (and now we know why Keri wears contacts...). Ultimately though, mom's plan won and my story turned out far differently. I graduated second in my class with a full set of sparkling white teeth and all my internal organs in tact. She knew what I needed had to come before what I wanted.


I think a lot of times I treat God's plan for me like the cooked carrot's on my plate at supper time. I don't want to touch them with a 10 foot pole much less put them into my body, but ultimately they are what I need to grow. Sometimes God's plans for me include things that hurt, or that are difficult, but the end goal is much greater than just seeing me make a funny face as I try to choke them down. His ends are beautiful, but even the most beautiful gold had to be refined through fire and the shiniest silver had to be cleansed of it's tarnish. The most elegant sculpture had to be molded and cut and fired before it was finished.


Our lives are a process of growing, shaping, learning, adjusting, and trusting... of eating those carrots.

Chasing Doubt

We need not exert ourselves and try to force ourselves to believe, or try to chase doubt out of our hearts. Both are just as useless. It begins to dawn on us that we can bring every thing to Jesus, not matter how difficult it is; and we need not be frightened away by our doubts or our weak faith, but only tell Jesus how weak our faith is. We have let Jesus into our hearts. And He will fulfill our heart's desires.

~~O. Hallesby