Easter- A Reason Forgotten

Easter is different in so many ways this year. For some of us we are missing a grandparent who passed away in the past year. Taking a broader look at things, though, this year we realize that we as a world can’t gather with our churches for a sunrise service and we can’t have Easter dinner with our loved ones. You could almost say things look hopeless, but are they?


A friend gave me a reminder that we all could use right now. This year we don’t have all that we normally have for Easter. We may not have our favorite Easter candies. We may not be gathering with our churches and families. What we do have this year (and every year) though, is so much more valuable, and to be honest, we so often forget that this has been the reason for Easter all along.


Easter is not about egg hunts or the Easter bunny. Easter is about the resurrection of our Savior.


"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." John 3:17


We want all the extra things that Easter brings us, but the only thing we really need is Jesus. We need Him more than ever, and maybe God brought all this chaos to our world now because we needed to have an awakening to what is most important in our lives.

 Easter is hard this year and I get it on so many levels. I’m missing my grandma who passed away last August. I’m saddened by the fact that I can’t be with my grandpa, and that I can’t really be with my older brother and his family. But, I rest in Who I do have. I have my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and that is Who I will always need.


I pray that you all can rest in what our Lord and Savior has done for you. His love is still the same as it was 2,000 years ago when He died on that cross and rose again to save us from an eternal death without Him.

God is Holding Us

In just a matter of weeks our world has completely turned upside down. Right now countries are shut down. States in the USA are on lock down or shelter in. It feels pretty hopeless right now. It feels as if we’ll never go back to "normal".


In times like these it is easy to worry and become fearful and maybe even panic like a lot of people are doing. Do we need to fear? No, we don’t need to fear. Life as we know it has changed drastically and I don’t know if we will recover. I don’t know if the Coronavirus will permanently change our country and our world. What I do know though is Who has us in His hands. God holds us in His hands. He cares and He knows the hardness of what is going on in our lives right now. He knows and cares about those who have to stay home and avoid people, because of their health. He knows and cares about the inconveniences that the Coronavirus brings to so many people. None of this caught Him by surprise.

During Bible School this year they taught us a song. After learning the words to the song that week I claimed it as my song for 2020. Now with all that is going on in the world I’m reminded of that song the song is called “Ancient of Days”.

The first verse reminds me of what is going on in the world and who God still is despite what is going on in the world.

Though the nations rage, kingdoms rise and fall
There is still one King reigning over all
So I will not fear for this truth remains:
That my God is, the Ancient of Days

The second verse of the song reminds us that God is with us in the darkness and we are not alone.

Though the dread of night overwhelms my soul
He is here with me, I am not alone
O His love is sure, and He knows my name
For my God is, the Ancient of Days

Then my favorite verse of this song, which has brought so much comfort to me when not knowing what my future holds this year, is verse three of this song

.Though I may not see what the future brings
I will watch and wait for the Saviour King
Then my joy complete standing face to face
In the presence of the Ancient of Days

Trusting God with the Coronavirus

   

The point of this post is to inform and encourage people. I hope I can come across this way.

As you all have heard the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is going around internationally. It started in Wuhun, China and now it’s in more than 81 countries including the United States. There’s been more than 97,000 cases around the world and there’s been more than 3,200 deaths from the Coronavirus. Right now there’s about a 3.4% death rate for the Coronavirus where as the flu has only a 0.1% death rate. Also there are people who have it and don’t know they do and they spread to other people.That’s where a big problem arises in the spreading of the Coronavirus.
The virus is spreading silently, because some people (especially children) get almost no symptoms from it. Then people who it is highly dangerous for, get it and they are the people more likely to die from it. That group of people is: 1. Immunosuppressed people. 2. People with pre-existing heart and lung problems. 3. People over 80. One thing about the seriousness of the Coronavirus that people don’t realize is that it’s a new virus and thus we don’t have immunity. That also makes it more dangerous for people with weakened immune systems.

What’s the point of writing about the Coronavirus if it’s just another flu? My friend, it’s not just another flu. Like I said above it is a new virus and that’s scary especially for people like me. For those of you who may not know I have an autoimmune disease called NMO that attacks my central nervous system. To control my autoimmune disease I have to take immunosuppressants meaning we are suppressing my immune system. Suppressed immune system+new virus+no immunity to said new virus equals scary. I will admit I have been fearful of the Coronavirus. I’m one of the people who has an increased chance of not surviving if I get the Coronavirus. This week though God reminded me of something that He has been reminding me about with every hard thing that has happened since the end of last year. God reminded me that He was already at this point in time with the Coronavirus raging through at least 81 countries. He reminded me that He already knew the hardness of it. He reminded me that He IS faithful and that He does cares. He reminded me that I can trust Him because this all is in His control.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father."
Matthew 10:29

If our Father in heaven cares about every sparrow, how much more will He care about us, His own children. God loves us more than we could ever fathom and He doesn’t want us to be fearful of what could happen with the Coronavirus. He wants us to trust Him and rest in the assurance that He is holding us in His arms.

I have no idea how the Coronavirus will pan out, but I know the One who holds my future and I trust Him.

Our Pain is Not Overlooked by God

I wrote this not sure if I would share it on my blog or not, but after sharing it with a few friends and hearing how it was what they needed right then I decided I would post this on my blog. The last post I wrote I said that I was taking a break from writing for an indefinite amount of time. I’m still not sure if I am done with my break yet or not, but I feel like I need to share it with you all. So with no further ado here’s a little something I wrote about 2019.


I'm writing about this year not knowing if I'll share it with anyone or even finish it. I went into this year full of fear of my future with my health. I knew I most likely would have to change my medications and that scared me. I was afraid that it would change my life drastically.

In the beginning of 2019 I had no idea what God would be doing in my life. I had no idea of the joys or pains that I would experience this year. I had no idea of the lessons He would teach me. I started this year with struggling to see God's faithfulness and caring hand in all my pain. Yet God continued to show himself faithful through my doubts and questions about my life and the trials I was facing. He kept showing me that He cares over and over again, but for 7 months I couldn't see it. It took losing my grandma for me to see God's caring hand in everything. When my grandma was in the hospital and after her death God showed me over and over again how He cares. I was also able to see with new eyes how He cared about every trial and every joy I have experienced. A verse that has become dear to me is this:



"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."
Psalms 56:8 NLT

Whatever pain you may be facing this Christmas God cares. He sees the tears you cry and He keeps track of them. He records them in His book. Just think about it for a second, the God of all creation cares about each and everyone of us enough to record every single tear we shed, whether it be a tear of sorrow or a tear of joy.

As 2019 draws to a close I struggle. I struggle with the fear of the future, but amidst my fear of the future God is reminding me that He is already there. He knows what is going to happen in my future and He cares. He won't leave me nor forsake me in whatever my future holds. He will guide me every step of the way and He will pick me up when I fall.

The fear I have with going into 2020 is more unknown than the fear I felt when going into 2019, but there's more of a peace in my soul with going into 2020.

There were times this year that I was flooded with peace that surpasses all understanding. I had peace at times when I should have been scared of my future, but God came through and showed Himself faithful over and over again.

"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:7 ESV

Throughout everything I have gone through with my health, losing my grandma and other things in my life people have called me strong. It hurt whenever someone said that because I felt so weak. The daily struggles I had took every ounce of energy I had. God reminded me that He is my strength and He is my present help in time of need:

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."
Psalms 46:1 ESV

An Indefinite Break

I feel like I owe some people an explanation for why I have walked off the face of the earth practically with my blogging. I have been going through a lot these past 14ish months and I literally couldn’t write because everything has been so emotionally hard. Early this year I was able to post a little on my private blog, but even that wasn’t much and it quickly dwindled to nothing. 

In the spring of this year God told me not to write and I had no idea what He meant by that. I couldn’t imagine not writing so I continued to try to write, but I only produced a couple things on my private blog(this blog). It really wasn’t much and looking back part of me wishes I wouldn’t have posted them because I was not ready.

Recently I read a short article by a friend. In it she said that often when you go through trauma you need to just take a break from writing. As I read the article I realized why God had told me not to write. He knew the trauma I had already been through with my health. He also knew what trauma that I was going to go through this year with more health stuff and with my grandma passing away. He knew and He cares about the pain and so He told me not to write. 

Not writing is the hardest thing to do, but it’s what I need to do right now for myself to try to heal emotionally and whatever other way I need to heal. I’m writing this post to let you all know that I’m not going to be writing publicly for an indefinite amount of time. I’ll still share updates with people as I deem necessary, but I won’t be writing on either of my two blogs. To be honest I am even struggling to journal right now and that no one sees.

Surrendering What We Love Most

Sometimes when God asks us to do something, we really want to do it, but we wonder if we have the strength to do it. It might feel like a really huge thing that is hard and seemingly impossible to do. I kinda feel like that right now. God is asking me to do something hard, but it’s also something good for me. Even though it is a concrete thing that He is asking me to do, it also has a spiritual side to it. God has been asking me to surrender my desire for food to Him and he’s been asking me to do that since last November (yeah almost a year). When he first asked me to surrender my food to Him I said" yes Lord, but not yet." I knew what I needed to do, but the last thing I wanted to do was give up what I loved. I can unfortunately say that food is close to the top of the things I love most. It’s just a big part of my life. I’m part Italian and I have all brothers so food is a big thing.

Knowing what I need to do and actually doing it are two very different things. This year has been a year full of eating mostly healthy for a month or two, then cheating for months, then starting to eat healthy again only for Life to happen and I fell off the band wagon again.

God told me in the spring that changing my way of eating will better enable me to serve Him in the future. I have no idea what that looks like, but it is really sobering. God is working on my heart again with changing the way I eat and surrendering the food I want to Him. It is really hard and honestly I’d rather not do it. I’d rather just eat junk food and go about my merry way, but I can’t.

For the past almost two years God has really been working on me with surrendering everything in my life to Him. He has asked me to surrender things that I didn’t realize I had to surrender. Maybe sometime I’ll do a post just on surrender, but for now this a glimpse into what God is asking me to surrender right now. God asks us to surrender the hard things in life as well as the good things. God wants all of us. He doesn’t want partial control. He wants complete control. I know I’m not completely ready to give up control of what I want to eat, but I know that’s what God wants from me.

Starting tomorrow I will be starting AIP(autoimmune protocol diet) again. I know the hardness of this diet, but I know God will give me the strength to do it. I have been praying about it a lot the past few days and I have asked God how I’ll be able to do it and I realize I need to just do it one day at a time and trust Him to help me.

Is It Working?

From the title you might be able to guess that I’m talking about the infusions. How are they working? I have been asked a lot about whether or not the infusions are working. I’ve avoided answering the question as much as possible and when I couldn’t avoid the question I would just say "I don’t know, my body is still adjusting." I realized last night that there is a better answer that I can give and that is the whole reason for this blog post. First though I’m going to back up and talk a little about these past 6+ months.

This is probably stuff you have already heard about my health, but there are some things I want to point out before I talk about the infusions. Back in September of 2018 I started realizing that I had been having subtle autoimmune disease symptoms all summer. We had to raise my prednisone pretty high because the symptoms wouldn’t stay away. People would ask me these past 6 months if I’m feeling better and I could say yes, but there was a big BUT involved with that yes. You see what the high dose of prednisone was doing was not taking away my symptoms, but it was suppressing my immune system so my autoimmune disease wasn’t active. At the slightest lowering of prednisone my symptoms came back. So yes I was feeling better on prednisone, but I wasn’t better. Also I only really felt better as far as the symptoms went because I have and still do suffer from side effects from prednisone, because I’m still pretty high even though we have lowered it some now. As for how my infusions are working I don’t know for sure yet, but I do know they are working some. The reason I know that it is at least working some is because I have been able to start lowering my old medications and I hadn’t been able to do that these past 6 months. The problem is I don’t know if I’ll be able to come off my old medications completely. Only time will tell with that. A friend pointed out to me that medications don’t always heal, but are often used to just help one to function and that’s what my medications do. God is in control and He knows what He is doing.

A message I have heard over and over again lately and I just heard again yesterday is this: "God may take away the thorn in your flesh or He May leave the thorn in your flesh." God will do whatever will bring Him the most glory and what He does IS for our good. That is one of the hardest messages I’ve had to hear. Sometimes I can accept without question, but other times I wrestle with God over it. How can a thorn this hard be for my good? I oftentimes wonder if God will take this thorn away. I often wonder if he’ll only take part of this thorn away if any of it at all. Two verses from Isaiah comes to mind.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my 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."
Isaiah 55:8-9 .

I don’t know what God has planned for my life. I don’t what plan He has for this trial. I don’t know what plan He has for my future. I do know that His ways are greater than I could ever imagine even if they are hard. God may choose to heal me to the point where I can get off the old medications and only be on Rituxan or He may not. God is still good no matter what happens. Even if it means this trial is drawn out even longer. There is so much more that I could say, but for now I’ll close.