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.

March Update

I think I would use the insurance money to buy pies or ice cream.

I haven’t written anything on this blog in about a month. The month of March was a long month that seemed to just drag on. The reason being that I was waiting the whole month of March. I was waiting to see if my insurance company would approve my new medication. Week after week I kept hoping for some good news, but alas that didn’t happen until the last week of March.  March 27th my doctor’s office called and said that we never needed prior authorization. My jaw dropped to the floor. We had waited 7 weeks just to find out we don’t need prior authorization for the medication.  The next day March 228th my insurance company called and said "No, you don’t need prior authorization for the medication, but they can come back and question if the medication is really medically necessary and we’d have to be prepared to fight it." Working with insurance companies is frustrating! Anyways I’m getting my first infusion in 4 days on April 9th. I have to be there at 9:30 in the morning as the first infusion takes 6 hours.  I’m anxiously waiting for Tuesday to come so  I can see how things will work out with the medication.
An overview of my life in March. I don’t think much happened during the month of March. I went about my daily life. I babysat my usual 4 days a week. I went out with friends a few times.  I started exercising again just to try and help my body feel better. Exercise helped, but I think I overdid it some. I’ve also been struggling with really bad thrush in my mouth that has been frustrating. I took the lozenges for over a week and it did nothing. I’ve been taking Nystatin for a week and I can tell a difference in the thrush, but it’s still pretty bad. I think I’ll just have thrush until after I get off my old medications and can stop taking the low dose of antibiotics I’m on. I have been struggling some spiritually with the waiting and being weary of everything that’s been going on with my health, etc.


During the month of March I cheated A LOT with eating healthy. I was pretty discouraged with all the waiting and so by the weekend I was basically throwing in the towel and having sugar, dairy, and gluten. Finally, the last week of March I threw in the towel and said "I’m done eating healthy until the end of April." I still eat some meals that are healthy, but I also allow myself sweets and bread and and pasta etc.  I also decided that when I do start up eating healthy again I’m going to eliminate 1 thing at a time. Giving up everything all at once is very hard on all levels.
I don’t think I have much more to say. I hope to do a blog post sooner than a month next time, but we’ll see how things go with next week and stuff. Prayers are greatly appreciated as I start this new medication next week. I’m still at peace with the actual medication and even the potential side effects, but change is hard and it’s easy to fear the unknowns.
I really should figure out something to say at the end of each blog post kinda like a signature or something. Anyways until next time!

 Love and blessings ~Krystle

Crunchy Thai Peanut & Quinoa Salad

One of my Pet peeves when I go on a blog to read a recipe is that they go on and on about nonsense stuff before they give you the actual recipe. I promise to not do that to my readers, so I'll make this short and sweet so you can make this salad.  I only plan on posting my favorite recipes on my blog. That way it doesn't get too over powering with recipes. I have now made this recipe twice and neither time have I had all the vegetables for it. I still have yet to try it with snow peas and maybe someday I'll have both cilantro and green onions at the same time. Another thing to note about this recipe is that it tastes better the longer the flavors are allowed to mix. Te one ingredient I have been purposely leaving out are the red pepper flakes.  Before I do my pet peeve to my readers I'm going to end this paragraph so you can make this salad. 

Salad

• ¾ cup uncooked quinoa or millet
• 1 ½ cups water
• 2 cups shredded purple cabbage
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 1 cup thinly sliced snow peas or sugar snap peas
• ½ cup chopped cilantro
• ¼ cup thinly sliced green onion
• ¼ cup chopped roasted and salted peanuts, for garnish

Peanut sauce

• ¼ cup smooth peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari or soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (I love ginger so I used 2 teaspoons)
• ½ lime, juiced (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
• Pinch of red pepper flakes

               Instructions:

1. Cook the quinoa: First, rinse the quinoa in a fine mesh colander under running water. In a medium-sized pot, combine the rinsed quinoa and 1 ½ cups water. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and gently simmer the quinoa until it has absorbed all of the water. Remove the quinoa from heat, cover the pot and let it rest for 5 minutes. Uncover the pot and fluff the quinoa with a fork. Set it aside to cool. (Here’s how to cook millet.)
2. Meanwhile, make the peanut sauce: Whisk together the peanut butter and tamari until smooth (if this is difficult, microwave the mixture for up to 30 seconds to loosen it up). Add the remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. If the mixture seems too thick to toss into the salad, whisk in a bit of water to loosen it up (I didn’t need to do this).
3. In a large serving bowl, combine the cooked quinoa, shredded cabbage, carrot, snow peas, cilantro and green onion. Toss to combine, then pour in the peanut sauce. Toss again until everything it lightly coated in sauce. Taste, and if it doesn’t taste quite amazing yet, add a pinch of salt and toss again. Divide into individual bowls and garnish with peanuts.
4. This salad keeps well, covered and refrigerated, for about 4 days. If you don’t want your chopped peanuts to get soggy, store them separately from the rest and garnish just before serving.

https://cookieandkate.com/2017/thai-peanut-quinoa-salad-recipe/#tasty-recipes-25575

One Minute At A Time

On Sunday two different people told me "you only have to wait one minute at a time." While I knew what they said was true my heart cried out in protest" the wait is to hard and wearisome!" Waiting is hard, very hard. It gets wearisome and almost unbearable. There are so many uncertainties while we wait and our minds naturally fret and worry over a million different outcomes while we wait. We need to trust the Lord and rest in Him While we wait.

Honestly, life is full of waiting. We wait in line at the store. We wait at a traffic light. We wait excitedly for a baby to be born. We wait for a medical diagnosis. We who are single wait for marriage. No matter what waiting season God has us in trust Him. The wait seems long and unbearable, but God’s timing is perfect. I’m preaching this to myself because I’m in a waiting season that I’m anxious to be done with. I’m anxious to move on with my life.

"Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge."

Psalms 62:5-8 NLT

Praise the Lord while you are waiting. Thank Him for his faithfulness to you in your waiting season. Again I’m preaching this to myself, because so often I become weary of waiting and I start doubting God’s faithfulness. The beautiful thing about waiting is that God teaches us some of the greatest lessons in our waiting season.

One Month, One Week and One Day

Clean Eating?

I couldn't really resist this photo and meme. If only clean eating meant eating whatever you want AFTER you took a shower. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

It has been one month, one week, and one day since I started changing the way I eat. This will be my third attempt to write this post. Hopefully I’ll succeed this time. As they say third times a charm. I’m just hoping this attempt won’t sound so much like I’m just rambling on and on.

I’ve learned several valuable lessons when it comes to changing the way you eat. One lesson is don’t have high expectations for food especially when it’s a substitute.  I’ve made that mistake a couple times and I’ve ruined or almost ruined certain foods for myself.  Another lesson with food that I’m learning is plan ahead when you know you are going to some ones house for a meal. That’s one I need to work on more. Actually I just need to work on planning my meals better in general so I don’t just snack ALL the time.

I should tell you all about my experience with food at bible school and things I would do differently if I go back next year.  I was thankfully able to eat all, but two meals during bible school and of course those were the Italian meals. On Monday for lunch we had BLTs and I wasn’t planning on eating them and then they ended up having gluten free wraps. Monday night dinner was Lasagna so obviously I couldn’t eat that. Tuesday and Wednesday I was able to eat all the meals. Thursday’s lunch was pizza and it probably was the hardest meal for me to have to skip. Friday we had philly cheese steaks and since my neighbor made them she left some meat out so I could have that and the roasted vegetables for dinner. Saturday at the banquet I splurged and had gluten, dairy,and sugar. During bible school I gave in and just had cheese because it was easier and I really like cheese. Something that I’ll definitely do next time I’m at any bible school or conference type thing is cook the whole week before so that I’ll have plenty of food and plenty of snacks and desserts. I got really sick of white bean brownies during bible school.

Since bible school I have been cooking dinner more. The reason I started cooking dinner was because my mom had the horrible cough that has almost entirely gone through my family now and I know how draining it is. Thankfully hers didn’t last long. I might be actually starting to like cooking and I actually don’t mind looking for recipes. The reason why I think I’m starting to like it is because I like variety for dinner and my breakfast and lunch do not have much as far as variety goes. 

I honestly think this attempt at writing this post is much better. If I wasn’t so tired I probably would write more, but as it is I’m too tired to think

My Appointment

I so badly wanted to write this yesterday, but each time I tried or thought about it my mind literally froze. I have so much to be thankful for. Since Sunday morning worship God has especially been showing me His faithfulness and that He cares. God first reminded that He cares by fulfilling my desire to sing a certain song during worship. During worship Sunday I all of sudden wanted to sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness". I was wishing I had a way to communicate with the worship leader and tell him my song request. What blows me away is that God had already planned for the worship leader to pick that song for worship way before I even had the desire for the song. Two songs after I got the desire to sing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness " the worship leader announced that it would be the next song we sing.


I’ll just give a brief background before I tell about God’s faithfulness during my appointment on Monday. During the 4 weeks leading up to my appointment God was doing a work on my heart preparing me for my appointment. I didn't fully see what he was doing because I was quite frankly hurting and I couldn’t see anything good coming out of what God was allowing in my life. I wrestled with God quite a bit during those four weeks asking Him time and time again to "take this cup from me". Bible School was the best, but hardest bible school. I wrestled with God all week long not wanting to surrender what He was asking of me. I’m a slow learner so it took me till the end of Bible School to listen to what God was telling me. The week between Bible School and my appointment had it’s own challenges, but I didn’t struggle with my appointment again till Thursday or Friday. Even though God reminded me that He cares Sunday morning I still wrestled with God over my appointment. That night as I was getting ready for bed and I finally broke. I told God "take all of me. Take my health problems, take my appointment, take everything. I can’t hold on anymore." God met me in the that moment and started flooding me with peace that surpasses all understanding. I still struggled a little with anxiety leading up to the time of the appointment on Monday, but it was mainly physical anxiety.

God was faithful and gave me complete peace throughout my entire appointment on Monday. He also showed me that He cares even about the little things. One of the reasons why I dreaded my appointment is because the neuroimmunoligist has something that’s at least like Cerebral Palsy so he’s hard to understand when he talks. God in His goodness had already planned for a Rheumatologist Fellow to do the majority of my appointment. Being able to understand a doctor takes a huge load off of a hard situation. Towards the end of my appointment as we were making the final decision to change my medications I got emotional inside, but I was still at peace and I trusted my doctors wisdom.

As for going forward with my treatment for my autoimmune disease I will be getting an infusion medication called Rituximab. I will be getting Rituximab infusions every 6 months. The first round of infusions, which will be within a few weeks hopefully will be 1 infusion and then two weeks later I will have to get another infusion. After that the infusions will be every 6 months. Before I get the infusion I will have to get lab work done to check some things. I also have to get IV steroids or something before they give me the actual infusion to help prevent my body from rejecting the medication. There are of course side effects to Rituximab. The most common one, which I’m already used to ,because of the medications I’m on, is having a suppressed immune system. There are some good things about changing Rituximab. The one thing I’m most excited about is the fact that I will be able to go completely off of prednisone. I also will be able to go completely off of the immunosuppressant drug I’m currently on. It was kinda funny how after they told me I will be able to go completely off those medications they kept reminding me not to make any changes yet. I know why they kept reminding me, but I was thinking “will I be that stupid to just go off my medications after I know what it does to me.”

Change is hard and I don’t really know what all will change with changing my medications. I won’t say that I’m excited about changing my medications, but I am at peace with changing my medications. I know God is faithful. I do have some fears, but I’m trusting God and I trust my doctors. I’m trying to look forward with an expectancy to see what God will do through this new season.

I know there is a lot more I could say, but for now I think I’ll close.

No Sprinkles

Honestly if the only thing I had to give up were sprinkles, changing how I eat would be a cinch. Last week I decided to let myself have creamer for the rest of January just so I could enjoy coffee a little longer. Unfortunately I didn’t fair so well having creamer. My cough that had pretty much gone away came back and I haven’t been able to shake it off again. So it’s very possible that I have an intolerance to dairy. So needless to say I’m staying completely away from dairy, Including cheese :(. Cheese is the hardest dairy product to give up, but at the same time I don’t want to feel as horrible as I do right now. I’ve let myself have little bits of sugar in a few store bought gluten free snacks I have. 

Next week is my church’s Youth Bible School and I’m so excited!!!!!!! It’s our 8th bible school we’ve had. I’ll probably be the oldest youth there at age 25 or at least one of the oldest. I expect most of the youth to range in age from 15-20.  My 3 younger brothers and I are all going, which I’m glad about. I’m also happy that I only have to bring food for 3 meals during bible school. All the other meals will be permissible with how I eat. I just need to stock up on some snacks to bring to bible school. 

Week 1

I have completed week one of changing the way I eat. So how’d it go? Wednesday, which was the first day of changing the way I eat went well and I stayed true to everything I’m giving up. Thursday was a fairly good day as far as eating true to what I can eat. The only thing I messed up on was I had farro which is an ancient grain that comes from wheat(which tastes amazing btw). I gave myself some grace for that one because I didn’t realize it right away. Friday I was eating sweet pickles at a friend’s house and mid bite I remembered that they have sugar in them. I finished eating the sweet pickles, because they are honestly my favorite. That made me realize that this is definitely a learning curve. Saturday I think I did fairly well and I even did well when I went out to eat with a friend for dinner. Sunday I caved. I craved a good old pastry and because I told my brother I was going to cheat and he bought me a donut and an iced coffee. I couldn’t complain! I think I did well the rest of the day though. Monday I did fairly well for the most part. Tuesday I did well for the most part. Today I stayed the truest to my diet since I started last Wednesday. 

I have decided to keep certain things in my diet. I’m going to allow myself to have limited cheese meaning I will have cheese in a meal, but I won’t go eat just a piece of cheese. I’m letting myself have some half and half in an occasional cup of coffee at least for the month of January. I might be stricter in February. My biggest focus for the month of January is no sugar. 

I’m not sure yet how I’m going to do my updates on here about my new way of eating. I don’t plan on doing it every week. Maybe like once a month or so. We’ll see.

Snickerdoodle Chickpea Smoothie

• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 large overripe sliced frozen banana
• ¼ cup chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbsp peanut or almond butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground flaxseed (optional)
• 1 pitted Medjool date, for etra sweetness (or 5 drops liquid stevia, maple syrup, etc.)
• https://www.hummusapien.com/snickerdoodle-chickpea-smoothie/

My Notes: I don't think I've taken quite so many liberties with this smoothie. I did try putting frozen cauliflower in this once, but it made it too thick. I don't think I've tried kale and spinach in this one.

Chocolate Black Bean Brownie Smoothie

• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup frozen cauliflower
• 1/2 cup black beans
• 1-2 medjool dates pitted
• 1 cup almond milk or milk of choice
• 1 Tbsp hemp seeds
• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• https://www.heynutritionlady.com/chocolate-black-bean-brownie-smoothie/

My Notes: For all my smoothies I use stevia as sweetener. I took some liberties with this smoothie recipe after having it a couple times. I put peanut butter in this smoothie, because in my opinion peanut butter and chocolate is the best combo. Another liberty I took with this recipe is I added spinach and Kale to it. The spinach and kale doesn't really affect the taste, but it will change the color. spinach, kale