It is not my goal to get entirely personal in all of my writing, however, I feel that I owe it to you and to myself to share why finding and maintaining balance has become such a huge part of my life. While I'm far from perfect, I'm happy. Maybe I should back up a bit. I was happy (I'm also happy now, but you will soon see that my world became very dark and until this point, I was confused, hurt, and had completely lost hope). I thought I had complete control over my life and all of the things that were happening until this past December when I discovered that this was very much not the case. I moved, I started and finished another year of school, and I started a job and hated it, so I quit. I still hadn't forgiven myself for a failed relationship that had ended nearly three years ago. I was driven, but I couldn't figure out what I had the drive for. I tried to tell myself I didn't care and that things would fall into place, but I did care. I was over exercising to fill time and to battle insecurities that remained with me from years ago. I was nutritionally deficient and looking back at myself, I was tired, pale, anxious, and the negativity in my mind completely took over my body. Still, I thought I had all the answers yet my physical symptoms were telling me otherwise. To make a long story short, I spent the months of November through March with a symptom that started as constant vertigo and eventually led to shoulder pain, minimal neck mobility, jaw pain, ear aches, and migraines. All of these things on top of the vertigo completely changed my once active and positive lifestyle. The symptoms were one thing, but what might have been the hardest part was seeing nearly 14 different healers and doctors in order to discover what was happening to me. Nobody could help, or it seemed that way anyways. I promise you that I'm not writing about all of this in hope for any sympathy or attention. My hope is that what you will read in the next short paragraph will change your thoughts about anger, depression, and pain. I had all three of these and I had to dig deep to learn about myself and my body to truly change my life around.
As I really started focusing on myself, I could truly see what I was lacking. When we look at our lives, especially when we are sick and trying to handle pain, there is only so much you can do before you want to give up. There is only so many times that you can hear that "everything will get better," when your lonesome mind is telling you otherwise. I felt as if the Lord was punishing me for my past and for not staying true to myself during certain times. And then one morning I discovered the true healer that my life had been missing all along...
Easter Sunday was life changing. I finally came to a point in my life where I learned two things. The first was that I spent my first 24 years in a complete rush. I did everything fast and hard and with no faith, love, or direction. Then this fall, maybe the darkest of them all came and everything caught up with me and my body became someone else and it took me six months to realize that what I needed all along was to just slow down. The next thing I learned was that I have wasted precious energy by caring too much about the thought's of others and soon after, all of this negativity built up inside of me and forced my body into things that it wasn't capable of. I killed my body. I killed my emotions. And I killed my relationships with many of those who were close. Days of pain and emotional distress have finally passed and it was the Lord himself that has brought me to this place. A place of understanding and trusting that things will happen exactly how they are supposed too. I found my very first scripture in my walk with him in Jobs 22:21 and it is one that was truly life saving for me. It says "Submit to God, and you will have peace. Then things will go well with you." It wasn't until I felt him that morning and heard him speak the softest yet strongest of words I've ever heard. Naturally, my body let go and I outwardly spoke that I CAN DO THIS. For so long, I was afraid to live beautifully and reach beyond a particular limit, and that limit for me seemed so far out of reach, yet it only required me to slow down and embrace every piece of good that he has given me. He is here to guide us through a wonderful life that he has already planned out and I realize now that no matter what situation I am faced with, I am kept in perfect peace because I choose to keep my mind on him. God's words that morning made it perfectly clear that it is his will for me to be well, healthy, and whole. But just because it is his will for my life, it doesn't mean that it will automatically happen for me, or any of us for that matter. We need to reach out to him verbally and let him know that we believe in his promises, and it is something we need to do every single day. My muscles and endurance are no longer my strongest features. The negative words that the bottom side of my tongue so often spoke will no longer take over my every breath. I can be happy and healing at the same time and I know this now because God told me so. My faith is what makes me strong now and that is how my life will forever be.
I hope that my story can relate to you in some way. We are all struggling. We all battle things each and every day. They may relate to health, finances, fear, or thousands of other things. Pain can come in many forms, and it is a pesky part of being human. It feels like someone is stabbing you in the heart, something I wish we could all do without in our lives. It's a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But because of this pain, because of the tears and the agony I experienced over and over, I was suddenly blessed and felt the freedom of what I had been longing for all along. I was suddenly at peace.
Remember to live completely and let your voice always be seasoned with grace.
~Beth
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