I HATE my disease, but I love my life

Where comes the time when we get to be mad at the world?  When it is okay to be angered that life isn’t fair?  Mad at the circumstances?

I came to the realization that it IS okay to be mad at the circumstances.  It is okay to be mad at my disease.  It is okay to be frustrated with the situation.  It isn’t betraying my faith, it isn’t defying God, and it isn’t wrong.  I have always felt that I was supposed to graciously accept my disease, as God’s plan for my life and that it was wrong for me to hate my disease.  That God was using my life, my struggle, my fight for His glory and I would be foolish to step outside of that box and think anything else. 

I HATE my disease, but I love my life.  It is perfectly okay to say that because guess what?  God is frustrated too.  His heart breaks for His children.  He didn’t choose this for me.  He is making something of my life despite it. 

I think it is easy to get confused and forget that God is a compassionate God.  He doesn’t like to watch his children suffer.  I believe He hates Cystic Fibrosis too.  He also knows that it isn’t fair.  Cystic Fibrosis, MD, Cancer, anger God too.  He didn’t create these things and they hurt Him, they break His heart.  He feels just like me.

I know that too often I forget how real my God is.  I don’t forget that He exists, but I forget that He has anything in common with me.  That my God isn’t just a Savior, isn’t just someone that I worship, but that He intimately knows me.  That despite His perfection, He can still relate to me.  His grace and compassion are tangible.  That when my chest aches from the tears, that when I punch my pillow out of frustration, that when I feel almost hopeless, He has known my sorrow, frustration, and pain. 

God hasn’t asked me to be perfect.  He hasn’t demanded unfaltering hope, and He definitely hasn’t called me to be a stoic warrior.

So maybe that’s what it means to see my weakness as a gift.  That it’s okay to fall apart sometimes.  It is okay to be angry.  Its not about finding justification, its about the freedom in the release from holding it all in.  It’s about knowing that I am not alone. I’m not fighting alone; I don’t have to be strong.  He knows my weakness and He allowed me to be this way.  He wants to take care of me. 

I don’t get to be there for everyone else, but maybe I somehow bless them by allowing them to be here for me.  It’s not about what I can do, but about who I am.  My body is weak, but my soul is strong.  Its not selfish to allow people to be close to me because I hope that the closer they get the more they see what God is doing in my life. 

This whole time I’ve had it all wrong.  My weakness is how I get to bring people in.  I’m not selfish to get close to them, its actually disobeying God to push them away. 

I’ve carried the guilt for a long time.  The guilt of the pain my situation has caused those that have been close to me,  I tried so hard to be strong for everyone else.  I didn’t choose this disease, my family, or the people who have come into my life.  God orchestrated it all.  The pain they felt wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t bad, God allowed it.  Through my weakness He has made others strong.  My parents, my brother, my best friends.

I get to rejoice that I am weak!  Most days are hard and every night I pray for a cure, but that doesn’t mean I am not celebrating in my weakness.