So dear friends, tomorrow is May 12th. It is National Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain day. My personal efforts to make this dis-ease known have grown to over 25,500 fans on my FB fan page for my blog. Although I must confess...most follow because of my quotes, and that's okay too. So tonight, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about faith.
When you start out feeling human and "whole", you might not realize what a great thing it is to be seen as you. You are simply Joe, or Josefina, or Steve. At some point though, if you develop health problems, you seems to identify yourself with them. You are no longer Aimee. You are Aimee, the writer, living with invisible diseases and pain. This can be both a blessing and a curse...because like the great C.S. Lewis said "Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
So you find out you are not alone with that thing you have that no one can pronounce. However, you start to cling to it. All of its symptoms, its pain, and it's mess become you. Until one day, you can take it no more, and you claw your way up out of the misery and stop checking the "support" group that really provides no support. No, it doesn't. It provides a place to vent. But if we were to be honest with ourselves, and we need to be, it doesn't build your faith muscles. It lets you say things like "I'm sick...I am so exhausted today." And people tell you to rest because they mean well. They really do. But the truth is, we are all exhausted in these groups. We are all in pain. Some of us are working towards finding a better way to live.
So I would like you to get a journal. It can be any journal you want. This one happens to be on sale that I linked. And I like the quote. I have heard it's pretty popular. Anyway, start out with the date. That's easy enough. Then I'd like you to write ONE, only one good thing that happened that day. It can be that you got out of bed. Then close the journal. Then the next day do the same thing. Work up to actually journaling about the good in your life. No matter what happens that day, find at least one good thing on which to build your faith muscles. You can do this.
So in honor of National Fibromyalgia Day, get your journal ready. Your journal of faith. Your journal of hope. Check back here because I am going to have more ideas for you soon. Don't forget, I'm here for you. I know you can do this!
