How are you Coping?

If you were to notice me, reading the ingredients on a packet, in the health food aisle of the supermarket, you might stop for a concerned conversation with an opening line like, “How are you going these days?”

If you kept going past the standard response,
“Oh I’m fine, and Craig’s doing so much better, he’s working full time now,”
you might even think to ask something insightful like,
“You’ve been dealing with this for years now. How are you coping? Do you miss..(large pause, into which you can insert the words “being normal?”)...anything?

I’d probably answer with a genuine smile, “Oh God is great. He provides everything I need. He has really grown me through this time. In fact I’m grateful for it. I don’t miss anything of consequence.”

And all that would be true, overall.

But you’re not God.

And if you were the answer would be different.

The list he has heard is is as long as my arm:

I’m not coping, I miss being be able to cope.
I need to stop, I miss being able to keep going.
I’m not strong, I miss being strong, How will we survive if I am not strong?
I’m lonely, my husband’s asleep again, I miss him, I miss my social life.
I’m bored, I miss being creative and artistic and musical.
I’m exhausted, I miss having energy to do things.
I’m messy, I miss having the energy to be tidy.
I’m frustrated, I miss exercising, I never work up a sweat anymore.
I’m angry, I miss being calm and unaffected.
I’m sad, I miss having a husband who can join in.
I’m worried, I miss the confidence that comes with health.

The list goes on.......

But it always starts with “I”...... and what would you say to me if I were to hand it to you in the supermarket?

It’s a fine line to tread when you have a chronic illness, or you are the carer for a loved one with chronic illness, or when you’re suffering in general. (This morning I was suffering with chronic pregnancy and sleep depravation due to small children.)

Where does expressing your feelings and expecting others to understand your circumstances morph into plain old selfishness?

When I talk to God I’m like David in the psalms. I can rant and vent about my circumstances and my feelings. I can wail and sob. God listens and Jesus feels my pain and by the end, through his Holy Spirit, He always turns me around to himself. He opens my heart and my eyes to his kindness and goodness. One by one he picks up all the pieces and puts me back together with His glue. Stronger because of my weakness, powerful because of His Spirit in me.

But when I rant and vent to you, I cannot be so sure of the outcome. So I try to tell God first. Then I can tell you the outcome of those conversations. Which is the truth.

Poetry out of Loss

I found The Christians with Chronic Illness Blog Carnival when searching around to see what people were already addressing on CFS. It’s only new - first carnival was last month.

I was so impressed with the idea as a way for Christians to encourage each other that I put a link to it on our blog.

I decided to submit a blog to the May Carnival. The topic is ‘Coping with Loss’. I’ve been chewing on it for a few weeks now, the deadline is 5th May. So you’ll see my efforts soon.

While I was thinking about ‘loss’ a poem that I thought of in 2003 came back to me and I was able to finish it. It’s called ‘I’ve lost my sense of humour’

These were words I said to my husband at the worst of my anxiety during my nervous break down. At the time I couldn’t smile at all. I was teaching full time but had completely lost my joy. God in his goodness made me smile for a brief moment, after I’d said it, when I began to think of the kinds of places a sense of humour could be lost and how that could be made into a funny poem for kids.

Every now & then, over the past 6 years, when I've been in the depths, I’ve remembered those two lines and the ideas I had for a poem, but not had the creative energy to act on them.

So, 6 years later, it has taken shape because of this Blog carnival. It turned out to be more about the journey I have taken with humour, since I became a Christian at 26, than a slap-stick poem for kids. But it's still slightly amusing.


I’ve lost my sense of humour
I don’t know where it’s gone
And no one seems to care at all
That I’m no longer fun

I asked my lovely granny
Where she thought it may be
“Have you tried the gutter?”
Was all she said to me

My darling little sister
Just handed me a map
Called “Expense of Others”
“I’ll bet that’s where it’s at.”

“Perhaps you might have flushed it?”
Dad said, well meaningly
“It lives in the toilet
Almost permanently.”

Desperately I cried out loud
To the Lord Almighty
“Where is my sense of humour?”
(Then waited in my nightie.)

His answer came, a quiet voice,
And He wasn’t joking,
“It’s time to put that off now,
Just like you gave up smoking

I’ll give you mine, a pure one,
To compensate your loss.
I’ve promised to refine you,
And those smiles were the dross

I promised golden laughter
That bubbles from within,
Overflows then cascades out
In a joyful fountain”

I’ve lost my sense of humour
But maybe it’s just changed
Just like other parts of me
That Jesus rearranged