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When I was a junior at Dallas Baptist University, I got incredibly sick one week and drove off campus to a clinic for some help. They told me I just had a nasty virus and it would pass in a few days, but they took some blood to run tests just in case. I felt better in about a week and moved on with my life. One day, a nurse called me while I was on a break in one of my classes, and she instructed me to come back to the clinic immediately. I assured her that I was all better and not to worry. She then told me over the phone that they suspected I had liver cancer and really needed to come in.
In that moment, my whole world stopped. Cancer? I was 20 years old and had never had a serious health issue in my whole life.
This began a years-long process of ruling out cancer and other diseases until a doctor at the Texas Liver Institute finally gave me a diagnosis of a rare autoimmune disease called PBC about 3 years later.
PBC is a disease that attacks the bile ducts in your liver. It mostly affects women over 45, and I was one of the youngest women to ever be diagnosed. It isn't clear what causes it, but it is believed there is a genetic component to it. There is no cure, and it often leads to liver failure. The list of possible symptoms is long, and the number of symptoms that I live with only seem to grow, including extreme fatigue, severe abdominal pain, and many other issues. The most debilitating symptom is full-body itchiness that can get so intense I cannot sleep.
I tell you all of this to set the stage for the topic about which I want to share with you this week: living with limitations for God's glory.
For the first few years after my diagnosis, I mostly avoided the symptoms. Until very recently, I constantly played down how severe my symptoms really were because I never wanted to be the "sick girl". I never wanted to be defined by my illness, so I often pushed myself beyond what was healthy to live a "normal life". Over time, however, I have been forced to face the reality of living with a chronic illness. There are limitations.
Sometimes God allows those limitations to come into our lives as a form of holy discipline. Sometimes, however, these limitations are the result of living in a broken world. In either case, God invites us to see what He is doing in and through our limitations.
Maybe you also live with a chronic illness or other limitation. I pray that you'll be encouraged this week. Perhaps you don't right now, but at some point in our lives, we are all faced with various limitations. No matter how healthy you are, eventually our earthly bodies break down and fade away. There are also seasons of life that include limitations beyond health. The rest of the week, I will share some things Jesus is doing in my life through my limitations.
For today I will leave you with this encouraging truth:
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."
(Zephaniah 3:17)
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