Mamas in Faith

Silence isn’t always golden but even when something isn’t good it doesn’t make it entirely bad either. I had some initial high hopes when starting this blog, and the middle of last year kind of shattered them. It wasn’t all bad but it also wasn’t all good either. I felt like many areas of my life went silent. And if you haven’t guessed already this will likely be a lot of me just rambling so if you make it to the end I will honestly be surprised.

The age old saying silence is golden, does not reign true in a few instances. When children suddenly go quite (all the mamas know what I mean), you don’t hear from someone in awhile without warning, God (if I’m being honest most of the time that’s our own faults, at least from my own personal experience), a heart, and I’m sure you can think of at least one more.

I went silent because life felt (and feels) heavy. I had so many thoughts on so many things but I wanted what I said to be perfect. I was afraid of messing up. I want to share my own experiences with autoimmune things from a Christian moms perspective and I was/am afraid of putting things out there. You know human emotions get in the way a lot. My anxiety over it all just caused me to be silent. I doom scrolled to much, I stopped reading my bible as consistently, I let the world feel heavy, and so on.

Not only did I feel not equipped enough to keep going and doing more with a potential online ministry in a way (even though I have an amazing husband who continues to encourage me) we also had a couple shifts in daily life. After feeling a strong conviction to homeschool we made the switch. So in August we started on our homeschooling journey and honestly I would say that it has helped with the management of my autoimmune diseases AND my daughter’s disease management as well. We have more slower mornings, we are able to watch our nutrition better and other things. Flares are easier to grin and bear through without the added stressors of school drop offs and pick up.

While the majority of my time has been spent loving on my kids more, figuring out homeschooling and managing autoimmune diseases and mental health I also started, stopped and started again to write a book. I originally had this brilliant plan that I would spend half of my quiet time working out and half of it writing either my book or blog posts its not how it really turned out. I spent most of the quiet time getting my step count in while listening to audio books, doom scrolling or napping if we are being completely honest here. Many things got overdone ie doom scrolling and naps BUT my hope is now that we are getting the hang of homeschooling, my book is coming along (maybe one day it will be published, lets hope I can figure that out because I already have other story ideas and my kiddos get excited about one day being able to read a book that I wrote)

that I will be able to dedicate some time to show up in this tiny corner of the internet. I can hopefully get some thoughts sorted out through my ramblings about autoimmune things. Maybe somethings that I have tried and haven’t worked, things that seem to be working, things that have helped make it not feel so daunting etc. While keeping the main focus on a the fact that even though we live in a broken world where health is not promised we can still make the choice to serve a good God with the time He allows us here.

Too many of us have fallen into the trap that we can be fully healed if we just give our bodies the “right things”. We live in a broken world where we are not promised health, but when we believe that Christ gave his life for us we are promised that one day our bodies will be made new. Most days this gets me through, some days I do cry, get overwhelmed and feel angry and betrayed by my body but I feel like that is just part of the human condition when I am too focused on worldly things and not kingdom focused.

The world can get too loud if we are not careful, and I do not want to just be adding to the noise for the sake of adding to the noise. My hope is that by sharing my faith in the midst of my autoimmune journey I can help other women (especially moms) to also put their trust in the one who gave his all so that we can one day be made whole again with Him.

If you are also on an autoimmune journey and are wanting to focus more on your journey of faith my inbox is open. You do not have to do it alone. Even when it feels like you are the only one trying to put Christ at the center of your autoimmune journey, know that there are more of us in this space. If you are currently walking through an autoimmune journey and don’t know how to put Christ at the forefront it is possible, and I hope you reach out so you don’t feel alone.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hop that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the first-fruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience. Romans 8:18-25 CSB