A Pity Party Can Be So Easy To Throw

It's been a hard week.  Of course that always seems to happen when I've missed church on Sunday.  I was in so much pain and had so little energy last week I couldn't go.  It's been a very painful week.  The rain has been horrendous on my peripheral nerves.  Add in the cold days we've had and it puts my pain level between an 8-10 on that silly pain scale the nurses always want you to use to rate your pain.  Those numbers always confuse me.  I have two ratings ... tolerable and want to put my fist through a wall.  It never completely goes away.  Then they always want me to describe how it feels.  When I tell them it's like having electrical shocks, burning, being jabbed with ice picks, aching, cold on the inside, hot on the outside and yet I have places in my feet I can't even feel because the nerve endings are so damaged, they look at me like I'm nuts. (I realize my husband is going to read that last sentence and tell me I should have written it differently because it has way too many comas and is a run-on sentence.  I am at peace with it.)  I once told Dr. Peltier that she probably thought I was crazy when I described it to her.  She told me it was common for the pain to feel like that in CIDP patients.  As strange as it might sound, those words were actually comforting to me.  It's a reminder to me that I'm not the only one.  I'm not alone in this.

Speaking of Dr. Peltier, Vanderbilt finally got my appointment rescheduled.  It's for December 1.  I guess being put on the a.s.a.p. list will get you an appointment in less than six months.  It's actually quicker than I thought it would be.  I need to call and double check on it though.  They didn't call me.  Instead they mailed me an appointment card.  Strange.  After finding out when I got there the last time someone had scheduled me on the wrong day, I don't want to take any chances.  I am really hoping I feel like doing a little shopping ... and I have some money to shop.  My friend that's taking me loves to shop as much as I do.  We would get in a lot of trouble if I were able to shop like I could before getting sick.  Just another example of God's perfect timing and how He protects us.  Seriously.

I've spent the week having a huge pity party.  My list of reasons goes on for a country mile.  Some of the reasons are valid.  I am physically miserable.  I hate being at home alone so much.  I missed church this week.  And some of the reasons are not so valid.  My mind can take the slightest thing and can make this enormous issue out of it.  I can read so much into the smallest things.  My family doesn't clean the kitchen immediately after dinner, and I claim they don't care about me.  Actually, they just don't care if the kitchen gets clean.  I have a family member who will leave comments on photos and status updates on Facebook every other family member posts, but totally ignores me.  It must mean she hates me.  Maybe she is ignoring me or maybe she isn't, but why should I let it bother me?  I don't like Facebook anyway.  I would delete my account if I didn't need to "stalk" my children.  They claim I'm stalking them.  I call it monitoring what they are doing.  I feel like I'm being purposely forgotten and being left out of things.  When the reality is my friends know I've felt terrible this week and know I need to rest.  And yet I felt "bullied" into going to bible study Wednesday after telling my friend I didn't feel up to going.  Actually she was just trying to encourage me because she knew I would feel better just being with the group.  I felt ganged up on when I shared with them how sometimes I question if I'm really belong to Christ.  Once I got home I vowed to myself I would never go back.  That's not what they did at all, but it sure felt that way.  I can't please anyone.  I disappoint all of my family and friends.  I can't live up to their expectations.  etc., etc. etc.

I really just wish Jesus would come back to get us ... this very moment.

I have read on Facebook, you know that thing I dislike, where almost everyone is listing something they are thankful for each day of November.  I keep thinking to myself I should do that, but it's so much easier to just succumb to my pity party.

My daughter said something a couple of nights ago that has put me under conviction.  She is training to work with a lady who is homebound with multiple medical issues and unable to do anything for herself.  I was telling Sara that when she thinks she has it rough, she needs to think about what this lady is dealing with in her life.  My wise 16 year old looked at me and said, "You should too."

So I am going to spend today thinking on what the Lord has given me.  I going to mediate on those things I should be so thankful for, instead of continuing in the downward spiral of thinking my life is so terrible and nobody loves me.

I am going to focus on what I know to be truth and not listen to all the nonsense I've read into things.  And then I'm going to write them down so I can read over them when I allow myself to think otherwise.