Small glimpses of spring are all around, and it's making us all feel a little giddy.
Hello, strawberry plant. We both survived winter, I see.
But I want to try to give an honest (and hopefully brief) update, and then will finish with a list of blessings that have grown out of these last few months.
While receiving treatment for a bulging disc this summer, I began experiencing other symptoms: deep bouts of fatigue, weakness, dizziness, chronic pain in my joints and muscles, numbness in my arms, and debilitating migraines. I couldn't drive for weeks at a time, and every small task seemed insurmountable. (Most of these struggles still exist months later.)
wearing the "Cone of Shame"
Since last May, I've been seen by
During the worst months this winter, I could barely get out of bed and care for myself, much less my family. Jason bore the weight of the chores and of our family's needs for many months. I really can't emphasize enough how kind, patient, and hardworking he has been.
School time has mainly consisted of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. On many days, I've had to teach lying on the couch or the floor, praying with tears for strength and to get through each lesson or math/spelling concept. I struggled with guilt that my kids weren't having a rich learning experience. And for the first time in the four years of homeschooling, I wondered if I should give up.
School time has mainly consisted of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. On many days, I've had to teach lying on the couch or the floor, praying with tears for strength and to get through each lesson or math/spelling concept. I struggled with guilt that my kids weren't having a rich learning experience. And for the first time in the four years of homeschooling, I wondered if I should give up.
In February, I was so desperate for any relief that I made some radical changes in my diet (primarily eliminating gluten, dairy, sugar, and processed foods while adding bone broths, fermented foods, grass fed/pastured beef and eggs, and an obscene amount of organic vegetables). It seemed to be helping to lessen some of the worst symptoms. Within a few weeks, I started feeling a slow shift in my body - I still experienced pain, fatigue, and numbness but didn't feel as "ill" as I had been feeling.
Zoodles are tastier than I thought!
I was finally diagnosed in March with fibromyalgia. I've begun another medication to help dull the nerve pain/inflammation and have started another round of physical therapy. Praise God, my new PT was able to identify that I am also experiencing vertigo, and I have daily exercises that will hopefully lead to actual recovery. Please, God - let it be so. It's been a long, long winter.
***
I started to write this blog post back in April after I'd had several good days in a row. I had begun to think that we had finally figured out the right combination of exercises, diet, and medications to help me get back to "normal."
Now it is almost August. Overall, I am having more good days, which is encouraging! Physical therapy helped me learn to manage my vertigo and pain better, but did not cure either one. (My driving is still limited to a few miles from home.) Massage therapy has made the most difference in pain management and treating inflammation, but medication was completely ineffective. I still have to be very careful about my diet, stress levels, and activities or else I start regressing quickly. Every day is still a battle of the mind, body, and spirit.
As promised, here is the list of some of the blessings that have been born out of this season!
Personal Blessings from the Last Year of Weakness:
1) God has used this prolonged season of weakness to help me see how much I relied on what I did/accomplished for my sense of identity. It's been a real struggle to come to terms with this, to repent of my pride, and to realign myself with my True Identity: the adopted child of the Living God, who saved me and covers me with the righteousness of Christ. That is all, and that is enough.
2) By the grace of God, He is slowly teaching me that today I must live according to the strength that He has provided, and pray that He use me in my weakness to fulfill His good purposes. These words from Paul are a continual encouragement, and my understanding of this passage has deepened in the last year:
3) I have had to learn that I am not everyone's savior. Only God can be that. Though I am called to love and serve others to the best of my ability, I am not necessarily called to serve beyond what I am physically able to do. By setting boundaries and using wisdom and discernment, I am trusting that God is bigger than myself, that I am not always the best person to meet a particular need. I have to act on the truth He has plans that are greater than I can handle, and sometimes my role is to pray, encourage others to serve, and simply watch and wonder at His work through others.
4) Our family has received an incredible amount of support, encouragement, prayers, service, cards, and grace over the last year. My respect and gratitude for our friends, family, and church family can't be measured. It has been very humbling to receive so much and have so little to give in return.
Homeschool Blessings from the Last Year of Weakness:
1) As much as I worried about our kids' educational progress during this Year of Yuck, after reviewing the academic standards for our state we breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, we managed to finish on target in nearly every subject. Miraculous!
2) A small unexpected blessing that came out of more unstructured/free learning is that both children have used that time to pursue their own passions and interests with more focus (and obsession, ha ha). Truth has spent a lot of his extra time creating original Lego designs, asking questions and watching videos about energy and mechanics, and playing with Snap Circuits and robotic sets that were handed down to us. He told us toward the end of the school year that he wants to be an engineer when he grows up!
I started to write this blog post back in April after I'd had several good days in a row. I had begun to think that we had finally figured out the right combination of exercises, diet, and medications to help me get back to "normal."
Now it is almost August. Overall, I am having more good days, which is encouraging! Physical therapy helped me learn to manage my vertigo and pain better, but did not cure either one. (My driving is still limited to a few miles from home.) Massage therapy has made the most difference in pain management and treating inflammation, but medication was completely ineffective. I still have to be very careful about my diet, stress levels, and activities or else I start regressing quickly. Every day is still a battle of the mind, body, and spirit.
Laughter is definitely the best medicine
As promised, here is the list of some of the blessings that have been born out of this season!
Personal Blessings from the Last Year of Weakness:
1) God has used this prolonged season of weakness to help me see how much I relied on what I did/accomplished for my sense of identity. It's been a real struggle to come to terms with this, to repent of my pride, and to realign myself with my True Identity: the adopted child of the Living God, who saved me and covers me with the righteousness of Christ. That is all, and that is enough.
2) By the grace of God, He is slowly teaching me that today I must live according to the strength that He has provided, and pray that He use me in my weakness to fulfill His good purposes. These words from Paul are a continual encouragement, and my understanding of this passage has deepened in the last year:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
3) I have had to learn that I am not everyone's savior. Only God can be that. Though I am called to love and serve others to the best of my ability, I am not necessarily called to serve beyond what I am physically able to do. By setting boundaries and using wisdom and discernment, I am trusting that God is bigger than myself, that I am not always the best person to meet a particular need. I have to act on the truth He has plans that are greater than I can handle, and sometimes my role is to pray, encourage others to serve, and simply watch and wonder at His work through others.
4) Our family has received an incredible amount of support, encouragement, prayers, service, cards, and grace over the last year. My respect and gratitude for our friends, family, and church family can't be measured. It has been very humbling to receive so much and have so little to give in return.
Homeschool Blessings from the Last Year of Weakness:
1) As much as I worried about our kids' educational progress during this Year of Yuck, after reviewing the academic standards for our state we breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, we managed to finish on target in nearly every subject. Miraculous!
2) A small unexpected blessing that came out of more unstructured/free learning is that both children have used that time to pursue their own passions and interests with more focus (and obsession, ha ha). Truth has spent a lot of his extra time creating original Lego designs, asking questions and watching videos about energy and mechanics, and playing with Snap Circuits and robotic sets that were handed down to us. He told us toward the end of the school year that he wants to be an engineer when he grows up!
Truth's version of the Millenium Falcon
He's a teeny bit obsessed
G-bug has also stayed busy listening to hours of audio books by Lewis, Tolkien, and Dahl, which has greatly improved her listening skills, comprehension, and oral communication. She has organized puppet shows and plays, written letters to friends and family, and kept research journals to organize facts learned while reading stacks of Magic Tree House books. She's also rediscovered her love of nature and astronomy, exploring our back yard and amazing us with facts about insects and space exploration. We've wondered together at the diversity and intricate nature of the food web in different climates, and tested our knowledge while playing the Planet Earth game again and again. We spent a week reading books about Mars rovers, the planets, and watched the movie Hubble. Together we wondered at the unimaginable size of the universe.
Lego construction of the Mars rover testing
Good turnout to watch the terrain testing
Compare to photo of actual testing for comparison
3) The kids have continued to grow in their ability to help with tasks and chores for Mom, and to take ownership of their own learning. They gather their own supplies, help keep track of what lessons need to be completed for the week, and are learning that they must be self-motivated to complete a task since Mom often isn't strong enough to will them to finish everything. (They have also learned that the consequences of not staying focused are longer school days, while finishing quickly allows for more free learning time!)
4) I have learned that school doesn't have to be Pinterest-worthy or blog-worthy to be beneficial or worth celebrating. I don't have to have it all together to be a good teacher. And honestly if we survived (and thrived) through the year we've just had, then I think our family, our kids, and their education will be just fine.
Please continue to pray for us, as we are in the midst of some more big changes (I'll save that for another post, this one is ridiculously long already). And thanks for following our family's adventures and misadventures! May God be glorified in all of it.
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