A true lesson....

God is teaching me a true lesson. One that I have been extremely hesitant and not very happy to learn about. He has been trying to teach me a lesson on patience.

Anybody who knows me knows…. that I am not an incredibly patient person. I can go with the flow and do whatever, but when something happens I want a solution…and I want it fixed NOW. God has slowly but surely been teaching me that this way of thinking and acting, is not what he has in store for me.

Those who have been following my story, know that I have a nifty (not really) disease called NMO. I have also recently been diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension. Long story short, that means that my body is making too much cerebral spinal fluid, which can cause blindness from the increased pressure it causes on your optic nerves. Many of you know I have been fighting with losing my vision for the better part of 3 months now. The beginning of this month, I was almost totally blind and we were grabbing straws as to what in the world was causing it. When I finally decided to be PATIENT and wait on God to tell me which doctor to see He showed me exactly the right direction and we had an answer within 24 hours to the battle we had been fighting for 3 months. 

That took patience. God had to bring me to a very low place in my life to show me that He had the right answer, and I just needed to wait it out with Him. And He delivered.

I had great hopes for returning to work very soon. For those of you who don't know, I have been out of work for going on 3 1/2 months. Mentally I needed to return to work. I needed to know that I hadn’t lost everything. I needed to have some kind of freedom back over my life.

I had been to a doctor the previous week, who had told me that she thought I could probably drive soon, and we had set a soonish date for me to go back to work. She did say however, that she would leave the final decision up to Dr. W. But,  I went ahead and got all excited. I was going back into the real world! I was going to be able to drive. I was going to be a real person again…..

So my appt. with Dr. W was this morning. I went in with the expectation of him going along with her orders and letting me go back to work, and start

driving. I knew in the back of my head that he could change up my whole plan, but I honestly didn’t think he would. I was over being patient, I was over being a patient, and I was ready to be normal again. (or as normal as I've ever been)

So, Dr. W walks in… does his little assessment and says. "Well things are looking better. Your vision is improving which is great, but there is still a good bit of swelling on your nerves and disks in the back of your eye, and I think we need to give it some more time to decrease. Hopefully over time, you will gain some more vision back.” I went on to ask him if I could drive…. he went and got the DMV criteria for people who drive with visual disabilities. Surprise Surprise, I couldn’t drive. My vision was not good enough to pass DMV criteria. I asked him about working, and he said no. He said that my eyes really needed more time to just heal, and seeing as how my line of work could get pretty shaky at times he didn’t feel comfortable with that. He said, he would see me in a month and we would go from there, that hopefully my vision would be good enough to drive and return to work at that time.

To say I felt discouraged, disappointed, and just downright defiant, would be the understatement of the year. I was so upset that I couldn’t have my freedom. I was so upset I couldn’t go back to work when I wanted. And I was terrified of losing my job. Terrified of what we would do with certain situations we had coming up. I was just a mess of worry and disappointment. 

And then I happened to start thinking about the lessons that God had been trying to teach me. PATIENCE. I obviously didn’t learn enough about it the first time he tried to teach me, so he threw another curve ball and this time…. I caught on quicker. I have to be patient and wait on what God is going to do with my life. This is not easy. It never has been. It is much easier said than done, that is for sure. My momma has always said “don’t pray for patience, because God will always provide a way for you to gain some”……. I never prayed for patience, but I know that God is trying to show me that it is HIS way and NOT my own.

A friend of mine recently put on Facebook a great quote that I want to share with you:

God may say to wait…. But he will never say to worry.  (Thanks Robert!)

That is something that I have to keep reminding myself! When I start to worry about how things are going to work out, and why we have to wait so long…. I Just have to remember…. He’s telling me to

wait NOT to worry. Those two words may begin with the same letter... but they definitely don't need to be in the same situation! I have always been a worrier. My whole life, I feel like that could be my middle name, worrier. So, this new challenge is something that is not easy, but I am going to conquer it. The only way I am going to get through these new challenges is to wait.... and not worry!