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The Battle & the Beauty

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” 

-Ray Bradbury

Whew. What a start for this blog.

The encouragement and outpouring of support from you guys has been incredible and unexpected. Thank you. Thank you so much. It means the world to me that you already like this blog and want to see it succeed—after all, I do too.

Tuesday was a flurry of excitement as I started the blog and had inspiration bursting out of my veins and onto the screen. It was amazing. After months of lying dormant, my creativity was awakened. I accomplished something.

But now I’m kind of in a rut. It’s the letdown after a huge rollercoaster high of amazing comments and likes and pageviews and getting to hear all of your stories. But now I’m just like… now what? Where do I go from here?

I have so many ideas, so many thoughts, and I don’t know where to begin. I could talk about my doctor’s appointment earlier today, which, while it answered a lot of questions, it also created more. I could talk about fatigue, and how my energy levels are low a lot of the time, and how much that affects daily life. (Seriously. It sucks.) I could talk about the common misconception that because I look perfectly healthy, that I am perfectly healthy. (Insert deadpan sarcasm here: that couldn’t be farther from the truth.) I could talk about how my inclination is to fake it, but how I’ve been learning to be more honest.

But no. Tonight I’m just going to say thank you. Thank you for reading. This blog has helped me in many ways. As the quote above says, it’s helped me tip myself over and let the beautiful things out. It’s given me purpose in the midst of my suffering and my pain.

The amount of people who talked to me about this blog was astounding. I literally did not expect so many of you to like the idea and actually follow along with it. I thought this blog would have 2 followers, max. I thought I was alone in my chronic illness. Little did I know—I’m not.

It blows my mind that in my honesty I’ve sparked you to be open about your stories too. It is an incredible honor to hear your stories. I don’t say that lightly. It means so much to me that you are opening up about that… because of me? What? I don’t even know what I’m doing.

But God does.

So thank you.

And I also want to say something else. You are incredibly brave people, because you have your own battles, too. Just because your battle is different or seemingly less extreme than mine doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. At the end of the day, you are you, and you’re stumbling through life just like the rest of us. Please don’t think that because you don’t have multiple health issues or debilitating pain doesn’t mean your pain isn’t real. Because it is. And you’re welcome here.

Please. Grab a cup of coffee. Curl up on the couch, and tell me your story. It was meant to be told.


We've been down to the bottom, stories we got ’em, when we hit rock bottom 
If you’ve been there put your hands in the air to let the lost know that someone cares 
- TobyMac, Stories


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