When Life Disappoints

What do you do when life disappoints you? I guess the answer to that question really determines how happy your life will be. Because the thing I am learning is that life will often disappoint you and how I react is more important to my physical and spiritual well being than my hurt and/or disappointment.

It was about 5 months ago that I finally had a name to hang to the illness that had kept sidelining me over the past 4 year. Primary Immune Deficiency, a great big name to explain that I did not have the antibodies to fight infection. To combat this I began weekly gamma globulin treatments. The treatments have been ..... well not fun. Nausea, muscle aches, fatigue and hair loss have become companions on this journey. But for every side effect I kept telling myself that I was getting better. I was very encouraged to realize that it had been over two months with no  infection, which is the longest I have gone in over a year.

However, one morning when I sat down to do my morning testing, I discovered that my lung function had dropped 50 points. I prayed that it was a momentary aberration, but over the next few days my lung function continued to fall. I took a trip to my doctor for a  steroid shot and waited with anticipation for my lung function to climb .... but it did not. The next week I went back and was given another shot and put on a month of oral steroids as well. Again I waited for the anticipated rise in lung function only to realize a few days later that I had a sinus infection.

I was discouraged as I sat in the doctors office receiving my antibiotics. My two month long infection free streak was over. I was in an all too familiar spot ... antibiotics and steroids. I went home dragging ... tired, disappointed and filled with questions. Did this mean the treatment was not working? Was this the beginning of another long line of infection after infection?

As I pondered those questions, I began to feel God speaking to my heart with His own questions. Would I choose hope in spite of the discouragement? Did I believe that God was good enough, big enough and loving enough to get me through this latest hurdle? Was I trusting enough to trust God with this?

The answer is Yes! God is good enough, big enough and loving enough to get me through and I am choosing to trust him with this. I choose hope over discouragement and I am looking forward to tomorrow with anticipation.

So for me when life is discouraging, I need to get my focus off of me and back on the Creator of the Universe ... it puts things into perspective and gets me out of the way.

And somehow .... life just is not so discouraging anymore ....

Just Connie