What starting 2019 with mono taught me

Well– let’s be honest here I was not expecting to start my first blog post of 2019 with that title– what I learned starting the year with mono.  

The reason I did not finish all of the 25 days to coming alive at Christmas? I had started to feel the extreme tiredness and fatigue and loss of voice and throat pain for a while– but I tried to ignore it (of course).  Until I couldn’t anymore and found myself at a doctor for the first time in 12 years and she told me I had “the mono”

I feel like it should have “quotes around it” because it makes it feel more dramatic– because to be honest having the “mono” felt pretty dramatic.

Especially because the first thing I learned is when you are diagnosed with “the mono” at 36 people wonder how you got “the kissing disease” (this may be the most quotations I will ever use in a blog post ever!)

True confession here:  I am 36 and still have not kissed a boy (I am not a nun promise just have never been asked and have to trust the Lord has protected my heart for His story) but I kind of wish I had gotten “the mono” from “the kissing” (don’t judge me here friends).

I literally got the funniest messages and comments like aren’t you a little old to be getting “the mono”.

So I assure you I have not become loosey-goosey.

All jokes aside here is what I learned.  And why I am telling you what I learned?  Because I would love for you to get the treasures of what I learned without you having to get “the mono.

I am a goer– a doer– a 7 on the enneagram who is always looking for and doing the next thing.  Being still is HARD for me.  And I can tend to push myself too hard, too fast and don’t think that’s because I’m all work work work, some of it is I love ALL the people so I have a hard time saying no to any coffee shop conversation invitation and I do a lot of play.  Being still is hard for me.  Especially starting a new year.  That’s when I have worked hard on my goals and am so excited.

“The mono” (is it weird that I giggle every time I write that) stopped me cold. I could not get out of bed most days and could only sip chicken broth.

Psalms 46:10 says Be still and know that I am God.

Be.  Still.

Maybe you are like me and you think of all the other things to do BUT that.  And how do you figure to be still when you cannot stop at life.

I think I needed to start with pausing and finding still and learning a little slow at times.

In Day 19 of 31 Days to Coming Alive I say this:

Be. Still. Know.  It’s so easy to change what follows those words.  Be busy.  Be perfect.  Be supermom.  Be the best Sunday school teacher.  Be here, be there before you can be still.  What if we stopped to experience stillness as a gift and blessing in our everyday life?  While you are at the stop light, pause, take a deep breath, thank God for that moment.  Ask Him to still your heart.  To still your mind.

God is the I am so you do not have to be.

It can be so easy for me to find my worth in what I do.  But somehow I was finding the Lord love me deep when I had nothing to offer but “the mono.”

Speaking of loving me deep here is the other thing I learned.  Truly going to be honest here.

I never want to be too needy– a lie the enemy can tell me is I am too much.

I can sometimes feel unseen– the enemy will lie and say you are looked over and unseen because you don’t fit the society normal as a 36-year-old single gal who lives a crazy faith adventure having a non-profit.

Living alone and to sick to go to the store to buy toilet paper– I have to say I have never felt so loved.  So seen.  So known.

People showed up at my door every day with something I needed.  Without me even asking.

Because if they would have asked what I needed I would say nothing.

From chicken soup to taking my laundry, to kombucha and popsicles, my favorite smoothies,  to french fries with a side of salad when I could swallow, to a steroid shot and expensive vitamins to help me get well– I had nothing to give back and my friends loved me.

I wonder if any of you started 2019 with those nagging lies from the enemy.

Let’s be honest we all have them.  Yours might be different than mine, but you have them.

Can I tell you without you having to get “the mono” that you are seen?  You are loved.   You are known.  And you are enough.

You are seen by God.

Known by God.

Loved by God.

Enough as you are BECAUSE of God.

And you can still and let Him be God so that you don’t have to be.

God is teaching you, meeting with you, covering you, wrapping you in His arms.  He is filling you, speaking through you, caring for you, touching you, healing you, giving you strength to mount up on His wings like eagles.  God is opening the eyes of the blind, setting the captives free, making paupers into princesses.  God is bringing hope to the hopeless.  God is the potter you are the clay.  God is actively working, mending, doing the extraordinary.  God is reaching, loving, romancing.  God is listening.

Be still and know

— 31 Days to Coming Alive

Ok for all of you who made it through my most use of “quotes” ever blog post, there is a reward.

For anyone that comments  between now and January 10th letting me know one way I can pray for you in 2019 I will enter you in a drawing to win my FAVORITE book I read last year in 2018 It’s all Under Control by Jennifer Dukes Lee.  

Share the post on Facebook or Twitter or all things social (after all this extrovert needs some people because I have been stuck inside with “the mono” and I will add your name for each time you do.  You want this book.  Ps:  Visit her website to learn more. It’s a great book/study to start out 2019.