Chronic Illness Truth #22

I have been learning this profound lesson about happiness lately and this is it:

God wants ME to be happy!! Not just everyone else, not just healthy people, not just people who seem to have it all together, but ME. Little, insignificant, sick, tired, and sometimes a little bit crazy ME.

For the longest time, I felt like I wasn't supposed to be happy. Like if I was happy it meant that I wasn't being refined enough in life, and I should be in pain because that's how I'm going to learn the hard knocks of life right?! WRONG. As necessary and as unavoidable pain and suffering are in this life, the end goal for each of us is still pure joy. Illness for sure has a way of refining you, to which I am thankful for those painful moments that teach me amazing lessons, but because I have Savior who empowers and a God who LOVES me, I know that I can find happiness despite my circumstances.

Don't get me wrong, in NO WAY is this always easy, but if you're in that place of darkness right now I BEG OF YOU; please don't quit. Please carry on. Please put on your extra strength and remember that pain is not meant to last into the eternities. It is meant to refine us in the here and now, and WE WILL GET THROUGH IT. God is bigger than us. And He can and will ease our pains.