THE MEMOIRS OF SUMMER RAY

This post might be more on a personal level than most of my blogs. But I need to be transparent. I don’t feel me acting like I am okay when I am not, helps anyone. I thought if I pushed myself harder that I would heal faster from Long Term Covid and Dysautonomia. They are both chronic illnesses. Sadly, I was only denying reality. My daughter once told me, “Mom, you are trying to use fitness as a cure!” Which of course, I did not want to hear. So, I continued to push harder and I kept harming myself even more. I am just being honest. My body would shut down causing my emotions to spin out of control because of the pain I was in. I was addicted to my own stubbornness and my refusal to accept the truth.  An addiction, “is a dependence on a substance or activity even if you know that it causes you harm. It can impact your daily life.” I thought I knew more than the doctors or therapists. I know how I was before these illnesses and I was so determined to get my health back. But I was going about it all wrong. Facing facts, facing reality is hard. But I also have faith that God can and will help me get well. I am at the place where I am thinking He isn’t going to heal me all at once. But I honestly thought the harder I pushed, the faster I would heal. I don’t understand that mindset because it literally was starting to kill me. I was slowly suiciding myself, without wanting to. I am working with a Physical Therapist that understands these illnesses. But it is also when I had to come face to face with the reality of, the harm I was doing to my mind and body. I would see progress, but then I would try to over do it to more progress, only to fall back and have my body shut down. It became a vicious cycle. I cannot speed up my recovery by overloading my system. I cannot speed up my recovery by having this addictive mindset. I cannot speed up my recovery by being angry about what happened to me. I do hate it. But I cannot allow it to control me. I have to break free from the fact that I became seriously ill and I lost so much of who I was before I got sick. I can’t continue to grieve the past. I simply must let that part of my life go. Out on the ice, before Covid, I was strong and so was my endurance. I was almost fearless. Although I still have muscle memory, I do not have the strength or the endurance to execute the moves like I used to. I can barely do a Waltz jump. My skating time at best is ten minutes and I have to rest. It has literally crushed my soul. My thoughts are, “How am I going to be Summer’s skating double like this?” It is what I think about. Well, I won’t if I continue to bring further harm to an already broken body. So along with a broken leg, let’s add to it and break my foot. This is the mindset of what I am doing to myself.

But I somehow have to see the good in the crushing. Wine is made by grapes that are crushed.

“To be considered “good,” things like grapes to make wine, olives to extract oil, or grain to make flour need to be crushed, as the process breaks them down and allows for the extraction of their valuable components; essentially, the “crushing” is a necessary step to create a desirable product.”

SERMON NOTES

For the eagle “soar” is about flying, but for the eaglet “soar” is about falling.

“Crushing is the process, and soaring is the promise.  You cannot have promise without process. Those that God is going to anoint the most, He always crushes the most severely. The further the arrow is going to be shot, the more it must be pulled back. I have learned how to abase and abound.  Whatever state I’m in, therewith to be content. Some things you learn are not for you, but for you to help someone else. Anytime he’s going to exalt you, he humbles you.“

I have to have a much better plan, or I will end up quiet possibly unable to care for myself. God sent me to that new therapist because she studied John Hopkins research, and knew exactly what I was dealing with and doing to myself. I hate the “slow and steady,” speeches. But I am reminded of the story of The Hare & The Tortoise https://read.gov/aesop/025.html “The race is not always to the swift.”

I am going to stop the pretense that I am okay. I am not. I am however, at the same time, going to start dealing with my instability. Since I was a little girl, I have been an athlete. I still am. I just have to follow the rules. I have to stop trying to break them, thinking that I know what is best, when clearly I do not. God is putting this project together piece by piece. He will see this through. I am still working on the project. I am still doing what I have been doing. But I also have to have better management of what I have been doing to myself. I don’t understand any of what happened and perhaps neither did Summer. But we cannot let it define who we are. The past is the past. I cannot go back to when I wasn’t sick. I only have the todays and tomorrows to work with. So I have to stop, as previously stated, grieving the past. Whatever this is for, whatever it is meant to accomplish, God will use what Satan meant for evil, for good. I have to trust in that!

Thank you for being a part of our Summer Ray world.

References: Google; https://fv.church/calledblog/2020/1/8/the-crushing