When I Have Yet Another Flare Up

I get so tired of having flare up after flare up. Just as I get one disease’s flare under control, another disease flares. It’s like I’m playing whack-a-mole with my symptoms. I get so tired of it all, and I question where God is in all of this.

Here are the the things I remind myself of when I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.

God is in control. 

God has never and will never lose control of the circumstances of my life. The Bible is full of stories—and in fact is one large story displaying how God sovereignly used the events of history to fulfill His plan to redeem humanity. This is an incredibly deep topic with thousands of books and college programs dedicated to it, and I am not qualified to go very deep on it. But read your Bible straight through, and you will see God’s sovereignty at work. If He can arrange history’s events to fulfill His master plan, He can arrange the events of my life to make me more like His Son and to reveal His character through me (Rom. 8:28–29).

God’s goodness is shining even brighter.

Light shines brightest in the darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. So when life is dark, the good things—the light—stand out more. This flare up, I’m noticing so many good things. Here are just a few:

• God has given me good friends. Like, really good friends.
• God has given my family and me an extra dose of grace, endurance, and humor as we’ve dealt with my seizures for the last 16 years.
• God has provided for me financially.

I’m sure there are more, but these are the few blessings that pop to the top of my mind.

God will use this for good.

I have already mentioned this, but God uses every circumstance in my life—good or bad—to make me more like His Son and to display His glory (Rom. 8:28–29).

He can also use this flare to draw others to Himself through me. I’ve had opportunity to talk to some close friends who are walking this road with me about how God had used my seizures in my family’s lives as we got used to dealing with them. Those conversations turned into opportunities to talk about how God is using this circumstance in my friends’ and my lives now.

Long story short, when flare ups and difficult times come and I question why, I need to remember who my God is. He has not lost control, though my life seems out of control. He is still good, though my circumstances aren’t good. He will use this to make me more like Him and to show who He is to the world through me.