Has Lyme left you with a “limp”?

I’ve compared Lyme disease many times to getting in a huge car wreck. You can recover, but your physical body will never be the same again.

I don’t know where you are in your journey and fight with Lyme, but we are 4 years past ground zero. We are out of the pit, past the point of impact, out of the shadow of the disease. We are functioning, living and thriving, but we still have a “limp”.

What do I mean “limp”? Do we have an actual limp from Lyme? No, its more like after that giant car wreck, you might fully recover and live, but what about the damage you got to that right knee? Sometimes when the weather flares, you still get a nagging limp. Well, in Lyme, we have a few nagging physical impairments that remain. The shadow of the illness has left a permanent imprint on the body that cannot be removed.

That’s where I feel we are with Lyme disease and the damage it did to our house. We have come 90% to healing but will we ever recover that last 10%? Will we ever live without that limp?

I don’t know what you limp might be or is. But ours remains in the rawness and struggle in our marriage and in our parenting. Those tough years, we neglected each other, we neglected discipline at times in favor of survival and we see it now. We have a limp in our finances that I’m quite certain, without a miraculous intervention, will always be there.

We also live in a fragile state in our physical bodies. We limp through full moons and other geothermic disturbances. We limp through strong barometric shifts. My kids limp through growing pains and growth spurts where things crop up or down. I limp through hormonal shifts as my body prepares for menopause. I limp through tough stressful seasons and weeks waiting for my reserve tank to kick in.

That last 10% is a doozy. Sometimes I feel like the limp is becoming part of us more than I want to accept it. I don’t want my identity to be associated with Lyme or its aftermath. It gives it too much power. But I also know there is a danger in normalcy. I don’t want my yearning for normalcy to make me complacent or ungrateful.

Our last 10%, our limp if you will, reminds me to be grateful that its not 90% or 100% anymore. If our limp was completely gone, would we careen on and become too mainstream? Would we forget from where we’ve come? Would be tarry to close to unhealthy things and put life out of balance again?

In our house and at this time, I feel like God is leaving the 10% to keep us close to Him. To keep us dependent on Him. To keep a memorial of what He has allowed to heal. He has  the power to heal 100%, but he has not yet.

The Lord Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen. (Isaiah 14:24)

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ (Isaiah 46:10)

I can’t want or wish or pray my own will into being. I don’t want the limp anymore in my life or the lives of my children. I would like Lyme disease to fade so far away, I can’t hear it or see it or remember it. But it changed us. It was the car wreck and it did happen and it changed everything.

If the limp is gone, will I remember God’s faithfulness? Will I remember my weakness for busyness and forget my weakness for ungratefulness? Will I remember to cherish my health and each moment with my kids?

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)

If I get to have the plan’s of my own heart and the limp goes away, will I remember to help other’s through Lyme disease. Will I move past the compassion I have for those still suffering with their 90%? Will I forget to tell other’s about God’s strength and faithfulness?

I will continue to pray for complete 100% healing over our household because I believe that God can when it aligns with his will. You should too. He tells us to ask with boldness and confidence and belief.

I believe. But I also should accept. I should accept my limp as a gift, as a thorn, as a part of the life I’ve been given. I have trouble with the acceptance with the waiting.

I should live in thankfulness for the memorial of the 90% departure and our ability to live, even if it is to live with this “limp” remaining so I can boast in God and not in the living.

Blessings and healing,

Janice Fairbairn – The Lyme Evangelist

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