Warning: This blog contains some strong language, some honest language.
If you cannot stand this I suggest you read no further — or grow up.

Tuesday morning  4am

I should be asleep.

My brain says sleep, my eyes water with the effort of staying open and I have work to do tomorrow.

That’s arthritis for you. This pain that strikes at random times. Keeping you awake when you should be sleeping, and tiring you out so that you sleep when you should be awake. That’s the nature of pain, when you should be asleep: I cannot sleep through this. Yet when daylight comes and I should be working the pain puts me to sleep. It’s easy to sleep through pain when you should be working.

If only I worked for myself and could choose my own hours then I could work around this. But no. I am employed, and required to work certain hours. Another day of fighting back sleep during the working day due to little sleep at night is on the horizon.

Fuck you arthritis.

Early on it was easier. In hospital it was easy to trust. To trust in the doctors, nurses and physiotherapists. And to trust in God. Trusting for recovery.

It was easy to be thankful to God for recovery when each week saw an improvement. It was not plain sailing, but the course was being followed. Being fit and well again was on the horizon. Things could only get better.

But now things cannot get better. There is no recovery. The best that I can hope for is that things do not get worse, but deterioration is the way of arthritis: That and being awake in the night- awake when I need to be sleeping.. Things can only get worse. The best case is that the deterioration will hold off for a while be gradual.

People say there is always light at the end of the tunnel. But I am not in a tunnel. This is a fucking cave. There is no end to a cave. There is no light.

I trusted God for healing. Of course I did, because I had seen God heal others through the prayers of others and through my prayers. I have even experienced healing myself. I know God can heal, I know God does heal. And so I trust in the god of healing. the healing that is the light at the end of the tunnel, the light where God is. But this is not a tunnel, this is a cave. There is no light. So I curse the darkness. Fuck you.

I curse the darkness. I curse the pain. I curse the arthritis and I curse God. And in cursing God in the darkness I make a discovery:

GOD IS IN THE DARKNESS.

God was with me all along. In the pain, in the frustration in the darkest of times. I was looking for a light, a light where God would bring healing and wholeness. I was looking for God in the future, not in the now. I had to go back. not back to when I trusted God when I was fit and well, but back to when I was lying on a hospital bed, not knowing if I would live or die, and trusting God no matter what happened. God could take my life or give it back. Praise God.

So I have to trust God in the dark times. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, nor is there any turning back. At least I was healthy. Then in 2015 I became diabetic. No long sustained activity for me now either. So the struggle to find God in the dark times started all over again. But this time it was easier, I knew where to find God, and that was in the struggles.

So here I am, with a psychological condition, Asperger’s syndrome, a chronic skeletal issue, arthritis and a chronic medical issue, diabetes. As far as hidden conditions go that’s not a bad set. And here I am, stumbling along trying to make the best of what I have and trying to trust God in the pain.