Tag Archives: weakness

We are all the Same. We are all Human.

November 15, 2018 Becky Hill Leave a comment

Recently I have thought a lot about our shared humanity. The fact that we are ALL equal humans.

One is not above the other.
We are all the same.

We all have strengths and weaknesses, we all have hurts and joys, we are all somewhat fragile – never fully knowing what our tomorrow will look like or what the years to come might bring.

We are all the same.
And yet we are all utterly unique.

There is only one of you and there is only one of me. And yet, however different we are, we also share so much that is similar. Wherever we go in the world – there are people who are similar to us. In that we share a common humanity.

One of the great joys of my life is getting to know people from backgrounds and cultures that are very different from my own. I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and become friends with such a wide and varied spectrum of people from all over the world. And ironically the more diverse the people I meet – the more I see the common threads of our humanity. I love to celebrate and learn from the differences. But most of all I love to see how much we are all the same underneath.

Over the past few years I have especially discovered how brokenness and weakness has the potential to help us to see our equal humanity. Experiencing more of our own human inadequacy can bring much more humility – which helps to crush any sense of superiority. Superiority and judgement are probably the biggest barriers to us connecting with others and embracing our shared humanity.

“Humility is about coming to grips with our humanity… Pride is a determination to be seen as bigger than we are. When we are humble, we are down to earth. No energy is wasted on pretension. A humble man can be taken at face value.” – Erwin McManus

However, it’s not just superiority that’s the problem – often both a sense of superiority AND inferiority can bring a feeling of ‘separateness’ and ‘individuality’. Both feeling above and beneath people separates us from others because both cause us to focus on ourselves more and how much better or worse we are than other people. Which can stop us truly SEEING others and can cause us to miss what is going on in their lives.

As I have so vividly learnt over recent years, it is often suffering that is the equaliser. In my own experience suffering tends to somewhat level the playing field. When we are hit – face on – with our human vulnerability and fragility we soon start to see how we and humanity as a whole is prone to such brokenness. It doesn’t matter how well you are educated, how many letters you have after your name, what titles you have collected or how much money you have.

As humans we will all face times of suffering. And those seasons of suffering tend to remind us of who we are…

Fragile humans trying our best to live this life full of unknowns the best we can.

“Suffering invites us to be radically human with one another, perhaps doing nothing more than reaching across the table, clasping hands, and weeping together. We are afforded the chance to create a safe place for someone else to mourn…” – Jen Hatmaker

It is true, in my own life experience and observations, that it is often suffering that ‘invites us to be radically human with one another.’ It strips us of all our titles, labels and achievements and touches the heart. The rich get sick and die and the poor get sick and die. One might have the money to make that journey of suffering a bit less painful. But both the rich and poor still have to walk the painful journey that suffering brings.

It is thus, often through suffering, that we discover a potential for more authentic connection with others. Suffering can strip us of our ability to ‘hide’ from others. Especially when our suffering is obvious and effects our everyday life. Suffering can expose us – but if we can embrace the vulnerability that the exposure brings, then we have the potential to discover more human connection in that place.

IF we are willing to live in the discomfort of being more fully known.

“The strongest relationships are formed in heat of difficulty and the confession of weakness…. sometimes we feel like we have to present a perfect image to the world that everything is OK because we have faith. But in reality honesty breads more honesty… it’s about sharing our common humanity” – Patrick Regan

It is true that honesty breads more honesty. When I talk openly to others about my many physical and mental health battles over the past few years since falling off a ladder in 2015 and experiencing a long term debilitating spinal/ brain injury, I find that others are more willing to open up about their own physical and mental health battles. When you are honest about your own battles with anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts – others will often open up to you about their’s as well. Sometimes people who you never even knew struggled with such things, will reveal more of the dark depths of their own similar wrestling’s. Sometimes they have never really told anyone before. It brings more common understanding and empathy. And it is in that safe place of empathy that you discover more connection.

Human connection is most beautifully seen and experienced when we open up our lives and become increasingly REAL and honest with others. When we allow ourselves to be more fully known.

So I would like to invite us all today to choose to be more ‘fully seen’ to remember that we are ‘all the same’. We are neither superior or inferior to others. Your background, titles, labels, achievements, failures or weaknesses do not make you any more or any less human than the next.

We are instead ALL simply the same underneath.

Beautiful yet broken, strong yet weak, secure yet insecure, lovable yet unlovable, achievers yet inadequate, unique yet ordinary…

Equal humans trying to find our way through our crazy lives. So as the saying goes…

‘Be kind. Because everyone you meet is fighting a battle that you know nothing about’.

Everyone experiences suffering – if it’s not you today – then it might be you tomorrow. So let’s embrace our common humanity. And we might just be able to help to make our broken world a better place for us all to live. Regardless of what comes our way.

The Bible*- 2 Corinthians ‭4:7‬a

Perspective, Suffering & Grief

Compassion Starts with Embracing our own Pain

August 11, 2018 Becky Hill Leave a comment

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” – Henri Nouwen

The meaning of the word compassion is literally ‘co-suffering’ or ‘to suffer together’. Compassion is not simply a feeling that comes and then passes like sympathy or pity. Having compassion is being so deeply moved in your heart with the pain of another that you are compelled to act to somehow alleviate that suffering.

We are literally ‘joining together’ with the one suffering to help and support them.

It’s actually a deeply painful emotion. But the intense feeling is not focused on ourselves – it focuses on ‘the other’ who is suffering in some way. This means, although painful, it is a deeply beautiful and even freeing emotion. Because it takes the focus off our own challenges, trials and pain and focuses our attention on supporting and helping someone else.

However, the irony of compassion is that we only truly feel it, and are moved by it, once we have first embraced our own life struggles and pain. Until we recognise the pain that suffering brings to us, we cannot truly begin to understand the pain it brings to others.

This is why some of the most compassionate people you will come across are those who have felt a similar pain to yours. It may not have been exactly the same, but they at least experienced it enough to see it and feel it in you.

Compassion is linked to empathy. Empathy enables us to understand and relate to what someone else is feeling. Compassion then takes empathy a step further, in that those empathetic feelings are intensified into a passion that leads to action. We are deeply moved to act! To do something to alleviate the person’s suffering. That act might be seemingly big or small, but it will be something that we actually do practically to help them. Motivated by the hope that it will help alleviate that persons suffering – even if only a little.

I really do love the quote at the top by Henri Nouwen. I believe the last sentence is particularly poignant:

“Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

What does he mean by this, what is the ‘condition of being human’?

To me one of the most striking characteristics of our humanity is our brokenness. It’s the fact that we are all born as vulnerable, weak and dependant babies. And we will also all die vulnerable and weak from sickness, an accident or old age. Our human body has a fragility and mortality about it which means that we are plagued by weakness in different ways. We have many vulnerabilities; physically, mentally and emotionally. We are all prone to seasons of suffering and struggle. We are also all imperfect, we all make mistakes.

There are no humans who truly make it through their whole lives feeling perpetually strong, having it ‘all together’ the whole time, without any obvious weakness, vulnerability or struggle. Some people might like to project that mirage to others but the reality is we are all imperfect and fragile in similar and different ways. The fact is, our common humanity dictates that – if we do live to old age – all this will become more than evident, as eventually our body and mind fade and stop working altogether. If we do not live that long then death perhaps will ‘take us out’ early, again brutally revealing our weakness and mortality.

It’s this understanding of our ‘common humanity’ that helps us to become more loving, empathetic and compassionate people. This is why it is actually in times of trial and suffering that our deepest bonds with other humans can be formed – through mutual understanding, love and compassion. This is because it’s often only as we come brutally face to face with our own personal weakness and vulnerability that we can potentially connect more wholeheartedly with others because of it.

“The strongest relationships are formed in the heat of difficulty and the confession of weakness… honesty breads more honesty… it’s about sharing our common humanity.”– Patrick Regan

Those we can share our whole lives with – our struggles, pain, vulnerabilities, weaknesses, shame and guilt – are those who we generally form the strongest bonds with. Relational safety comes in someone knowing our weakness and failings – but loving and staying loyal to us anyway. This is always when our connection with others becomes more deeply profound.

This is when love is most beautiful and its bonds become most powerful.

It is only when someone sees the depths of your own ‘darkness’ – but chooses to love you regardless – that the true beauty of deep relational connection blossoms. There is perhaps nothing more deeply moving in life than this. This is where true unconditional love abounds.

This is also the place that our sense of compassion is potentially deepened, because we have arrived at a place where we know what it is to be faced with our own darkness, vulnerability, suffering and shame. Our hearts can potentially become softer and more malleable towards others. We have been humbled by the distressing awareness of our weakness, which can make us kinder and more understanding to other’s weaknesses.

However, you will see that I used the word ‘potentially’ in that last paragraph twice! The truth is, not everyone who suffers will show increasing compassion to others. This is because suffering can go two ways: it can cause us to become more self consumed, hardhearted, angry and bitter OR it can help us become more tender, understanding, compassionate and loving.

Ironically, embracing our own weakness and pain in seasons of suffering – but then turning those feelings outward to focus it on having compassion for others – can actually help alleviate the suffering of both of us. Suffering always grows darker the more it pulls us back into ourselves. Compassion, instead, provides a light for the both the giver and receiver – as the giver directs their own pain into helping alleviate the pain of someone else.

Acting to alleviate another’s suffering helps bring more meaning and purpose to our own.

In reality though: in what ways can we practically act compassionately? Especially when in so many situations what we can actually do is so restricted?

The thing is, compassion doesn’t demand that we fully fix another’s difficult situation. For instance, when I was immensely suffering from an acute spinal fluid leak in recent years – I couldn’t reach out to another, who was also leaking, and fix their main physical problem. As much as I would have liked to have done so, we were both somewhat at the mercy of a debilitating and misunderstood condition. We couldn’t actually ‘fix’ it ourselves – we needed compassionate doctors to help. However, there are so many ways I could respond to and share another’s pain and act with compassion to their suffering.

Just telling another that we ‘get it’ and understand their pain can be an act of compassion. Which is one of the reasons I decided to write so honestly in this blog. If we can humbly ‘get over’ our own fears and insecurities of ‘getting real’ about our struggles, we can then choose to act compassionately by connecting and reaching out to another honestly – amidst our own, and their, pain. We can’t just think about it – that is sympathy or empathy. Compassion calls us to act on those feelings and practically connect to encourage, support and hopefully help alleviate some of the potential loneliness of suffering. Simply hearing ‘I get it’ means a lot to someone really struggling. This is often the first step in acting compassionately.

Giving your time to support someone struggling through spending time with them in person, over the phone or digitally can be an important act of compassion. Often patiently listening to them process their struggle and trying to understand their pain can help them immensely. Or simply looking for ways to encourage or uplift them in an empathetic way by sending some kind words, a card or gift. Practically, if we do live near by we might show compassion by cooking a meal, taking their kids to school or on a day out, or offering to drive them to a hospital appointment.

Little acts of compassion can speak the loudest when someone is struggling to make it through the next hour, let alone the next day. It was often the things above that spoke the loudest to me at the darkest moments of my own journey with a debilitating long term illness.

“Do small things with great love.” – Mother Teresa

Compassion doesn’t always require us to do something BIG! In fact, normally we can’t do something big – even if we had more time and resources. Many situations cannot be changed overnight with one action. There is a long and arduous process involved in acceptance, change and potential recovery. Compassion is often most profoundly shared in the little acts. The little things that shows someone in pain that you understand (or are trying to) and that you care.

However…

We need to keep in mind that the first step to being ‘moved with compassion’ – in choosing to ‘co-suffer’ with another – is that genuine compassion requires us to SEE and feel that person’s pain and struggle first. Before we do or say anything! That way, our words and actions will pour out from that heartfelt overflow of empathy. They will then be more obviously genuine and tender. You can’t fake compassion – it is easy to see in someone’s eyes, words and body language whether their supposedly compassionate words and actions are truly real or simply forced. In my own experience this can often be a problem for members of the medical profession, especially those who have lost that connection with their and their patients ‘common humanity’.

Genuine compassion will only flow out of our true hearts, when we have first seen, felt and embraced our own pain, vulnerability and weakness. If we have not done that effectively, if we insist on denying and attempting to cover over our own human brokenness, we will simply become increasingly self focused and self absorbed human beings who spend their time pridefully keeping up their mirage of strength and pretension at other’s expense. This will inevitably end up with those people getting increasingly frustrated with others or even despising other’s suffering – rather than being moved with compassion by it.

Is it not time to see more compassion in our world? Whether it’s loving the poverty stricken orphan in Ethiopia through child sponsorship, or simply actively listening to or taking a meal round for a friend or neighbour who is struggling. Can you imagine if our neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals and workplaces were full of truly compassionate people who knew personal pain, but could look past it, to recognise it in another. We could then support one another through the ups and downs of life without judgment, misunderstanding or ignorance.

Perhaps, if we embraced our own pain more, tried to understand it, then turned it outward to connect with another equal human – then we would all suffer a little less throughout our own unique life journeys. Compassion rarely makes all the pain go away. But all of our collective small acts of compassion can become another necessary cog in the bigger wheel of changing our world for the better – person, by person.

“Love your neighbour as yourself.” – The Bible (Mark 12:31)

So let us not forget that we are ALL the same. We all share a common humanity. We must try to love as we would want to be loved. Try to care, as we would like to be cared for. Try to understand, as we would want to be understood. Try to show the compassion that we would like to receive.

In the hope that little by little, kind word by kind word, small act by small act, we might help alleviate some more of the suffering and pain in this world – TOGETHER!

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” – Henri Nouwen

God & Spirituality, Suffering & Grief

Falling Into Grace

June 2, 2018 Becky Hill 1 Comment

“Grace can’t be explained; it has to be experienced … grace always has a story.” – Kyle Idleman

Grace is a word that we are all familiar with. We might think of it as a quick prayer at the start of a formal dinner. Or maybe a popular baby girls name. Perhaps you might think of a ballet dancer or figure skater moving gracefully around the room. You may of even heard it talked about in church.

But as the quote above says – grace is so much more than all that. It is not simply a word, a short prayer or even a religious concept…

Grace is an experience!

Over the past few years God has really deepened my experience, understanding and revelation of grace. Grace has become such a powerful reality in my life that even just hearing or thinking the word can often bring tears to my eyes, or tangibly move my heart very deeply, as I hear and ponder it.

To me, the concept of divine grace is one of the most beautiful things in the world!

This is mainly because I believe, know and have profoundly experienced – that divine grace truly is the ultimate foundational building block of unconditional love.

You cannot separate grace from love. They are fully dependant on one another. Unconditional love is only possible because of undeserved grace.

Of course, we are talking about a specific definition of the word grace. I am referring to the word as a Biblical concept, a spiritual experience. So before I move on, let me first attempt to describe to you what I SEE when I read, or hear, the word grace in this context.

In the Bible’s New Testament, grace is translated from the Greek word ‘charis’ which can be translated as God’s unmerited or undeserved favour and ability. To favour someone or something is to prioritise, show preference to, demonstrate a special kindness towards and basically give approval to that person or thing.

Normally in our day to day world we would show ‘favour’ to someone that we love more than others, ie. a spouse, child, family member, best friend, someone who has helped or shown us more kindness than others. We would rarely show ‘favour’ to someone who had been unkind, treated us badly or someone that we dislike.

Therefore we usually show favour (or grace) to people conditionally. We repay love for love, kindness for kindness, generosity for generosity, dislike for dislike, rudeness for rudeness, hate for hate. The way someone behaves or acts towards us dictates how we react, treat and respond to them in the vast majority of cases.

This is where ‘charis’ blows normal human behaviour and convention out of the water.

The whole point of the New Testament concept of charis is that it is wholly undeserved. There is no initial assessment about whether someone’s behaviour merits us favouring them. We decide to favour them – before we know how they will treat or respond to us. AND we choose to favour and show kindness to them DESPITE wrong, hurtful or negative treatment or attitude towards us.

Do you see how undeserved grace is the foundational building block of unconditional love?

Can you SEE how outrageously beautiful it is as a concept to me? However, the stunning nature of undeserved charis can never be fully explained in words. It has to be SEEN & EXPERIENCED. For us to truly get a life changing revelation of its glorious divine nature and intention you have to have lived through, and from, its awesome perspective. As the lyrics to this song show is so beautifully…

“And nothing ever LOOKED like this
The wonder of a world I missed
The clarity I find in GRACE
Never thought I’d SEE this way.
You’ve been there every time I fall
Been there through it all
All this time to SHOW me
The VIEW from here.”
– Stu Garrard (The View From Here)

Those words help to describe the profound transforming metamorphosis that occurs from the day, or season, that we truly begin to SEE via divine grace.

It revolutionises the way that we SEE the world. It completely changes our own perspective of God and humanity. We start viewing everything from the eyes of our hearts – rather than with our limited heads and minds. It is a wholly new ‘view from here’. And today I want to try and describe something of the view from the vantage point of divine undeserved grace.

“The view from here
So beautiful
It’s so beautiful…
… can you SEE it now?”
(Stu Garrard ‘The View From Here’)

The view from the outlook of grace is truly stunning. It is simply indescribably beautiful. As you look out at the world, you begin to increasingly see the beauty in each and every person you meet. Even when they are in a bad mood, even if they treat you terribly, despite their good or bad behaviour. You see hidden beauty within them and you long to reach, connect with it and draw it out from them. You feel a profound depth of love for them before you even meet or know them.

Undeserved grace is truly THAT radical!

Isn’t it beautiful?!

Can you imagine a world where everyone could see and treat others from that viewpoint?

But I can also hear the cynics among you mumbling: “Well that’s simply unattainable idealistic ‘world peace’ rubbish – who on earth can love to that depth? How can you love someone you don’t know or have never even met ... if you don’t know them – how do you know if that person really deserves your love?”

And all true Jesus followers should quickly reply with a resounding…

“We don’t! – But that’s the whole point of grace.”

How deserving someone is of love is taken right out of the equation.

There is nothing they could do to make us love them more. There is nothing they can do to make us love them less. We simply love them because we just love them. Full stop!

Isn’t it beautiful?

But…you might say… is it really possible to live like that? With that radical view of the world? Seeing every person you meet as uniquely, but distinctly, beautiful?

It is ONLY possible if you have ‘experienced’ that undeserved grace and unconditional love yourself first personally. You can’t view the world like that until you truly see and experience that level of divine love from the source of perfect, infinite, Divine Love Himself – Jesus Christ! When people have truly experienced divine undeserved grace and love. It will naturally flow out of them like streams of living water – to increasing measure, to everyone they meet. You can’t make it, will it or force it to happen. It should just increasingly become as natural as breathing, for those people who have truly surrendered to God’s unconditional love and grace.

However, unmerited grace is not a one-off experience alone. That is where it begins. But it’s real beauty is seen when people experience an ongoing deeper and deeper revelation personally. Day by day. Month by month. Season by season. And as they do it will just naturally transform the way they think, feel and behave until they increasingly drip and bleed undeserved grace and unconditional love to everyone they meet.

That metamorphosis has to be one of the most stunningly beautiful processes to watch happening in both yourself and others. Once you have seen and tasted what grace can do in your own and other people’s lives. Once you have experienced the restful ease of it’s transforming power. When you begin to rise up and view the worlds valleys and humanities brokenness from the lush green hills of grace.

You are never the same again!

However, the hidden glory of that transformation is that you will only truly experience it mesmerising depths, IF you begin from a place of witnessing the true extent to which it is undeserved. In your own life first… then in others second.

The truth is you will only experience grace in proportion to how much you acknowledge the depths of your own brokenness and weakness.

The divine key – given freely via Jesus Christ – to unlocking this view of undeserved grace and unconditional love in your own heart… Is surrendering to and receiving it’s ultimate core revelation…

That you have done nothing and can do nothing now, or in the future, to deserve miraculous divine perfect love.

The moment you believe you have done something that helps make you worthy of unconditional love and undeserved grace, you have voided the whole revelation and experience. You cannot experience grace by earning it – you can only receive as the ultimate gift.

You can only experience grace when you see how absolutely undeserved it really is!

And that is also humanity’s biggest hurdle to receiving the life transforming experience. Because humans like to justify how good and deserving they are; of respect, life and love. They have believed the lie that has completely corrupted people’s understanding and experience of love in our world – that love is something you give and receive because of how much you have earned and deserved it. This is why human convention dictates that you love those who love you, show kindness to those who are kind to you, and dislike and even hate those who dislike and hate you. Which makes the most sense to our human minds.

However…

People can’t see that it’s just that corruption of love that has polluted and destroyed our world, it’s inhabitants and all our relationships. The world is falling apart because it doesn’t truly understand and hasn’t truly experienced perfect unconditional love.

All this is because the truth is ‘weakness is the ONLY way’ to receiving that love. And unfortunately humanity hates feeling weak. We spend our lives trying to cover over and whitewash the cracks and crevices we ALL have. We will do anything we can to show off our strengths and sometimes go to any extreme to hide and cover over our weaknesses.

This results in our own ‘view from here’ being totally corrupted, polluted and full of both:

Pride AND shame.
Superiority AND inferiority.
Self-promoting AND self-hiding.
Self-prioritising AND self-loathing.
Arrogance AND false humility.

All of which will pollute and destroy perfect love.

Paul said in the Bible; “But he (God) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” – 2 Corinthians‬ ‭12:9‬

Anyone who has followed any part of my painful three year journey through a debilitating and devastating chronic illness will have heard and seen how it’s relentless waves have completely wrecked me again and again. I cannot begin to describe to you what has happened in my life over the past three and a half years. But perhaps I would say that, at times, it felt like a mixture of a devastating typhoon that ravaged its way through my life and attempted to destroy everything in its path. Whilst I sailed through its unrelenting storm in an exposed wooden rowing boat trying to not be completely sunk by the untamable wind and waves that seemed to strip me naked and constantly flood over me. On and off, I thought I was physically, mentally and spiritually drowning. Unable to cope or see a way through.

I can’t tell you how weak and vulnerable you feel when you are quite literally mostly bed bound and debilitated by a ‘life wrecking’, widely misunderstood, illness.

But as the never-ending storm raged and ripped through my life, stripping me of so many parts of my identity, dreams for the future and so much of what I could do, it revealed a deeper and deeper vulnerability. It exposed more and more of the real, naked, hidden and weak me. Until at moments I wasn’t totally sure what was left behind amidst the tatters of my old life.

Its destructive path at times completely overwhelmed me... but through it all... that still small voice of the Holy Spirit whispered…

“Weakness is the way”
“You can’t – but I AM can”
“Let yourself fall into My undeserved grace”
“Immerse yourself in My unconditional love”

And over time I began to SEE more and more of the depths of my Creator’s unconditional love – that could only be experienced through falling into and being completely immersed in His undeserved grace.

The old me who wanted to look, and be, so strong, the old me who struggled with pride and shame as the depth of her weakness was exposed, the old me who wanted to cover her nakedness with various worldly ‘fig leaves’ as Adam and Eve did after the fall…. Had to let herself be brutally killed off more and more – so that I could experience His ever increasing grace.

All of my heroic self-attempts to keep striving to be strong, all of my ugly self-reliance that tried to fight the battle on my own, all of my projected ‘able, high-achieving, pretentious’ self-identity had to be brutally crushed and wounded.

… until I could again see that we can do absolutely NOTHING to earn or deserve God’s divine favour. We cannot add – even a morsel – to His unmerited ability or His unearned strength at work within us.

“It would be so much more comfortable if God would keep us in our “strengths zone” wouldn’t it? But God keeps thrusting us into our “weakness zone” because it is only in our weakness that he is made strong”. – Christine Cane.

My Father, Lover and Friend… in His incomprehensible wisdom, allowed me to walk through the relentless ‘valley of the shadow of death and destruction’. So that I would learn to fall more deeply into Him. So that He could keep leading me like a Shepherd leads his scared lost sheep, up the greener, more peaceful, lusher mountainside. Up towards the higher ground where ‘the view from here’ would look even more stunningly beautiful than ever before.

My view of undeserved grace and unconditional love could only be widened and deepened when I truly realised that…

“It’s NONE of me… it’s ALL of Him.”

And that is what characterised His constant whispers to my soul throughout the storm…

“You can only do this through I AM’s undeserved grace. It’s My strength in your weakness. I didn’t build or design you to try and scale this mountain by your own human striving, strength and perseverance. I have allowed you to feel and see the depth of your weakness – so that you will see how much you need My grace. So FALL into My grace My precious, dependant, child and allow my SHALOM peace and completeness to STILL your heart again. And watch as you are saturated by My unconditional Love – so that when you look into the eyes of every person you meet, you will truly SEE with My eyes of pure unadulterated love.”

That is my ‘view from here’ which grows clearer and clearer each and every day.

That is why the word grace can cause me to catch my breath, bring tears to my eyes and deeply move my burning heart once again.

That is my story of undeserved grace.

That is what I need you to hear as you listen to my tragically beautiful tale.

Weakness is the only way to truly experience God. His grace can only be received as a mind-blowingly generous undeserved gift. His unconditional love is given despite our faults and failures. So that when we receive it – it will overflow to everyone we meet. In the stunning form of unconditional love for ALL people – regardless of how they feel about us in return.

The view from here is so very beautiful. It’s so beautiful… can you SEE it now?

“Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands”. – Brennan Manning

God & Spirituality, Suffering & Grief

Suffering into a Deeper Spiritual Awakening

April 28, 2018 Becky Hill 10 Comments

“Any great calamity in the natural world – death, disease, bereavement – will awaken a man like nothing else could and he is never the same. We would never know the treasures of darkness, if we are always in the place of placid security.” – Oswald Chambers

If you have ever faced pitch black darkness – you know how hard it is to get around. In that place, if you want to get somewhere, you will have probably also experienced the desperate longing to discover more revealing light.

We tend to fumble around in darkness, utterly lost and insecure about where our feet should go. We have to move so slowly. Feeling our way around and through. Hoping to find a flicker of light, some moonlight, a torch or that revealing light switch that should instantly show the right path ahead.

In pitch black darkness, we all know that we must move towards a source of light to find a way out.

I can still vividly remember being on holiday in Menorca years ago – when our kids were small. We were staying in a small villa, which had shutters and at night was pitch black. One night, one of our small girls screamed out after having a nightmare and I literally jumped out of bed, half asleep. I instantly felt completely disorientated and enveloped by the confusion of the darkness around me.

Where was I?
How could I reach my screaming child?
Where was that light switch that I desperately needed?

In the pitch black, fear and anxiety often overwhelm you. Especially when you face the urgency of trying to get to your screaming child. In that moment I felt completely and utterly helpless as I felt the walls, trying to recall where that light switch was.

Eventually – after fumbling around for ages – I found that precious switch. With it came a stilling burst of light. My panic began to subside as I could see the way to reach my distressed little girl in her own room. And as she felt my presence in the light, as I held her in my reassuring arms and listened to her describe her scary dream – I was so thankful for that light.

The same is true in our lives.

Times of deep darkness disorient us. We can panic and become anxious as our way forward is hidden. We might fumble about trying to find a source of light to make the path ahead clear. We can feel desperate – longing to discover even a flicker of light.

Darkness quickly feels enveloping and all consuming. Its black fog often starts to seep into every area of our thoughts, emotions, actions and lives. We can’t seem to shake it off. Its mist covers everything we do. Until we feel like we are slowly being sucked to its desolate and empty core of despair.

And as it does… the desperate longing and need for light increases and intensifies every hour of every day. Until we know the flicker of a flame – ‘a little hope’ – is not enough anymore to guide us through the dense fog we are immersed in. We need a more powerful light – a more ‘substantial and secure hope’ – to get us through and illuminate, reveal and secure the path ahead.

But it is also in the ‘deep darkness’ that the ‘treasures of darkness’ are waiting to be found. For it is only in that place that we truly see how much we long for and need the light to survive. It is only when our eyes are blinded by the darkness that we fully realise the depths of our desperation and longing for the light to again truly SEE!

The past three years, or so, have been the hardest physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenge of my life. My journey through an utterly debilitating chronic illness following my accident in January 2015 left me feeling more broken and weak than I ever have before.

And yet…

I have increasingly discovered that ‘broken and weak’ is the avenue God uses to draw us more deeply towards Him. It is in true human desperation that we realise how little strength we really have alone. Weakness, and the subsequent new level of humility it can usher in, is always the path to discovering just how deeply we need God.

But the stark reality is – the intense journey of brokenness is truly a painful and raw place to walk. Where layer upon layer of self-sufficiency, self-security, self-identity and self-confidence are brutally peeled away. Leaving us more and more exposed in our human ‘naked’ vulnerability and fragility. Even as you begin to tentatively emerge and ascend out of the valley of deep darkness, you can still feel very battered, bruised and disorientated from the utterly exhausting and often overwhelming fight.

Finding your way through the darker valleys of life, although intensely difficult, can also be an exceedingly beautiful journey; as your heart is softened, opened and humbled like never before. IF – and only IF – we truly invite God into the hidden depths of our vulnerability and pain.

It is only then that we discover and SEE the light of His love,

More intimately.
More stunningly.
More remarkably.
Than ever before!

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” – ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭34:18‬ ‭(The Bible)

It has not always been easy on that relentless journey through life’s darker valleys. There have been moments of anger at God. Thoughts of betrayal. So much lack of understanding about what was really going on. I have had to wrestle through intensely difficult questions and thoughts.

I needed to ‘discover more of God’ in a FAR more real – and yet gritty – way.

I have also had to come to a deeper acceptance of the fact, that we all currently live in a ‘broken world’. And that it is probably not going to change, for many of us, any time soon.

The world was originally created perfect, with God, humanity and creation living in perfect ‘Shalom’ (peaceful) completeness, wholeness and harmony. But ever since humanity decided to do things ‘their way’ rather than the ‘Creator’s way’ in the garden of Eden. The ‘completeness and harmony’ of creation has been fractured and has been subsequently breaking down & slowly falling apart. Sickness, disease, genetic deformity, natural disaster, selfishness, rebellion and pride all entered the world as a consequence of that ‘fall’ and separation of humanity from the Perfect Designer of the universe.

It doesn’t mean God wanted me – or any of us – to be sick. Or that He caused me to fall that day to teach me a lesson. Sickness is just part of our broken world that is groaning to have its ‘Shalom’ completeness restored. God wasn’t the ‘author’ of my sickness, but He does promise to work with our fractured creation and turn it around for my good.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” – Romans‬ ‭8:28‬ ‭(The Bible)

Over the past few years I have increasingly ‘groaned’ alongside the whole of creation for the ultimate redemption and restoration of the Shalom. Matt and I have also never been more aware of the deep, yet at times exceedingly painful, tension that exists between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’. Between God’s perfect kingdom and the current world in which we live.

This life is our ‘in the meantime’ life…

Yet the promise is that we can also begin to increasingly experience the ‘not yet’ perfect kingdom of God – His Shalom – in the ‘now’ through Jesus Christ. Jesus broke into His fractured creation to reach broken humanity. He came to live in the centre of the tension – as one of us. To see and then experience the deepest and most painful suffering here – to bring the ‘not yet’ of God’s glorious kingdom into the broken reality of creations ‘now’.

God’s complete ‘Shalom’ (perfect, whole life, restoring, enveloping peace) is what we ALL yearn and long for in the depths of our spirits and souls. Especially in the midst of suffering. But it is not just a ‘fuzzy’ feeling of ‘inner peace & calm’.

‘Divine Shalom’ – is so much more!

It is the stillness of our entire being – even amidst the storm. It’s illuminating light – even when everything appears dark. It’s the divine ability of undeserved grace – displayed through our human weakness. It loves us whole – in the reality of our brokenness. It is perfect completeness – in the midst of our imperfection.

It’s so very hard to explain to you – with simple words – what has happened to me spiritually over the past three years. How can mere words describe the indescribable?! The only way I can explain it to you is that it was a profoundly deeper ‘spiritual awakening’.

I now SEE with new eyes.
I now HEAR with new ears.
I now FEEL with a new heart.
I now THINK with new wisdom.

My own human ‘nakedness’ of weakness and vulnerability has been exposed and uncovered to a much greater depth. And it was in that place that I found more indescribable divine Love waiting patiently for me. It was as if, all the way through my journey of brokenness and pain, I was being drawn further to seek and discover, being taken deeper to search and find.

It was only when I saw and felt the depths of my weakness and inability that I experienced the glorious wonder of His strength rising up within me. It was only as my self-reliance was brutally crushed by my inability to cope, that my dependency on Him grew so much stronger. Until from deep within the broken clay jar vessel of my life I cried out to the one who created me…

“Make me whole again Daddy.
Then shape and fill me anew, Holy Spirit.
Mould me into Your Divine image Jesus.
Nothing else really matters… All I need is You!!”

I had again reached that intimate place of deeper surrender.

When the darkness intensifies – our need for light increases. When blindness envelopes us – our longing to SEE truly grows. When our inner being is parched and empty – our spiritual hunger and thirst becomes more desperate. When the world can only offer silence – our spiritual ears long for His eternal song.

When trying to describe spiritual – awakenings, encounters or experiences. We often use ancient images, words and metaphors. That to some might sound ‘cryptic’. To others may be simple ‘poetic words’. But to those of us who have truly tasted and experienced the eternal immeasurable love of God – Father, Son and Spirit. To those who have discovered Him waiting for them in their deepest brokenness and pain. To those who have seen His mesmerising light in the darkness. To those who know they cannot live without His beautiful grace…

Such words truly connect with the deepest longings of our hearts. Desires that we know nothing in this world can even begin to satisfy.

I wrote these words about my recent struggles to inspire us today. So that – together – we can again perceive the divine call to our souls – in the midst of suffering – to stretch further, to reach out deeper and uncover more of the dazzling light of His Truth, that will enable us to SEE and experience more of …

…the stunning, transcendent, everlasting – yet intimately personal and experiential – Triune GOD…

Who is pure unconditional LOVE.
The Author of undeserved GRACE.
And the central beating heart of the perfect infinite SHALOM.

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” ― C.S. Lewis, (Mere Christianity)

Click here for a great video explanation of the Hebrew word ‘Shalom’

For more posts about my three year battle with a spinal CSF leak – please click here or click on the CSF Leak tab at the menu above.

Perspective, Spinal CSF Leak

Embracing Simplicity

August 16, 2017 Becky Hill Leave a comment

“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

Over the past couple of years I have often felt like my life has been aggressively and almost completely stripped back. The core of my life is still much the same as it has always been. Yet I often feel like a tree that has been radically pruned. With so many of the branches of my identity and the things that I used to do being brutally chopped off and left to die. Leaving something quite exposed and bare, with many stubs where branches used to be.

When you spend most of your day lying down, and the time you can be upright is exceedingly limited by various intense and horrible neurological symptoms, you find that your life becomes extremely restricted. Everything becomes immensely simplified in many ways (even though there are also many complexities to contend with too). Life mainly consists of things you can do lying flat, or the few limited things you can do whilst upright – although still feeling very ill.

It’s been a very challenging journey to embrace a more simplistic life.

It doesn’t help that we live in a society that often glorifies busyness!

Our Western society is full of people who often seem to wear badges of importance – based, in part, on how busy their life is. Most people are forever expressing how immensely busy they are. This makes it extra hard for those of us who are ill long term, because we have to instead embrace a new identity that can no longer be defined by our busyness. Suddenly we can feel somewhat detached from normal society – a bit of a ‘nobody’.

Everyone around us seems to be carrying on with their ‘normal lives’ whilst we feel like ours is stuck.

We live in a never ending state of limbo, not knowing if or when it will change.

In my 2015 post Is Busyness a Choice? I spoke about an article by Scott Dannemiller called ‘Busy is a Sickness’. In it he wrote:

“… we are defined by what we do. Our careers. What we produce. It’s the first question asked (of us) … The implication is that if I am not busy doing something, I am somehow less than. Not worthy. Or at least worth less than those who are producing something.”

I really do believe that this is a massive problem for those of us who face long term debilitation.

We not only have to take a very humbling journey of coming to terms with it ourselves; we will also often have to face others’ questions, attitudes, and sometimes prejudice – as well as naivety and ignorance – towards our disability and inability to do what we once could do.

We find that we begin to lose much of our identity, because it feels like we are not doing much anymore. Rather than being an active member of society – we feel pushed to the side lines, often misunderstood and sometimes even forgotten about.

We are suddenly not so sure who we really are any more and our condition begins to knock our confidence – until we perhaps no longer feel like we ‘fit in’ with normal society like we used to.

Over time, we realise that we have to go through a deep and painful process of grieving and letting go of who we once were. And much of what defined us.

So that instead we can truly embrace who we are now – in this season. We actually have very little choice in the matter – if we cannot change our current circumstances ourselves then we have no option but to accept it and find a way to live the best life we can amidst all the restrictions.

I learnt over time that I had to stop torturing myself with what I could be doing IF I was well. I had to give up imagining how different life could be if I was healthy. I had to refuse to compare myself to what ‘normal’ people were doing and instead embrace the quieter and more simple life, of mainly being at home, often lying down. I had to see the opportunities that could be found here instead.

We must learn to establish a daily discipline of choosing to see the beauty and wonder in simplicity. To somehow embrace a simpler life. The more I go on that journey – the more I see that there are still so many things to be thankful for and enjoy here.

Despite the restriction, debilitation and pain.

Really it is all a matter of perspective. As many things in life are.

Attitude is everything!

Since I have battled this chronic illness I have realised more than ever that we are often fed a lie by society and the media that our life should always be lovely, fun, immensely satisfying and great. Everything should be as perfect as it can be – and it will be – IF you have enough money, health, great jobs, nice homes, loving families, expensive holidays and up to date gadgets etc. Then we will all be perpetually happy.

BUT it’s just not true!

Hence why there are so many miserable, struggling people who actually have all those things in abundance. Sometimes it’s the people I know who have the most of all those things who are the least happy. Mainly because that mindset draws you into a never ending cycle of desiring more and more – which only leaves you increasingly discontented in the end. Because there is always someone around who seems to have a better lot in life and appears to be happier than you.

I have learnt so much through my two-year journey about trying to be more grateful for the small, everyday things, whilst learning to let go of ‘the dream’ of ‘normal living.’ In doing that (which is a very raw and painful grieving process) I learnt I could find so much joy and wonder here too. And if I can find it here, then I will be so much happier – as well as more content and thankful – when I do hopefully get well. If I can learn contentment without having all the things the media tells me I need – then I will be happier for a life time regardless of whether I stay sick or get well.

It’s a lesson I have also had to embrace with regards how I parent my children. It truly is heartbreaking when sickness robs you of being the parent you always desired and planned to be. It’s a very difficult thing to face and unfortunately you can find yourself envying other healthy normal parents, which doesn’t help.

When I experienced a complete physical and mental breakdown at the end of 2015, it was the grief of letting go of being the Mum I was and wanted to be that caused some of the deepest inner pain. I am so very thankful that my girls are now that bit older and slightly more independent, which makes things so much easier for us as a family. And yet currently I can’t go out with them or do most of the fun or even necessary things we used to do.

I really am currently stuck at home, mainly lying flat, nearly 24/7.

However, I have also learnt that sometimes my kids can learn better life lessons from us facing this as a family than they could if life was just ‘normal’ and great. I realised that if I can’t find a way to truly live here, in the midst of the disappointments, then how can I help them to know how to face their own challenges and disappointments in life? They will certainly come at some point. If as a parent I can’t come through the crisis, then what does that teach them? But if my children can learn how to endure life trials – from me and my husband – then they will hopefully be much more stable and wholehearted adults.

Adults who can weather the storms of life and stick out long term relationships much better. Meaning they may well be happier and more fulfilled adults because of this. It will also hopefully help them to grow in compassion for others, so that they learn not to ignore or avoid another’s pain, but instead look at how they can share it and help support another in and through it.

Compassion is a stunningly beautiful quality to have.

As my body is so restricted on the outside, I actually often feel the energy of what’s within intensify. It’s like there is this ball inside me with a mixture of so many different emotions. I know I have to redirect the ones that want to pull me into a dark place and allow the positive ones to become increasingly dominant. So I am trying to focus my own pain on connecting and helping others in theirs.

I have decided that I must find a way to live like this – so that I can help another walk through their own deep darkness of facing this condition or similar debilitation.

It’s allowing the love, grace and compassion that is within me to break out to help someone else. It’s channelling my hurt into feeling another’s pain with them so that I can then say, “How can I help you today? What advice can I give you from the lessons I have – sometimes painfully – learnt over the years.”

These are some of the simple things in life that I can still embrace and still do. And it’s when I am focused on things such as these that I am drawn less into only seeing the negatives of my current predicament. It is then that I often find the beauty that is found in simplicity. And it reminds me that even if my body remains debilitated, on the inside I can still feel fully alive.

So let me embrace the wonders hidden in the simplicity of my current circumstances. Because if I can do that – in this place – I will hopefully discover a deeper contentment and satisfaction that may well last a lifetime as well. So that IF one day I can leave this whole immensely difficult season behind for good, I will at least have learnt more lessons and disciplines through it that will become the firm foundations of my life tomorrow.

So that although I have had to experience a major pruning and cutting back that has left me looking exposed and bare today, perhaps in the end it will simply leave room for growth that will allow new shoots to form tomorrow. Producing a stronger tree in the future that is happier, healthier and bears good fruit in the right season.

None of us know what tomorrow will bring.

But if we can all learn and grow enough today, so that we can somehow find the inner strength to face whatever might be thrown at us tomorrow, we will be able to take our stand in the crisis and allow this cry to rise up from within us to say:

“However bad this gets and however long it goes on for… I am determined to find the best life that can be lived here – in all its gloriously redefined simplicity.”

To read more about my story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

Breaking Free, Spinal CSF Leak, Suffering & Grief

The Shame of Chronic Illness and Pain

September 12, 2016 Becky Hill 15 Comments

‘Shame derives its power from being unspeakable…. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to whither.” – Brene Brown

Over the summer I read Brene Brown’s fabulous book ‘Daring Greatly’. The book follows on from her famous TEDTalk on vulnerability that had previously inspired me to write this blog post on the power of vulnerability.

The full title of the book is ‘Daring Greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead.’ It encourages us to dare to be honest about who we really are, rather than trying to hide our weakness. It teaches that vulnerability helps us to live more ‘wholeheartedly’, connect more with others and that it helps us to overcome the destructive burden of ‘shame’ we all carry.

Her book really got me thinking about this concept of shame.
It is not something we often think about.

I have been part of the Christian church all my life so I am used to hearing the word shame. We believe it is something destructive that we can overcome and that the grace provided by Jesus’ death and resurrection can break us free from its grasp.

And yet, this book caused me to really reflect on shame; what it is and what it really means. It inspired me to consider these questions;

Where does shame have a hold on my life?
How does shame effect my thoughts and actions?
How might shame be damaging my wellbeing & relationships?

What is shame?

Words we often connect or use interchangeably with shame are words like: embarrassed or humiliated. It can manifest as feelings of inadequacy, guilt or regret. It’s something we often hide and cover up. We might self medicate to avoid thinking about it. We dread people seeing it.

And yet although shame is often seen as one and the same as guilt, I have come to see that there is a distinctive difference.

One of the main differences between shame & guilt is that guilt is the feeling of embarrassment or regret about something YOU HAVE DONE WRONG. We can feel shame, on the other hand, even when we have NOT DONE ANYTHING WRONG.

Shame is more connected to who WE ARE and how OTHERS PERCEIVE US.

“It’s a painful feeling about how we appear to others (and to ourselves) and doesn’t necessarily depend on our having done anything.” – Joseph Burgo

The more I thought about shame and how it manifests in my life, the more I became aware that it is intrinsically linked to the struggles I face at the moment. I began to see how shame had got a hold on me and particularly how it has effected me over the past year or so.

Finally I began to see and recognise that;

I FEEL ASHAMED THAT I AM BATTLING A CHRONIC ILLNESS!

There we go I have said it. It’s out in the open…

I feel ashamed that I am ill.
I feel ashamed that it has gone on so long.
I feel ashamed that I can’t seem to get well.
I feel ashamed that I cannot work and be busy like I used to.

I feel embarrassed to be sick!

When I decided to speak up and write about feeling ashamed of being ill, it led me to google the words; ‘the shame of chronic illness.’ Through that search I found two insightful blog posts by a lady called Angelika Byczkowski in which she shares something of her battles with the chronic connective tissue disorder – Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS).

She writes so beautifully about the humbling journey those with chronic illness and pain are forced to take;

“When I recently read the phrase, “I’m embarrassed to be sick,” it made my stomach clench and my breath catch. That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling….. I am ashamed of being sick….
…. If all the people not yet affected by chronic illness acknowledged all the undeserved pain in this world, they would be forced to confront their own vulnerability to the same forces. Instead, we all prefer to believe we have the power to prevent such disasters in our own lives. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking, “If you’re so smart, why did you let this happen to you?”

Those words were so revealing to my own heart. I have begun to see that I feel like a ‘failure’ for being sick. I feel like – ‘if I was only a bit stronger or wiser, made better choices, if only a bit more positive, if only I had more faith …. surely I could have overcome this sooner?’

Such thoughts often taunt me and drag me into a dark and negative pattern, which was particularly bad at Christmas, where I blame myself and feel responsible for still being ill.

It’s so humiliating to be so unwell and in pain long term.

Angelica highlights this so beautifully in another post called ‘The subtle arrogance of good health’. She writes about how many of us have fallen for the trap we set ourselves, because before we got ill we carried a form of arrogance at being healthy .

“My attitude was the typical thoughtless “arrogance of good health,” the attitude of those who can’t even imagine what happens when a body stops functioning properly. This arrogance knows only the kind of pain that heals, the kind of sickness that is cured.”

As I read those words I too knew it was talking about me. Before I got ill, I had carried the ‘arrogance of good health.’ I had believed that I was strong enough to shake it off when others couldn’t, because that was all I knew.

I was not the ‘type’ who would succumb to its chains. I was always so healthy and surely I could overcome anything thrown at me right? Surely my faith and positive mindset would win?

And then one day in January 2015 I fell off a step ladder and entered the world of chronic invisible illness and pain. I acquired a debilitating spinal CSF leak and brain injury that I haven’t YET overcome. I have been unwell for 20 months. Each and everyday I battle through chronic pain, physical & mental fatigue, a foggy brain, barriers to treatment and the challenges of not ‘being able’ to heal up, get well and get free.

And honestly,
I feel ashamed on so many levels!!

I feel ashamed that I have now become one of those people with ‘chronic pain’ and ‘chronic illness.’

I actually hate using the word ‘chronic’ at all! (Which is revealing of the sterotypes I accepted before).

I feel ashamed to tell you that I feel weaker than I ever imagined possible; physically, mentally and spiritually.

I feel ashamed that my ‘old’ positivity has taken a massive hit and most days I battle overwhelming feelings of despair at the thought of not getting better.

I feel ashamed that I broke down mentally at Christmas, exhausted and with nothing left for the fight, and seriously considered ending my life. I feel ashamed that the same ‘selfish’ thought has returned at times since then, although thankfully not to the same depth.

“In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.’
What is it then?’
It is the only way a powerless person can find to make everybody else look away from his shame. The wish is not to die, but to hide.”– Orson Scott Card

I feel ashamed every time I have to update people on where I am at, and that I have to tell them I am still not well, it’s got worse and it is not yet over.

I feel ashamed when I can’t tell you that I have finished the fight, overcome, won and beaten this dreadful condition.

I feel ashamed that I cannot yet testify to the fact that I am now fully healed and whole, even though I believe in a loving creator God and Father who can do the impossible.

“O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be ashamed;” Psalms‬ ‭25:2‬ – The Bible

I feel ashamed telling doctors that I can’t seem to get better and hope that they will see past the ‘chronic pain’ patient with the unusual condition and know that it’s not ‘all in my head’ so that I can continue to get treatment.

I feel ashamed when the scans are clear and don’t show any evidence of a CSF leak, when the treatment I receive doesn’t ‘fix’ me or when my symptoms don’t always fit with the diagnosis.

Each day this drags on the shame gets worse.
Each day the shame is becoming almost as much of a burden as the illness itself.
Each day the shame is debilitating me and making me feel small.
Each day the shame is robbing me of my voice and tempting me to retreat from the world.

And it has to stop!

I HAVE TO BREAK FREE!

So today I am making the ‘unspeakable’ speakable; for myself and the multitudes who also travel the dark road of chronic illness and pain.

I am speaking out my shame so that it can no longer chain me up with its lies. I am choosing to acknowledge the space it has taken up in my thoughts; so that we can tear down its strongholds together.

Today I chose vulnerability; to speak the unspoken, so that you and I won’t have to suffer again in silence.

Today I choose to fight shame so that even though this condition taunts me daily, trying to persuade me I can never be free; it doesn’t have to define everything I am, do, and my relationships with those around me.

So today, whether you are battling chronic illness and pain or know someone who is; I pray that together we can tear down the ‘chronic pain’ stereotypes that perhaps we also once secretly adhered to ourselves, and no longer allow it’s shame to rule our and others lives.

“If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to whither.” – Brene Brown

What do you feel ashamed of? We all carry shame in some form. Please feel free to comment below – if we can speak it then perhaps together we can beat it!

UPDATE: Please note that in August 2020 I was also diagnosed with arachnoiditis as well as a spinal CSF Leak – I now have radiological evidence to support both those diagnosis. To read more about the new diagnosis please see this link.

Here is my new summary video of my whole medical journey https://youtu.be/cKECz_fCnFw as well as footage of my January/ February 2021 adhesive arachnoiditis relapse/ flare and treatment with IV Steroids. To see my daily video diaries from this time please see my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ZkCy9B_IpeaGrXd0CEgow

I have now written a follow up post to this one titled ‘Grapping With The Shame Having A Rare Invisible Illness‘.

For more posts about my story of living with a spinal CSF Leak please look at the subject heading on the menu bar above.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

Here is the link again to Dr Carroll’s video.

Mental Health, Spinal CSF Leak

Breaking Through the Darkness

May 28, 2016 Becky Hill 26 Comments

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. – A Proverb‬*

Have you ever reached the end of yourself?
REALLY reached the end of yourself?
When you are depleted at every level:
Physically,
Mentally,
Spiritually,
And psychologically?

When despair sets in and a darkness envelops you that feels so strong it literally attempts to strangle any life and hope out of you?

My world came crashing down in the week running up to and over Christmas this year and I fell apart in a way I never would have thought I could or would.

You see – I am strong!
I don’t give in easily!
I have a very real and deep faith in God!
I have a healthy thought life!
I don’t do being ‘weak’ so well!

I had held on all year.

Through an immensely difficult year for our family, following a serious and unusual spinal injury (a CSF Leak) that left me with major neurological problems.

I had finally received more treatment (a second epidural blood patch) for debilitating Low Pressure Headaches caused by a suspected CSF leak, and I had to muster up all the strength I had left to be positive, overcome fear and give recovery its best go. As I wrote about in When All that Remains is Faith, Hope & Love.

I had to be strong enough. Somehow I would be strong enough. I wasn’t going to give anything else away to this horrible condition.

I wouldn’t let it take more of my life.

The problem is that sometimes life takes us to places that are quite simply beyond us. Things don’t work out how we thought they would.

We give it everything we’ve got.

And then we find we have nothing left to give.

We humbly discover that we too are one of ‘those’ people we perhaps used to look down upon.

‘Those people’ who can’t cope. ‘Those weak people‘ that can’t keep going when life gets tough.

We discover….

THAT IS ALSO ME.

And it blasts everything we once thought about ourselves out the window.

‘We’ become ‘them’.
The one battling a chronic illness.
The one who ‘broke down’ mentally.
The one who felt like escaping life was perhaps better than living it like this.

And a new journey starts.

After weeks of waiting and battling for treatment – a second epidural blood patch – everything was poised in my mind.

THIS HAD TO WORK!
I HAD TO BE WELL AGAIN!

Being a positive, faith-filled person I filled my mind with that hope. Surely after all the discussions, waiting, battles and disappointments – it would work – IT HAD TO!! Our family couldn’t go through the trauma and chaos of any more upheaval because of this horrible and unusual injury.

I finally had my blood patch and all appeared to go well – although it certainly wasn’t an instant ‘fix it all.’ So I did what I always try to do – focus on the positive, believe, step out in faith and trust that as I regained my physical strength and conditioning that I would find complete health.

I did all that I could to push through various lingering, unpleasant symptoms. Stay positive and keep going. The problem was my body and mind was exhausted and as I pushed it more and more, it began to shut down. I survived for a time on shear willpower and adrenaline but 3 weeks after my blood patch I developed acute insomnia.

I would go to bed exhausted, sleep for 30 – 60 mins, then be awake all night …..every night…. for two weeks.

No ones body can survive like that whilst also battling a major neurological condition.

But I tried to keep on going, I thought ‘if I just keep going then I will get tired enough to sleep’. Then my conditioning will get back to normal.

I just wanted to be well for Christmas to leave this difficult year behind in 2015.

Things spiraled out of control physically and mentally – my symptoms seemed all over the place – before crashing in every way.

It was Christmas.

Usually a fun-filled family time of sharing gifts and eating together.

Christmas 2015 is a blur to me. I cried my way through it, in all honesty, exhausted, depleted in every way and not even wanting to live anymore – if living meant this.

I felt so very unwell and the relief that lying flat used to provide was not alway’s there. Which is why I couldn’t sleep. It was torture. My body and mind were utterly exhausted. I didn’t know what was going on.

I assumed that the blood patch had eventually failed and because of all the battles to get it I was not sure I could access another one.

I could no longer think straight.
I could no longer see a way forward.
I lost my perspective.

I naively and ridiculously found myself ‘wishing’ that what I had was terminal – because at least there would be an end in sight, if it was. At least there would be an escape from the inner and outer pain that I felt.

PAIN CONSUMED ME.

I felt stuck between an inner pain, grief, physical pain and such exhaustion that death seemed the only way out. Yet I knew to choose death would devastate those I would leave behind. Which added to my pain.

Darkness enveloped me and pain became my reality.
Hope felt out of reach.
Faith attempted to hold on with its finger nails but was losing it’s battle.

My pride was shattered.
I was not so strong after all.
I couldn’t do it anymore.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick – A Proverb‬*

My heart was sick and I felt lost in a pit of despair that no one could lift me out of. Even my wonderful husband was struggling to reach me.

There comes a time when – however strong we are – we come face to face with the depth of our weakness.

I had never imagined I could be ‘that person’. That I could reach a place where thoughts of depression, despair and even suicide not only became real but became an obsession.

I just wanted it all to stop!!

I couldn’t do this anymore!!
I couldn’t take the chaos!!
I couldn’t take feeling so ill!!
I couldn’t face the battles of trying to convince doctors to help!!
(I actually thought me falling apart mentally would make my chances of getting help for my underlying physical condition even more problematic. I was scared that they would assume it was all ‘in my head.’).

And yet I first had to face the reality of where I was. I had been battling an injury that directly affected my brain – for a year. I had spent almost 6 months of that year in bed, lying flat almost 24/7 and the rest of the year at nothing like full capacity.

There comes a time when – however strong we are – we come face to face with the depth of our weakness.

But, I still felt like I had failed. I blamed myself.
One mistake with a ladder had cost our family so dearly.
One accident had robbed us of our future.
One moment had wrecked EVERYTHING!
I decided that I had then probably ruined my last chance of getting better by ‘blowing’ this blood patch by doing too much.

I had no ‘fight’ left in me so hopelessness washed in like a flood.

EVERYTHING BECAME DARK.

I couldn’t see past the darkness. Attempts to battle negative thoughts whilst being physically so depleted and unwell seemed fruitless.

I JUST WANTED TO ESCAPE.

I convinced myself that my family would be better off without the burden of such a debilitated, chronically-ill wife and mother.

The pain of thoughts of dying came face to face with the pain of thoughts of living.

I DESPAIRED OF LIFE ITSELF

“Courage isn’t having strength to go on – it’s going on when you don’t have strength.” -Napoleon Bonaparte

BUT……. IN THE MIDST OF THE DARKNESS LOVE BROKE THROUGH!

All was not lost.

Love reached out to me and helped me to hold on.
Grace was still there waiting to be rediscovered.
I had to open my eyes again to see that the light of love was still burning in the darkness.

Family and friends simply loved and supported me. They helped me to rediscover a better perspective. My 8 year old daughter used to come and sit on my bed and with all the passion she could muster she would tell me how much she loved me and that she wouldn’t want any other Mummy but me – even when I am so unwell.

A new journey began.
It was not easy.
It has been painful.
It has been hard.
It has been confusing.

I have wrestled with myself.
Wrestled with my identity.
Wrestled with my faith.
Wrestled with the darkness.
Wrestled with various neurological symptoms.
Wrestled with how to move forward.

It has been a very confusing time symptoms-wise. After the new year things began to improve. Some things were still like low pressure headaches. Some felt different. It was hard to know what was going on in my body, brain and mind. Doctors were not always sure either.

I had to discover the strength each day to put one foot in front of the other to just get through intact. To pull through the pieces of a broken life and somehow find hope again.

“Honesty & steadfast faith – especially in the darkness – forms a powerful & enriching message for everyone in pain….. Sincerity and humility are essential.” –Samuel Chand

Darkness had enveloped me at a time when I felt like I couldn’t find God any more. Hope returned as I discovered He was there with me all the time.

I just couldn’t ‘perceive’ Him.

I had to rediscover God’s love and grace. Learn to ‘let go’ of the life I had lived and choose to trust and hope that I could recover and that there was something better ahead. I had to battle the fear and anxiety that tried to persuade me that I would never be free. I had to learn to get comfortable with stillness, quietness and to embrace true peace and rest on a deeper level.

I had to learn to perceive God’s voice in a new way and hold onto the truths spoken over me.

I have had to rediscover who I am in its simplest form and be OK with a more simple life for a time.

A new depth of humility helped me to see that I had sometimes judged others ‘weakness’ because I didn’t understand them. I have now developed a deeper empathy and compassion for others facing challenges and struggles; especially those linked to chronic and mental illness.

I have had to discover a new kind of strength that is actually born out of weakness.

It’s been an immensely difficult journey and one that it has taken me a while to write about. For a long time I felt like I had lost my voice and had very little to say that could help others.

And yet.

I know that as we talk about our deepest weaknesses and vulnerabilities, others can connect with us and know that they are not alone. It then gives our own pain more purpose because our story can bring a ray of light in the midst of another’s darkness.

“We may impress people by our strengths; but we connect with them through our vulnerabilities.” – Nicky Gumbel

It can be invaluable to know that someone else is also struggling and that your journey can help them too. We can then navigate the stormy seasons in our lives TOGETHER and some how help one another to weather the storm.

Albeit wounded.
Yet stronger.
With a new perspective.
More appreciation of life.
And a deeper empathy for others.

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.” – Haruki Murakami

Please do feel free to comment below. To read more about my initial injury and journey with a CSF leak/ Low pressure headaches you can see these posts.

*Proverbs 13:12 from The Bible

To read more about my story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

A fantastic informative video that you can refer to about spinal CSF Leaks, their symptoms and treatments is The Mystery Headache: Migraine, Positional Headache, Spinal Fluid Leak? by Professor Ian Carroll at Stamford University Hospital.

This is a wonderful new May 2018 medical paper about the 10 most common myths and misperceptions about spinal CSF leaks. It is by some of the top world experts in treating this condition. I was told so many of these myths by various neurologists, anaesthetists, radiologists and many other doctors during my lengthy and traumatic nearly 5 year battle with a spinal CSF leak. This kind of misinformation caused many delays, misunderstanding and great distress on my already immensely long winded and difficult medical journey.

This other in depth 2018 medical paper is about both low and high intracranial pressure syndromes and their similar and different symptoms. It also mentions cross overs with other headache types. When a patient suffers with a spinal CSF leak long term it can cause massive fluctuations in their whole pressure system both whilst suffering from a spinal CSF leak and following treatment. This is why lumbar puncture pressure readings and ICP pressure monitoring can prove an inaccurate disgnostic tool for SIH as this paper refers to as does the 10 myths paper. My initial LP reading was a 7 which was considered ‘evidence’ of low pressure by some doctors and normal by others.

Spinal CSF Leak, Suffering & Grief

The Power Hidden In Vulnerability.

November 10, 2015 Becky Hill 10 Comments

“We may impress people through our strengths but we connect through our weaknesses.” – Craig Groeschel

Over the past few weeks and months I have written about a current tough season I am walking through. In fact, I am not really ‘walking’ through this season. I am ‘lying flat’ through this season.

A perpetual time of enforced rest, because my body can’t currently function any other way.

I am back in hospital again for the 4th week so far in 2015. I am again seeking treatment for the CSF leak (Spinal fluid leak) I got from a fall off a ladder at the start of the year.

Having a CSF leak means there is less spinal fluid to cushion my brain. Subsequently my brain drops in my skull, meaning if I sit or stand I get a whole range of crazy neurological symptoms labelled ‘a headache’ by some.

But I am telling you now ‘headache’ is not the right term for what goes on my head (& body) when I sit or stand.

A better term is torture!

After a crazy past 6 weeks or so of being an inpatient in hospital for a few days, then waiting for treatment as an outpatient for a few weeks, I have now spent another full week in hospital. Lying flat all day in a hospital bed that is always on a tilt head downwards to alleviate symptoms.

I only get up briefly to use the bathroom and only sit up to eat my main meal because I literally cannot function or cope physically or mentally with being upright for more than 5-10 mins.

Before the end of February this year, I never imagined such a condition existed that was so effected by posture. I could have never imagined how debilitating a so called ‘headache’ condition could be.

I never would have thought how complicated it can be to get treatment for this unusual condition. How much you have to wait due to differences of professional opinion about treatment and theories about how well treatment works.

Five weeks ago I was meant to have a second epidural blood patch procedure in my spine as an outpatient. Following 5 weeks of disagreements between neurologists and anaesthetists I am still waiting for this treatment.

In the meantime they have tried an occipital nerve block (steroids are injected into the top of my neck/ bottom of my skull) which failed to provide any relief and medication which just made me feel awful.

This definitely wasn’t how I intended to spend most of 2015! Having always been a person to get on with life, face difficulties and overcome them, this journey has been somewhat different and definitely challenged me to the core of who I am.

I have reached a new level of weakness.

This is a photo of me lying flat in my hospital bed. I have sunglasses on due to photophobia, but I am still just about smiling!

I was in a bad way when I arrived back in A&E a week ago for the fifth time this year. It took about 20 mins to get here in the car, so by the time I reached A&E I had far surpassed the current time I can manage upright.

So after waddling into A&E, which was packed out, scanning to see there were few seats available (which I wouldn’t have been able to sit on anyway upright) I just opted for lying on the floor. I had to cover my head to block out the light and noise and by then I was twitching and shaking.

My husband said I got quite of few looks – unsurprisingly.

Thankfully they found me a bed and took me straight in and I skipped the whole triage thing. The fact I was still under neurology probably helped.

It took quite a while to recover from that whole ordeal, I was so out of it, struggling to communicate, in pain and totally exhausted. I found it hard to eat or drink, which made everything worse, so they put me on IV fluids and IV paracetamol to try and help me out.

After weeks of managing symptoms at home lying down all day, I just couldn’t cope with it anymore on my own and had to resign myself to being readmitted and hope treatment would progress better as an inpatient.

Do you ever face times in your life where you feel like things couldn’t get much more difficult?

But then they do and you have no choice but to keep on going, hoping, praying and believing that the storm will clear soon?

It’s been a tough year.

It’s hard when you think you have overcome something to find it has come back and things seem even more complex.

“…. And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.” -Haruki Murakami

To be honest:
I am tired of it all!
I am weary of all the battles!
I am frustrated at the delays!
I am exhausted by the crazy symptoms!

I daily think….
“Can this all be over now?
Surely I have endured enough?
It’s really got to get better soon?”

But for now, it doesn’t.
In fact, each day of waiting it gets harder.
The simple becomes more complex.

And I am stuck in the middle of a big debate about my treatment.

Sometimes all you can do is
Hold on.
Just hold on.

Through the questions.
Through the complexities.
Through the battles.
Believing that there IS a way through and that it’s coming soon. Two weeks ago my husband did his back in. In possibly our lowest ever point as a family, Matt injured his back and ended up having a back spasm so severe that he passed out.

He has always had a weakness in his lower back, but probably the weeks of strain in having to work in a very demanding job, care for me & the kids, fulfil his responsibilities at church and look after our home took it’s toll.

That moment was a very dark moment. He had pulled something in his back slightly earlier that day and tried to rest it off. Our poor kids aged 8 & 10 were trying to help us out, as I was already stuck in bed most of the day.

This meant I was trying to get up and do a few more things to help and find out what was happening with Matt (which wasn’t helping my symptoms).

His back then went into a full blown spasm, like no other he had experienced before. In just about recovering from that he made his way upstairs and in reaching the bed his back went into such an aggressive spasm that he passed out from the pain, thankfully whilst bent over the bed.

I was trying to help him but because I had to be upright I was really struggling. As he passed out I called 999 but could hardly speak to them myself because after a few minutes of being upright my speech and ability to communicate can become a problem.

Thankfully he came round after a few minutes so we didn’t need an ambulance. I managed to get back into bed. The kids were scared and in tears because both their parents were unwell.

In that moment of turmoil I managed to call our wonderful friends (who are also our church Pastors) and muster up the strength to literally mumble what had happened, whilst in tears, exhausted and desperate.

We couldn’t cope anymore.

They came straight away and brought calm, light and love in our dark hour.

As I have written over the past few weeks, I have already felt at the end of myself recently. Then Matt hurt his back and we were both stuck in bed for a few days before he started to recover.

Talk about vulnerability and weakness.

I am so thankful for friends and family who helped us during those difficult days. We literally couldn’t have coped without them.

It was a real time of embracing humility, as people popped in and out to help us and come up to see us both stuck lying in bed. Whilst they sorted out the kids, cleared up, cooked, prepared meals and generally brought love, support and encouragement.

There is nothing like being stuck on your backs to shatter your pride and dignity. It is humiliating to talk to people whilst lying flat in bed.

BUT

There is also something wonderful that comes from vulnerability. There is a deeper power of connection that comes when you are weak.

When there is no where left to hide.

You are just you.

In all your weakness and brokenness.
No frills.
No pretence.
Exposed.
Vulnerable.

Yet loved, looked after and cared for.

That is the power of vulnerability. When people accept and love you for who you are, when you are broken, weak and can do nothing for them.

It brings a new level of connection. A powerful moment that will not readily be forgotten.

To be seen in weakness is to be truly seen. It is not easy. We want people to see us strong and able. However, weakness and frailty is a significant reality of humanity.

It opens the way for the deepest connections; both with other people and with God.

“Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content.” – Bob Dylan

There is a deep contentment that can come when our lives are stripped back. A ‘letting go’ that has to take place. You have to lay down the reins of your life and trust that good will prevail in the end.

To be seen in weakness is to be truly seen.

You may not be the person you once were. DOING what you used to DO. LIVING as you used to LIVE. Instead, you can only BE the person you really are NOW, in THIS moment and find a way forward in the storm.

So I have again reached THAT point of weakness. A moment when you realise that in some seasons instead of fighting weakness and challenging circumstances you have to learn to simply flow with it and say:

Let the storm rage.
Let my vulnerability be exposed. Because it is there I discover strength in weakness.

I discover who I REALLY am
And have to learn to JUST BE ME.

Simply
Uniquely
The REAL, weak, exposed and vulnerable ME.

“People who are real, who are genuine concerning weakness as well as their strengths, draw others to them. They engender trust. They are approachable. And they are a breath of fresh air…” – John Maxwell

To read more about my ongoing story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

Perspective, Suffering & Grief

Learning Patience

September 25, 2015 Becky Hill 4 Comments

Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude whilst waiting. – Joyce Meyer

There is nothing like hospitals to teach you the virtues of being patient.

I am writing this, in hospital, after a relapse. Neurologists think I have a recurring CSF leak which perhaps exacerbates post traumatic migrane symptoms from my original concussion.

When better to write a post on patience!

Hospitals require patience.
Patients need hospitals
Learning to be a patient patient is hard.

Being unwell makes being patient so much harder. You go to hospital because you are unwell. Being unwell is unpleasant. Your ability to function normally is challenged. You just want to get fixed, get better and go home.

But often instead you have to:
Wait
Wait
Wait
Then wait a bit more!

For everything!

The wonderful medical staff are so busy with all the patients trying to be patient whilst ill. Which can’t be easy.

So everything takes a while.

When my husband brought me to A&E, a couple of days ago, I was having one of my ‘drunk like’ episodes. Basically amidst all the head pressure, dizziness and general head & neck pain, my head also goes a bit funny and I act rather tipsy. (A symptom that has appeared occasionally when things have got bad. Which wasn’t helped by waiting sitting upright for so long – which is not helpful if you are leaking Cerebral Spinal Fluid).

All this meant I waited in the A&E assessment waiting room a bit like a small unwell child.

Speaking loudly,
Reading all the signs out loud,
And asking my husband every five mins:

“When is it my go?”.

I kid you not – that is literally how it was!

It’s both half amusing and half troubling for Matt and I (and probably exceedingly annoying for everyone who probably assumed I had vodka in the water bottle I constantly swigged).

Why is waiting so hard?

We are not used to it.
It feels like a waste of time.
It can make us feel anxious or frustrated.
We want quick fixes and quick answers.
We are too used to our fast paced world.

However,

Perhaps, if we realised there are lessons to be learned from waiting, we would embrace times of waiting more easily. Maybe then we would not allow ourselves to get so frazzled.

I am speaking to myself as much as anyone else as I write this. There is nothing like a lesson learned in real time, as I wrote in my last post Breaking Free! From Self Pity. And there is nothing like being ‘stuck’ in hospital to refine your waiting skills.

It’s a challenge to say the least.

But we must try to find positives in hard times or we will become consumed by the difficulties. Being frustrated, annoyed and impatient usually does nothing to help the process and certainly doesn’t help get you better.

I do know how hard this is though, especially when you feel desperately ill.

My first night after being admitted was tough. I wasn’t in the best way (although not ‘as bad’ once I actually got to lie down flat of course). I was on a medical ward because they firstly wanted to rule out a brain infection, such as meningitis, so I had lots of doctors coming to check me out.

During the night I somehow laid on the cannula they had put in my arm and pulled it out. Once I realised, and had called the nurse, I looked down and saw the bed and me covered in a pool of blood, from it leaking.

The nurse came, sorted out the cannula and started changing my bed and I got myself to the loo to try and change. (which was a challenge in itself because my walking and balance were affected by my general CSF leak/ post concussion heady symptoms). But in true Becky Hill style I was intent on doing it myself and thought I felt OK enough to manage.

How wrong I was!

I started to try and clean myself up and during the process pretty much fainted, but seeing as I was by then half undressed and smeared in blood, whilst trying to wash the blood out of my clothes, I thought I would try again, not wanting the nurses to have to rescue me.

Unfortunately, that was wishful thinking and in almost passing out again, I managed to unlock the door and ring the emergency buzzer.

I was lying on that hospital toilet floor, feeling extreamly weak, desperately vulnerable and overwhelmingly nauseous. I then had to wait for someone to hear the buzzer and come.

I could hardly move, hardly talk and certainly couldn’t look after myself in that moment.

But I still had to wait.

It probably wasn’t even that long before the nurse came. But it felt like forever. Listening to that buzzer, hoping someone would come.

Trust me I know how hard it is to wait when you are desperate.

It turned out my blood pressure was very low and the wonderful nurses put a lovely hospital gown round me and wheeled me back to bed, the doctors came and they had to give me IV fluids to help sort me out.

Waiting can be so hard, especially when we are feeling weak, vulnerable and desperate.

It’s also hard to get waiting right in those moments. (Hopefully others can then empathise more with our impatience in those moments).

In general though, we can all learn to wait more patiently in both easy and harder times. Here are some of the ways the process of waiting can help us.

1. Waiting teaches us how to be patient.

Well that’s obvious, isn’t it?

But it’s not always the case. Waiting is often enforced upon us and hence it is something we ALL complain and get frustrated about.

Who likes enforced waiting? It’s just down right annoying isn’t it?

Yes it is! However, being patient brings peace and a lot less stress during difficult times. Stress just produces tension in our bodies and minds and usually just makes the whole ‘waiting’ experience more traumatic than it needs to be.

We may still need to challenge the process and find out if all the waiting is really necessary. But we can do that from a place of peace and understanding rather than anger and frustration.

2. Waiting can help our empathy of others’ difficulties.

When I have to wait, especially in a hospital, it’s easy to start to look around and try to work out how important my case is compared to others.

If we are not careful the selfish tendency we all have kicks in and we are blinded by our own problems and cannot even begin to see the difficulties others face.

‘Me, me, what about me!’

Patience instead allows us to show more empathy to others around us and see the difficulties they face as well.

3. Waiting can be an opportunity to rest.

We are often not very good at resting when it also involves waiting. I know that I am certainly not! We complain about our busyness and then can’t cope with resting either.

This is because enforced rest is often neither convenient or welcomed – because we can’t choose it or use it how we want.

It feels like a colossal inconvenience and a waste of our precious time. Which may well be the case.

However, rest is a good thing when used correctly. Sometimes it is only thorough rest that complete healing comes. But only if we let go of our anxiety in the process and attempt to fill our thoughts with better things.

4. Waiting increase our endurance.

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character…” (Romans 5:3-4 The Bible)

Endurance is a great virtue. Without endurance we won’t get very far in life. It is endurance that spurs us to keep on keeping on, even when the going gets really tough.

It enables us to push through difficulties and come out stronger the other side. Without endurance we become floored by every trial, however small. We give up trying, aiming or working towards better things.

Learning how to ‘wait’ better can do a deep work in us that enables us to face the challenges life brings and overcome them as best we can.

Patience brings us peace amidst the storm because we stop allowing the storm to control our feelings and actions.

In this way, we not only ‘survive the storm’ but we can ‘thrive in the storm,’ because ultimately that which came and brought chaos in our lives, actually produces more peace, contentment and thankfulness.

Maybe if we see things differently we will no longer fight ‘waiting’ so much. Maybe we will instead find a way to embrace it, with wisdom, allowing it to do the work in us it can do;

If we will just let it.

“Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less.” – Mother Teresa

_________________________________________________
Next time you have to wait. Have a look around you and perhaps ask yourself:

What can I learn, see, hear and feel from this process?

How can I contribute to a peaceful atmosphere amidst the wait and even in challenging it?

To read more about my journey since my concussion and CSF Leak please see my first post here.

To read more about my ongoing story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

Spinal CSF Leak

Surviving the Storm Eight Months On: My Battle with Concussion & A CSF Leak

September 3, 2015 Becky Hill 4 Comments

A day.
A moment.
An accident.
8 months ago.
When things went wrong for a season.

A fall.
A brain injury.
An undiagnosed spinal injury.
Months of craziness.

This is my update.

It’s for those who know me and it’s for those who don’t. I know some of you are finding these blog posts by searching online.

I want to tell you my story. In the hope that it helps you. Perhaps your own story involves injury and illness, brain or spinal injury. Or maybe it involves another type of storm.

We all face stormy seasons in our lives.

Life is a journey of discovery. We are constantly learning about ourselves and what is around us.

Self awareness is an important part of our growth. My husband and I are on a constant journey to understand life better: Why do we do what we do and feel what we feel? What is our purpose in life and how do we live it out?

We then hope what we learn might help others too.

The journey of self awareness is a humbling journey and yet it is a healthy journey. It helps us to process and break free from thoughts and behaviour that seek to control us.

The past 8 months have been one of the most intense personal journeys of growth I have experienced. As I wrote in Surviving the Storm Six Months On, I have come face to face with many of my weaknesses. Which has been hard and painful, but also a journey of discovering new strength.

So 8 months on.
Where am I now?

I would love to say that everything is fine. That I have made a full recovery and we can leave it all behind us.

But that is not the truth.

At this moment, I am writing this post lying flat, which still forms a significant part of my day. I was up at 6am, as it was the kids first day back at school. I rushed about getting them ready, dropping them off, shopping, sorting, cleaning etc. Then by about 10am I recognised that I needed a bit of ‘down time’ to ward off symptoms and to pace myself through the day.

If you have read my previous posts, know about CSF leaks or have spoken to me about it, you will know that the postural side of the injury is a key part of it.

Basically when you have a CSF leak, your spinal fluid leaks either from your skull or from the part of your spine that holds the spinal fluid.

We never located my leak on the various scans I had, but we assumed mine was probably a spinal leak. This means the spinal fluid leaks into your body from a tiny hole or tear in the membrane that surrounds your spinal cord.

This results in ‘brain sag’. The brain lacks the support of the spinal fluid and so drops in your skull when you are upright (either sitting or standing).

This causes various problems. The most reported symptoms are severe headaches and neck pain as everything gets squashed and stretched inside. But there are a multitude of other symptoms.

One of the key ones for me at first was severe dizziness and major balance issues (I could hardly walk without support for almost 3 months). This is so much better but still manifests as a spaced out/ cloudy feeling quite a bit.

I was diagnosed with a CSF leak about 8/9 weeks after my initial fall off a ladder (following an initial post concussion diagnosis). After finally being admitted to hospital with various symptoms, about 18 days lying flat in a neurology ward, having 3 MRI scans, which were inconclusive, and a lumbar puncture, which showed low pressure spinal fluid – I had a blind epidural blood patch. (They take blood from your arm and inject it into the epidural space in your spine, in the hope that the clotting helps to heal the leak and increase the spinal fluid pressure. Mine was a high volume blind blood patch, because they couldn’t find the leak on MRI scans, which is not unusual. If they know where the leak is then patches are often more successful).

All this treatment had a significant positive impact and, as I wrote in my first Surviving the Storm post, it brought a sense of normality back to my life. I could spend much more time upright. I was able to do most things and thankfully could drive again (although I stick to short journeys at present because my head can still cloud over at times).

Since then there has been a general gradual improvement.

However,

I am still not back to where I was pre-injury and that is a challenge. I have days that are better and days that are more difficult. But the persistent symptoms are still a daily battle.

I have had to develop new routines that involve regular ‘lying down flat’ breaks. Often these are around lunch time and in the evening, although it varies a lot as I try and preempt what I need to do and lie down before and/or after going out.

I tend to find evenings harder generally. So on busier days I often spend a lot of the evening lying flat (either in bed or on the sofa – as long as my head is pretty flat). Less busy or less symptomatic days it is not as necessary.

I feel extremely blessed that in general the pain scale is nothing like it was around the time I was admitted to hospital. Back then it regularly reached 8 or even 10 out of 10 (comparable to having a baby ladies).

These days thankfully the pain is not as severe and takes longer to build up.

It is nothing like any headaches I had ever experienced pre-injury.

It’s more of an intensity, a pressure that builds up in the lower back of my head and in the top of my neck, leaving my neck feeling really stiff and painful and my head full and cloudy.

When I do lie down often that same feeling often drops to the bottom of my spine around where I had the blood patch.

Similar sensation; different place.

One way I explain it to others is it’s like having a really bad head cold and your head is so full of pressure that it’s hard to think and do things. If it’s a particularly bad one I also can feel it behind my sinuses which makes the sensation more head cold like.

This feeling varies in intensity throughout the day. Often, first thing, I feel fine. It then builds up to varying levels depending on what I am doing and how much lying down I have done.

As it builds up, things get harder. I might take some paracetamol or ibuprofen which helps a bit. Caffeine is also proven to help, so I usually get dosed up on that in the mornings.

As it gets worse I tend to go quieter as everything gets harder, both mentally and physically. The pressure, pain and stiffness builds, which is often coupled by a spaced out feeling and still sometimes a bit of photophobia.

Most of the time I will look fine outwardly. But if you see me when it gets really bad you might pick up on a spaced out, distracted, stressed or pained look on my face.

I often try and keep going for a while when I get like this, until I reach a point where it gets so bad I can’t think straight, the pressure and pain builds and I know I need to rest and lie down. I also try and preempt it and lie down before it gets too bad.

When I lie down there is an element of instant relief. I often say to my husband before I lie down I sometimes just feel like I want to go to sleep; you just feel wiped out. But soon after lying down I can think straight again, my head gets clearer and the pressure eases.

(This was often the way it was at the start, following my injury. I found I could have decent conversations with people if I was lying down. But I didn’t last very long and often couldn’t think straight for very long sitting or especially standing or walking).

The current physical symptoms vary in their intensity on different days, depending on how busy or strenuous the day is and even what time of the month it is (yes ladies it gets worse then!)

During the recent summer holidays things generally seemed better. I felt I had more energy and perhaps needed to lie down a bit less. It helped that I could take it easy in the mornings, lie in bed for longer and add in breaks where necessary.

This summer we have done a lot of clearing out and sorting thorough stuff, which I wrote about in my last post. That kind of work is quite physically demanding so I would rest more at the start of the day and then by the end of a day I usually had to lie down more.

It’s all about managing your time and energy reserves. I also spend time praying and getting encouraged with great words from the bible and other quotes. This helps keep my thoughts together and focus on good things through the tougher and more frustrating days.

Storms come.
Life goes on.
We cannot wallow in the challenges or they will swallow us up.

I have been getting better and I want to hold onto that and keep believing for complete healing and freedom from this storm soon.

The storm has calmed but it has not yet fully passed. You learn to live with it to an extent and yet I also choose to believe it will fully heal in time.

My faith encourages me to not live life defeated or deflated. Hope always drives us forward. Even though it can be a humbling process balancing belief and reality.

I am deeply grateful for all the health and healing already attained and the sense of normality it brings.

Most of all I am thankful for the good that my experience will bring. There are always positives to be found, even in hard times. Even the darkest times can be used for good.

Whatever your unique storm:
Never let go of hope.
Never stop believing.
Never stop seeing the good, even when it’s painful.

Perspective is vital.

There is always something to be thankful for.
There are always others worse off than you.
We all suffer and feel pain in one way or another.

As a popular saying goes:

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

I have decided that I will always find the ways and means to dance through life, even in the midst of the rain.

It’s not always easy, but it is the only way to live and thrive through both the ups and the downs of life. It is the only way to find the strength to survive the storm when it hits.

This is my story of a unique season in my life. A storm that has come, that is passing but is taking its time to fully leave.

I don’t know what storms you face? An injury, illness, relationship breakdown or bereavement? Perhaps your prognosis is much worse than mine? Maybe your storm is hidden from view?

But there is a way forward:

We can learn how to dance in the rain.
It is the only way to thrive in the midst of the storm.

I would love to hear about your stories and experiences. Please do leave a comment below or on my social media links.

You can read the first post about my injury here and my six month update here. I usually write my blog posts on my iPhone during my ‘lying flat’ times. Initially following my injury I could not even look at a phone or computer screen for more than a few minutes without feeling exceptionally ill. I am very grateful to be able to do this now.

To read more about my ongoing story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

Becky Hill's Blog

Tag Archives: weakness

We are all the Same. We are all Human.

Compassion Starts with Embracing our own Pain

Falling Into Grace

Suffering into a Deeper Spiritual Awakening

Embracing Simplicity

The Shame of Chronic Illness and Pain

Breaking Through the Darkness

The Power Hidden In Vulnerability.

Learning Patience

Surviving the Storm Eight Months On: My Battle with Concussion & A CSF Leak

Writing to explore what life is about. Amidst its captivating beauty and deepest pain. In the hope that we can learn, grow and be inspired together.