Fiax Lux

I’m normally not excited about health problems—who is? But the amazing, exciting thing is having them illustrate pretty directly that God’s got my back.

I’ve spent all of this semester and most of last semester feeling pretty cruddy. Tired, irritable, apathetic, anxious and fighting off a rather impressive succession of infections. It was’t the underwater greyness of depression or the eyeburning delirium of sleep deprivation—everything was just “off”. I figured something was wrong with me. Maybe I wasn’t praying enough, was too sensitive, a bit overscheduled, a bit undermotivated. I should just try harder at everything, and if that didn’t make me feel better, I should try harder again. Right? If I’m having a hard time summoning enthusiasm for anything—school, prayer, sports, even Mass—I must be bad, right?

This is where it turns out that God’s got things under control. I went to the doctor last week for a chiropractic prescription. He asked a few random questions out of the blue and set up appointments for me with a psychiatrist and a counselor. It’s apparently not normal to be this anxious. According to the doctor, I can learn to live inside my own head in such a way that my weaknesses become my strengths. Perfectionism, racing thoughts and a tendency to over-analyze everything aren’t necessarily bad—I bet they can even be used to serve God. On my own, I would never have asked for this help. Thank-you, Father, for taking care of me.

Went another doctor this week for a fever and chest cough that have been plaguing me on and off for a month. She asked some questions out of the blue. A few tests later and we discovered that not only do I need an inhaler, my blood iron levels (or something like that) are 1/10th of what they should be. So, the fact that I’ve been feeling like an overbrewed (and very stupid) teabag and limping through even the simplest workouts isn’t a sign of character weakness or laziness—it’s a sign that I’m physically not getting enough oxygen to function! Anemia can also lead to fatigue, irratibility, depression and generalized apathy—everything that I’ve been feeling but unable to articulate. Some dietary changes and lot of patience, and I should be all Popeyed up in a couple of months.

So basically what I’m trying to say is that our Father really is like the most awesome, omniscient parent. When I was younger, my parents would take me to the doctor when I was sick. They’d feed me chicken noodle soup and tell me that they love me. Now that I’m “grown up”, they can’t drive two days to do the same—but God got me help when I didn’t even know I needed it, for my mind and my body. I trust that he’s got my soul well handled.

Most of all, he’s got my back. Praise him!

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