The 3 Days in Bed Kind of Perspective

I don't think I talk a lot about adrenal fatigue on my blog, or in my every day life either, but lately I have begun to bring it up more. I'm not sure why...I guess it's because I want people close to me to understand what I'm going through, and because I think that I need to make even more major changes and I want them to be on board with me. I will start with saying it's really excruciatingly difficult to talk about. I don't like being a needy or weak person! I like pushing through, I like a challenge, and I like to be on the top of my game. And I definitely don't want to be that person who always has a problem or excuse.

But I'm going to use this blog to say what adrenal fatigue is, what it feels like, how it occurs, how one can recover, and what the possible lifelong ramifications of it can be.

First of all, the adrenal glands are tiny but very important organs. They put out all kinds of hormones to keep us stable. They release adrenaline to help us deal with stresses such as blood sugar crashes, exercise, and scary incidents! They also release cortisol (which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Cortisol is released to balance the adrenaline, and so if one is dealing with too many blood sugar crashes, exercise, and stressful incidents, they become a cortisol making machine. High cortisol is dangerous, causes belly fat, and is linked to heart disease.) The adrenals cannot keep up with the making of these stress hormones and then when you need them, the hormones aren't there to help you stabilize. Adrenals also make DHEA, estrogen, testosterone, and aldosterone.

Adrenal fatigue is usually caused by some kind of physical or emotional trauma, one that is either drawn out or something unexpected like a car wreck. It's really common for people with adrenal fatigue to be "driven", or overworked like a mom with little children or a medical student. Mine began while I was a missionary in one of the hardest places to live on the planet, I've been told. My body went through a lot there, and I am also a "driven person" (although I have changed a lot through the years.) I left Africa 12 years ago, and have had symptoms off and on ever since.

It feels a lot like the flu, with aches, mind fogginess, need for about 12 hours of sleep but often insomnia, and extreme exhaustion. For me, there were years where it also was accompanied by a weak immune system, headaches, panicky feelings, and random fevers. Before I even had a diagnosis, there were a few years in those 9 that I thought I was healed! Those were the years that Selah (almost 8) was conceived, my first year of raising her, and June 2011 to June 2012. Each time all the symptoms returned for no reason that I can find. I finally learned three years ago that I have adrenal fatigue, and it was a great relief to be armed with books and knowledge. There is no way to try everything recommended unless you lived alone and had money you didn't know what to do with, but here is the basic plan for recovery.

*Chill out. Quit your job if you have to. (I have quit multiple jobs as the symptoms returned.) Let go of pressures and as many responsibilities as it humanly possible. Try to steer clear of stressful people and figure out what your own expectations are that you are clinging to.
*Exercise less. Only exercise to the point of exhilaration, not exhaustion. (I am doing 15 min a day and I think I've found a happy medium...finally!)
*Do not try to lose weight, but eat nutrient dense food all day long. Don't allow yourself to be hungry. Eat power foods, and at least 5 full cups of fruits and veggies daily. No caffeine, fast food, fried food, or processed food.
*Get rid of all added sugar, this wears out the adrenals. Even have to be careful of some fruits, like bananas and raisins.
*See if you have any food allergies or sensitivities to chemicals like cleaners or detergent. Allergies are a stress to the body.
*Sleep from 10pm to 9am or at least be in bed that much. (Some of you are laughing. I know it's not possible with little kids, but at least you could say these are the times you are ALLOWED to lay around.) And speaking of allowing yourself to lay around, take 2 fifteen minute "naps" just laying wherever you are with eyes closed. I never have once slept during these, but just close my eyes and breathe deeply.
*There's a ton of supplements to try, but the most important thing is to be tested and find out what you're lacking before you buy anything. Someone with adrenal fatigue will need DHEA which is an over the counter supplement and it takes a while to find out how much you need. I have went from 5 mg to 45 mg, and still rising. It's frustrating to go back for blood work so often, but it's the only way to figure it out.

If you don't deal with it, AF can turn into a host of other illnesses, including Addison's disease, Thyroid disease, MS, and because of the cortisol issue, heart disease.

So something shifted in my perspective as I laid in bed with strep and the flu this weekend. If my throat had not felt like there were knives in there, plus the white stuff I saw with the flashlight, I would not have even went to the doctor. I was so tired and achy I wanted to cry, but I had felt like that off and on for months. I genuinely felt no different with the flu than I normally feel, after that first day in bed. That was alarming to me.

I spent a lot of time reading and researching again to see if there was anything new, and so far, there isn't. I've already made the changes I know to make...except...

I don't know how to stay chilled out. I don't know how to not have goals and expectations of myself! I don't think I have pressure from others in my life...I think it's all me. As soon as I have a day that I feel decent, I make all kinds of plans. And I know that having adrenal fatigue doesn't mean I can't be involved in things...but it does mean I cannot get involved in things that would stress me or make me have a long to-do list. (But I love my to-do lists!) I wrote out all of my responsibilities and there were seven main categories. In each category, I am asking God to show me not necessarily what physical job I need to let go of, but what expectation/worry about them that I need to let go of. There is a big difference between quitting something, and quitting worrying about something. I realized this weekend that if I have had this for 12 years, there is a good chance that even when I feel great again-which i will someday-my adrenals will always be in need of t.l.c. so my choices are not short term, they are changes I have to make for good. I'm asking for the Holy Spirit to just show me how to do this!

So that is where I'm at. I had said last year that my new years resolution for 2013 was to "hang out more" but it wasn't long before I had a long list of other ideas. Crossing them off now. This is the life God has given me, and I need to learn how to live it.

Living Love Story #8: Moses and Me

Yeah, Moses and I go way back. I love this story from start to finish, but today I want to write about just the beginning of Moses' life and mission. I relate to this Old Testament Bible character more than any other, and I continue to learn from the raw and real substance that made up his humanity.

We are in Exodus...starting at chapter 2. We see the intimate connection that God has with his children, the people of Israel, who have been crying out for deliverance from the slave drivers of Egypt. Exodus 2:23-25 tells us that God heard them, saw them, remembered His covenant to them, and was concerned about them. In Exodus 3:8, we see God lay out His plan for their rescue as He reveals Himself to Moses through a burning bush. God says, "Go and tell the Pharoah that the I AM has sent you. Tell him that he must release My people, and if he says no, it's gonna get ugly." (Something like that, right?) Moses has some questions, some issues...to the extent that in chapter 4, he pleads with God to just send someone else.

Real quickly, let me squeeze these two little goodies in here as well. He tells Moses to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. Oh the reality of His nearness! What do we need to remove from our lives in order to FULLY soak in His presence? How easy He is to ignore, how easy it is to be shielded from the reality of His nearness, in this world, in our busy lives, in our compromised lives. And the second sweet word of His desire for intimacy is simply this: "Moses, I will be with you."

Now, Moses had been a man of strong and intense passion, specifically passion for justice. He had killed a man who was mistreating one of his fellow Israelites many years before; in fact, that was the reason he fled out to the desert and relocated completely. Also, he had narrowly escaped one of the most horrific acts of injustice in history when he was a baby--the Pharoah had declared all male babies be killed upon their arrival into the world--but Moses had been spared. He had a fiery heart for justice...and he had used it unwisely. Every gift the Holy Spirit gives us, every innate passion, can be turned around for evil, can be mishandled. I have a fiery heart for justice, too. I get in my mind what must be done for the least of these, and I want everyone everywhere to stop their everyday lives and minister to others in the way that makes sense to me! But I have learned over the past 8 years that this is taking a God-given passion and turning it into a man-directed ministry. I haven't killed anybody but I've probably killed some relationships! Whether it's about finances, living sacrificially, fasting, raising awareness, the poor, slavery, adopting, child sponsorship, missions, prayer, whatever, there is a judgmental side of my heart for justice that has to be starved into extinction. It's a fine line between living my own life according to my convictions and also being a voice for the Lord in an appropriate way.

Not only was dear Moses just a little out of control like me sometimes, with a heart for equality and human rights, when the time came for him to embark upon the mission of a lifetime, he was scared to death. It's like watching a lion all of sudden stop roaring and hide behind a rock. It's like watching a guy step off of his soapbox and shiver at the idea of actually doing what he's talking about. And I've been there. It's easy to lay in bed at night and think of what I'll say and do...but the next day when the lights are on we realize how silly we are, how difficult that idea would be to pull off. We remember times we were embarrassed or times things didn't work out well. Can I really say that? Can I really sing that? Can I really do that? What if, what if, what if?

Getting over ourselves. Will we do it? Will we abandon our lives and our pride in order to be used by the Lord in precisely the way He chooses? That may mean you lay aside your career to stay home with your kids, or it may mean you go let your light shine in a dark world when you'd rather be home with your kids! It may mean you go to India and live among the poor and it may mean you stay here in relative comfort, learning to pray without ceasing. I believe that most of our callings will have these two things in common though:  One, we will be more obscure, more unnoticed, than we planned. And two, we will need a daily--constant--infusion of the presence of God, "shoes" off, in order to carry it out.

10 Steps to a Better Budget...(or Something Like That)

Oops! I totally forgot that I started a series of blogs about finances. Let me wrap that up for goodness sake...

In the previous blogs, I wrote that having a budget and sticking to it matters for so many reasons and I just can't say that enough. We have freedom to give only when we are good stewards of what God has given us! Being stable enough to help others requires sacrifice. Knowing where our money is going -every penny- and not having the expectation that we deserve to rise to a higher standard of living are a couple good places to start.

1) Make a budget with detailed categories, and project how much should be spent in each category.

2) One category should be a savings account (separate from your other savings account). This account should be for the things you know you will need to spend money on in the year, such as property taxes, or any bill that just comes once or twice a year, making it hard to put in a monthly budget. I add together all these types of yearly expenditures, divide it by 12, and put that amount in the savings monthly. Then we don't have to freak out when the car needs repairs, etc, because we knew it would happen eventually and we were (somewhat and sometimes!!) prepared.

3) Think about how much you're spending on health. It's an important investment, and there may be changes you can make to insurance, prescriptions, gyms, etc. to make it better and less expensive at the same time.

Okay, that was a re-cap. Now onto a few more ideas.

4) Stuff for our Kids: This is when it gets hard, and I struggle through this weekly, but here are a few things I'm trying to do. One, make a cash envelope, or at least a specific budget if not actually setting aside cash, for each child, to cover their birthday, Christmas, and other special holiday type gifts. Decide how much you think is appropriate to spend and only spend that much, and don't give in to picking up things for them every time you're at Target. Easier said than done, I know, but these are extras, non-necessities. We want to teach our kids to appreciate gifts because they aren't used to always getting what they want/new things. Two, make a Family Fun cash envelope or budget and decide at the beginning of the month how you'll spend it. When it's gone, it's gone. Find free activities after that! They need to see there's a limit. We don't have to say "Money doesn't grow on trees", we show them. Lastly, involvement in extracurricular stuff: I believe in investing in God given talents and I'm glad my parents did that for me. But doing one type of team or lesson at a time is a pretty good rule I've heard from a lot of parents, so kids have to choose and they put more value into what they're doing.

5) This one will be short and that is the "Bills" category. What are your needs and what are your wants? We should know the difference, right?

6) We have a miscellaneous category in our budget. It's a good and a bad thing! Good because life happens and there is just no way you can project everything that is going to be paid for in a month. But bad because things can really pile up in there. Haircuts. Stamps. Parking. If every penny has to be accounted for in some part of the budget, where does one put "$10 Dog Toy"? In Miscellaneous.

7) Giving: A couple things here. One, we don't give under compulsion or by any rules. As believers, we give to where we see the Body of Christ at work, because this and not a building is the Church! Second, I weigh a lot of things against the fact that sponsoring a child in a third world country, giving them food, shelter, education, safety, and opportunity to know Jesus, costs $35 a month. Whenever we take on some kind of monthly bill and it comes to anywhere near this number, I am thinking, "Hmmm...upgrade the phone or save a child's life?" I'm serious. This is the intensity that my poor husband has to live with.

8) Cash Envelopes. It's a Dave Ramsey thing and it's seriously worth it. Some people do it for almost everything, we do it for the areas of the budget where overspending is a habit: eating out, family fun, individual blow money. Sometimes if grocery starts to get a little crazy, I'll do the cash thing for a month or two to get it under control again. Like Pinkalicious' Mom says: "You get what you get, and you don't get upset."

9) Shopping. You know, it's inevitable that you're going to need some new things, but here's an idea...A friend of mine and I went a year once without buying anything new. I mean, we bought deodorant and stuff, but no new shoes or clothes or appliances or whatever. We bought only necessities for a year, and it was really fun. It made me consider how much money is spent that really didn't need to be spent. Ads are pretty powerful, and the fact is if there is an ad for it, you most likely do not need it. Notice how they don't make commercials for electricity, running water, and the most basic of clothes, cars, and hygiene products? Nope. The ads are for bigger and better and brighter, and they make you think its something you should get in on, but someone is rolling in the dough at our expense. (Don't get me started on kids toys or electronics!! The new models that come out every year with one tiny thing upgraded on it!! Makes me want to gag!!)

10) Last thing, make an emergency budget of what you absolutely could not live without and compare it to your existing budget. See how bad things could be? If you have no savings, I recommend living on the emergency budget until you have three months of that amount (your total emergency budget monthly needs) saved.

Well, I hope this wasn't too boring or annoying. Maybe everyone is already doing this and tons more, that's great! I just like to share what I'm learning, hope it helps!

Living Love Story #7: Fruitful in the Land of Suffering

Let's say that on Tuesday of this week you were met with a series of difficult circumstances all colliding at once. Perhaps you found out that your best just wasn't really cutting it in your job or in an important relationship. You began to wonder who was going to make you cry next. Financial problems and health problems and people problems...

Then today, Wednesday, you get a series of affirming words and you feel some peace about relationships. You see that the finances could be worse, or maybe even something good happens in that area. You got a decent night of sleep and your health issue seems to be tolerable at least. The sun shines yet again, and you don't feel as lost in the dark...

Which day would you be more likely to say these statements:
"The Lord is with me."
"I am prospering."
"I am being given success right now in everything I am doing."
"God is granting me favor with people."
"God is showing me kindness."
"I am to the point of even forgetting my former trouble."
"God has made me fruitful in my suffering."

I would be more likely to say these statements, and in fact I did say these statements, on Wednesday. But on Tuesday? No. On Tuesday, I was busy feeling abandoned and confused and stressed. Not fruitful. Not successful. Just the opposite.

I have always liked the story of Joseph. Starting in Genesis 37, we know Joseph is in for it with his brothers. Boasting about dreams, being his father's favorite, it was about all they could take...and eventually his brothers sell him to some Egyptians. It's an amazing story that shares a real life example of Romans 8:28! And when Joseph was sold into slavery, when he was falsely accused, when he was thrown into prison, the Word of God specifically declares every single one of the truths I mentioned above--about Joseph--right in the middle of his circumstances. These things weren't said after the Pharoah got him out of prison or after his brothers apologized or after Joseph's wisdom and gifts saved lives. (Gen. 39:2-4, Gen. 39:20-23, Gen. 41:51-52) It was on the bad days that these things were true, as well as the "good" days.

God does things in a way that is beyond our understanding, so He invites us to be a child and trust Him. "Oh for grace to trust Him more!"