Need You Now

My friend wrote on her blog today about being tired.  I'm tired. Flares or Bad Days are one of those things you just can't avoid when you're chronically ill and yet they are a big deal. They are dramatic and messy and can send you tumbling back down the steps you just climbed until you feel as though you must start all over again.
I am peering around in the darkness. I am aware of my weakness. I am aware of my great need. I feel lost and alone. It's hard to remember why you're doing this in the first place.
Do not forget in the darkness what you have learned in the light.
The thing about bad days, for me, is that the rippling effects don't come so much from my physical pain but from what's going on inside my head.
"I need you!" My fingers are grasping around in the dark for something to latch on to, someone to hold on to that will tell me it's ok, that I'm not alone, that this moment of frantic needing will pass, that they've been there too.
"I need you!" I whisper in a voice that sounds much too tiny to belong to me.
"Don't ever be sorry for needing me," He whispers between the words.
***
I am in a place of desperate need. It really bothers me when I come to a place like this because I have this image in my head of how things are supposed to be. I'm supposed to be strong and I'm supposed to be able to handle this by myself and I'm not supposed to need people at 9:00pm to remind me I'm not really dying, that I can do this, that I'm not alone.

I don't understand everything that's been going on. While I am peaceful about it all I am far from understanding it all. I don't understand why babies who are only a few months old are born without iris's or why teeanger's get diagnosed with another chronic illness that sends life spiraling out of control.

I'm tired. I'm desperate. I don't understand. I'm needy and worn out and weary and I don't have this whole thing figured out yet, even though I think I should. I am weak when I feel I should be strong.

 He loves me. It's ok to need, to not understand, to not have it all figured out.
This raging world that I have been thrust into makes me fall to my knees, groping around in the darkness for a glimmer of light. This world which I have become a part of in a whole new way leaves me shedding tears for new little ones who have been thrust into it as well.

In THIS world you will have trouble, but I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)