From the desk

Just when you think life can’t get any crazier — it does.

I guess, in retrospect, this may be the reason I have been so pressed to not take time for granted and to leave my anxiety at the door — but, we never do know quite why we learn the lessons we learn until we are faced with situations that cause us to pull them off the shelf, dust them off, and make use of them.

So here I sit, stress induced shingles plaguing the end of my senior year.

Shingles are annoying. Unlike the flu or pneumonia, or really any other sickness, it does not attack like a normal virus. No, it attacks your nerves. From shooting pains to that awful feeling you get when one of your limbs falls asleep and doesn’t want to wake up, shingles pain hurts.

It started with a small rash just to the right of my spine. Then my arm started to hurt. By hurt, I mean it killed — first my forearm, then my shoulder, and then my hand.

Praise the Lord my diagnosis was as simple as shingles, but unfortunately that diagnosis carries with it a promise of 14-21 days of untreatable nerve pain. Oh, and throw in some flu-like symptoms.

But, if I have learned anything over the past few weeks it is that I am not alone in my sickness. God is a God of longsuffering, and he is enough to sustain me — even with shingles.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”