Sometimes it’s easier to smile than to show the world your true emotions. The smile hides our vulnerability and our fears. The smile camouflages our sickness and keeps others from pitying our situation. Most of us truly hide behind these beautiful smiles!

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I encourage you to praise our beautiful smiles, while continuously praying for us daily. Sometimes it’s the strongest people who are hurting the most. We are strong. We are Warriors, yet we are still human so pray our strength to keep fighting these illnesses even when it seems unbearable. Pray the manifestation of our healing is on its way. Pray that we continue to smile, but the smile be as a result of happiness. Lift us up in prayer because this battle is hard and seems to be never ending.

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Every time you see me smile, please send up a prayer on my behalf! TIA🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

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I love you all with the love of Jesus! May your tomorrow’s be better than your yesterday’s!!! Love, Angel 👼🏽

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#sick #lupus #lupusflare #lupusawareness #lupuswarrior #lupusfighter #lupusadvocate #spoonie #spoonielife #spooniesupport #spoonies #spooniefamily #spoonielove #spooniesisterhood #spooniecommunity #fibromyalgia #fibromyalgiaawareness #potssyndrome #autoimmunedisease #chronicillness #chronicpain #angelslupusjourney #chronicfatiguesyndrome #chronicfatigue #chronicpainwarrior #chronicfatiguesyndromeawareness #transparency #dysautonomia #dysautonomiaawareness

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How is she/he feeling?

How has their week been?

What is best for their health?

Those questions should be among the first questions you ask yourself before planning anything for your spoonie spouse. You see, we can’t predict how we will feel daily. Shucks, we can’t predict the next minute.

Does this mean you shouldn’t plan anything? No, it simply means when making your plans consider your spouse, their overall health, their desires, their known capabilities and then allow room for change if/when necessary.

What does your spouse like to do? Is it something that is feasible and if they aren’t up to it, can the activity be done at home? For example, although your spouse loves to go to the movies, if they are feeling poorly, bring the movie, popcorn, nachos, candy, etc. to them.

Be willing to compromise, make adjustments as needed without judgement, respect their limitations while capitalizing on their abilities.

Be sure to reassure your spouse that you love them regardless of their illness and the most important thing to you is spending time and being able to show them how much you adore them.

You won’t loose if you truly take your time to pay attention, research the illness for yourself, consider your spouses current state, recognize your demeanor can either positively or negatively affect your spouse so handle them with care, realize they don’t have control over the illness, understand that things can change swiftly and drastically, and above all else, shower them with love and support reassuring them that they are enough, illness and all!

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We live in a world where admitting we aren’t perfect is viewed as admitting weakness. People don’t want to look weak, uneducated or like they don’t have it all together when in all reality people who display humility are more respected than those who think they are the smartest person in every room.

The truth is, we are all flawed whether you want to admit it or not. There is always room for improvement. There will always be areas in our lives we need to re-evaluate and revamp. No one is exempt from this.

The faster you realize this, the faster your life and how others view you will change.

Living with a chronic illness at times magnifies our flaws. We can’t run from our imperfections whether physical or mental. Because of this it is imperative to be able to look at ourselves, acknowledge our wrong doings and strive to be a better us.

Why you ask?!

We don’t need anything else weighing us down. We already have the weight of the world and health on our shoulders. We are already aware of our flaws and adding to them by thinking we are always right and don’t have room for improvement will only damage our psyche more than the reality of living with a chronic illness has already done.

We already struggle with our self image physically due to our many scars as well as mentally as we battle feeling like burdens and beat ourselves up for the things our health prohibits us from doing. Admitting our wrong doings releases us from having to be defensive every moment of our lives because although it is easy to appear like our poop doesn’t stink, we know it smells awful. In turn, stress of having to have this perfect performance makes us sicker. God knows we don’t want or need that.

Admitting wrong doings and correcting one’s behavior is not limited to those living with chronic illnesses. People as a whole are more approachable, valued and truly respected when they can admit they are wrong.

Reality is, everyone around you realizes you are wrong whether they tell you to your face or not. Some people are afraid of what you are capable of since you can keep up this perfect facade and they choose not to say anything, while others don’t see the point because they don’t think you will change. They expect you to try to justify your bad behavior and recognize you are just one of those people you have to handle with a long handled spoon.

I encourage everyone reading this article, whether living with a chronic illness or not, to take a moment to self reflect and have a honest conversation with yourself. You are human and are inevitably going to be wrong at times; however, it is up to you how you decide to handle it.

My suggestion is to take a humility pill, be careful how you address others, repent for your bad behavior and make a clear positive change so that you can organically receive the love and respect you are looking for to begin with.

SN: If this article convicts you or makes you believe it could possibly be written about you, then yes it was and you have an opportunity to make a change. I hope you do so…..

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Self love is preached and screamed from the mountaintops. We hear about how we should love all of ourselves on TV and on the radio. We see campaigns across social media. It is truly apparent that we should love ourselves wholeheartedly and the world seems to support this cause.

So why is it so hard to do?!

We all have things we love about ourselves and then there are those things we truly hate. Yes, hate and I know it’s a strong word. We should never despise anything about ourselves that much to say we hate it.

The fact of the matter is, we as a people are still struggling with self love! To go even deeper, we as people living with chronic illnesses struggle with self love.

I know that no one wants to be vulnerable and talk about it, but it’s true. We hate more than one thing about ourselves.

Some of us hate something about our appearances, while others hate ourselves for being sick.

We hate that we have lost hair and teeth due to sickness or medicine. We hate that the medicine that is supposed to make us feel better has made us gain 100 pounds and put hair on our faces. We hate that we bear scars in noticeable places. We don’t feel attractive and we just hate how we look.

We hate that we can’t do the things others can so we in turn hate ourselves and put ourselves down. “You aren’t worth anything.” “You will never be anything more than a burden.” “Go ahead and end your miserable life.”

It’s a terrible thing when YOU don’t like YOU. How can anyone else like you if you don’t like yourself?

It’s time for you to snap out of it and realize who and whose you are. You are first a child of the King and he doesn’t make junk. You are beautiful or handsome. Your scars tell a story of your bravery and make you more attractive. Your hair loss and whatever else shows that you have fight and that in itself is an attribute so many wish they had. Your story is an inspiration to others and your drive is more than goals. You are looking at sickness like it took you away, but it created a better, stronger you.

Love yourself because you are amazing! Love yourself because no one could make it through your trials and tribulations like you. Love yourself because you realize that when you love you, you exude confidence that is more than attractive. Love yourself because there is beauty in all your scars. Love yourself because you are the best thing ever and you will win your battle.

Let this be your recharging moment to restore and replenish all love lost for yourself and you should come out better than you ever were.

Love yourself because you deserve all the love in the world!

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