The theme of courage has been filling my heart lately partly due to recent events. When asked how would he liked to be remembered, Charlie Kirk answered with conviction that he would like to be remembered for the courage of his faith. That got me to ask myself: “Am I living courageously for my faith?”. The experience of the love of God compel us to change our way, to repent from our sins and return to the heart of the Father. From the Sacred Heart of Jesus flows the wellspring of life for each one of us, which brings us to live a purpose filled life.
It has certainly been an adventure for me; from the excitement of love to the enduring choice to keep on loving. Almost exactly like my marriage, which by the way was today seven years ago. We began with the experience of love and the commitment to love brought us to where we are today – more resilient and more in love. And as I reflect on my journey of faith, I see a pattern of how it grew and still growing. From the “feeling” of love, I made the commitment to give my life to Jesus and started discovering more about God and myself. The more I see myself from the lens of the Father, the more I heal from my wounds that has manifested in forms like self doubt, severe self judgment and fear of all sort. Fear was (still sometimes is if unchecked) my biggest reason that I held back from being authentic. I feared judgment from others, I feared that others would not want to be my friend if they know what my opinions are, I fear losing my job for my principles and the list goes on.
The remedy of it all is to have courage to live authentically. How can we do that if we do not know who we are? What would happened to how we show up if we believe that we are a horrible person? I’d imagine that we would not be a pleasant company and the outcome would be disastrous. Therefore our courage has to come from the victory of the Cross. I used to be a person who wouldn’t care less of what others would say about me, I thought I was being me because I did not want to suppress how I really feel. So sometimes words that came out of my mouth were sarcastic and unkind. Now being a more mature Christian, I come to appreciate the value of being form more and more into the likeness of Christ, the value to go through sufferings that smoothen out my rough edges. And I praise God that He gave me the time, space and the right appointments that helped to change. It is indeed humbling to think about this gift of grace that has been given to repent and return to His heart.
My right appointments that has helped me in my journey were effective faith programmes and right people on my path. And it began with two amazing programmes that I’d like to encourage us to consider. First one is ‘Who Am I?”, my biggest takeaway was learning about my inner creed. I learnt that what I believed affected how I live my life. Or rather it was the vice verse way of discovering, how I live my life is the reflection of what I really believe internally. For example, if I am always suspicion of people’s motive of helping me, I probably believed that people are generally untrustworthy.
Discovering and healing the image of God and self through “Who Am I?” would prepare a person well for the next programme, JumpStart because now that part of the “baggage” is unloaded, we are ready for more. From JumpStart we will find out more about our passion and what makes us alive. We will also be given the tools to make it our lifestyle. The journey doesn’t end there, in fact that’s the beginning towards a more fulfilling life. From there, I would recommend that we go on a coaching journey. Through coaching whether it is personal or group, we can find strength to overcome obstacles on our way. We find ourselves more inclined to spend time with people who celebrates our growth and our lives will be lived out more authentically.
My life journey has been blessed (still being blessed) with all these right appointments along my way. Dear friends, would you like to explore the possibilities of these right appointments? Connect with us today and may you be blessed abundantly.
With lots of love, Irene
*This article is also published in livethecall.live
Growing up things has not been that hard for me. I also have the tendency to take the easy way out. Seemingly blessed with good brain, being born in relatively stable home and having the privilege of being native of the land has also given me easier opportunities. I get into uni with my native quota and upon graduation it was relatively easy to get a job. Then changing job gave me a huge leap in my paycheck. Being a driven person, hitting target was my aim because earning a bigger paycheck was of utmost importance. It was not too hard but it was not too easy either. Being raised by my strict father, it was in my system to make things work for me. Even when I cried over my decision, I have to try to make things work and not giving up too easily. Those foundation has given me a good starting point.
Despite all the worldly successes that I experienced in the past, my heart was never satisfied. I was yearning for something more and that yearning eventually led me to quit my job and be in mission fully covered by God. Boy the lesson was tough. I grumble often and still did not learn my lesson of trust until Myasthenia Gravis (MG) made an entrance to my life. In the first few years of living with MG, I still did not grasp the real value of patience. Only after the crisis in 2023 did I finally grasp the meaning of patient suffering.
My desire for complete healing, I mean complete healing was and still is strong. I am only settling for the best and so I set myself to a heck of a journey. I know for a fact that allopathic medicine can only bring me to the point of monthly maintenance subscription. The management protocols are not designed for healing, only for control. But control is necessary to buy me time and give me clarity on what needs to be done.
In my quest of reversing MG, I learnt patience. At first rather reluctantly but eventually I understood the value of my suffering. God the Father invited me to live a life as the beloved who suffers well. I said yes though I did not know what does that entail. I was still restless and eager in an impatient (or lack of trust) way to get rid of the modern medication I was on. When I woke up in the ICU room realising that the cup of suffering was not to pass me, that was my moment of victorious surrender. I began learning patience as I was well aware I needed time to heal. I needed to be patient with myself and trust the process. I made a remarkable recovery journey. Got us a new off roader to serve us for our land that I signed the S&P of a week prior to ICU admission; travelled to the neigbouring country for a friend’s wedding – all within 6 months post ICU.
However, I was still a slow learner of patience even through the physical need to suffer. My life was still chaotic and God came to bring order to the chaos. I restarted scripture reading discipline which I thought was too hard after having my child. It was not the easiest restart as my nervous system was still on a high alert. I literally fought with my four year old back then to secure my sacred hour in the morning. Even though I knew I needed to be patient, my disposition was still an impatient one – deep in I did not give myself the space to really be. I still did not know how to properly allow myself to feel, I was swinging the pendulum between hope and despair. But I also noticed the time of recovery becomes faster and faster.
Then came the minor flare end of 2024, it was not too bad, even turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I know now that all my physical actions worked to heal my thymus and shrink the thymoma. That flare became the turning point of helping me to realize I have allowed stress to consume my being. Stress that resulted in a flare. It took me quite a long time to stabilize again. Through that I learnt the value of patient bearing of suffering. I also learnt that I had heaps of unprocessed and hidden fear. Those fear were false evidence appearing real. When I decided to face them, they came out bigger and scarier! Faith and techniques I learnt through the years was my remedy of these fears. My faith was put to test and I was willing to walk the rugged terrain of suffering to get to the side of victory. This victory was also fueled by our dire financial situation which I will share adventure of it in my next post.
Months after months of practicing simple breathing exercise has helped me to calm down relatively faster. I first learnt of pursed lips breathing after my ICU stay. It was a necessary part of my lungs healing. Till today I am still struggling with phlegm built up two years post extubation. I came to realize that I am only affected at a certain time of the day, most likely coinciding with the trauma of the time of reintubation. That helped me to learn about the power of mind body connection in healing. I started making it a point to build a stronger mindset that serves me using all sort of hacks from dopamine hacks to positive self talk to applying scriptures in my specific situation. The stronger mindset resulted in me being able to handle difficult things much better. For example, I used to think that exercise was too hard for me. What actually happened was the underlying fear of triggering MG with exercise. But I had a lung condition that took too long to heal, so I started walking on the treadmill for cardio exercise. It was initially hard but as I kept telling myself I was doing hard work, my brain kept rewarding me with quality dopamine. It gets easier and I even expanded to the bicycle as well as weight exercises.
As I keep expanding my mindset to one that is ordered towards the Word of God using physical and tangible techniques, I found myself more and more able to handle stress and challenges. I just show up in life together with MG. Knowing my limit and keep expanding it as well. My nervous system has become more regulated and calmed down. This greatly helped with healing. Not only that, the pages of the scripture jumps out in real life for me. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – Philippians 4: 13; became my theme of this season. Truly I can only do all things because of the strength I received from Christ. His strength helped me to patiently bear my suffering, learnt from it, grew in endurance and that endurance produces hope that does not disappoint.
Dear friends, what sufferings are you carrying? How would you like to grow in the virtue of patience and perseverance? What are your hope for the suffering you are carrying? Let’s connect to share more about this.
What legacy do you want leave? How would you like your children to remember you? These are questions that I asked myself often. I aspire to be a mother who inspires my children to rise higher and that involves some sacrifice from me. In my current triple-H reality of Homemaking, Homeschooling and Health Healing, wanting to rise higher myself can feel like an impossible task. Parenting is energy intensive and it can drain us at the end of the day. Some days I feel like I don’t even like my child due to the drained energy. And those are the days that I easily fell into the trap of blaming her for not being able to live my life fully. By the grace of God, I am aware this is not to be. My child is my reason to rise higher not my stumbling block.
After days and months and years of reflection and evaluation, I came to see some light. I want to pursue my passion and dreams as my means of living fully. That in turn will fill my tank and that tank overflows to my child. But I also need to be realistic; what works and what does not. How do I move in the ever changing rhythm? What becomes important in this journey? I am going to share practicals in three areas that would hopefully help us to move forward in our journey of pursuing our dreams.
Stress Management This is an inevitable part of our modern life. Stress is also a nasty cause of diseases, hence it is so important to possess the skills to manage our stress. In my current reality, my days are pretty full as I am the kitchen ministry, cleaning ministry, children ministry, health ministry, purchasing officer etc. I cook most of our meals at home due to our health condition. My child is involved in cleaning, cooking and housework as this is part of homeschooling. This does not make my task faster but it does make our lives more pleasant and fun. Living with Myasthenia Gravis has limited me in a big way and to add that on, being a supporting wife of a struggling entrepreneur added a good amount of stress in my life.
So what works best when life gets overwhelming? Before the downward spiral spins out of control; STOP, PAUSE and BE PRESENT. This helps with emotion regulation. Simply by noticing your breathing or any one sense at a time helps us to relax. Just doing it for 5 minutes can free our body from the grip of stress. Once we are calm, we can acknowledge what happened in a neutral way and then let the grip go. This is helpful on a daily basis and when practiced intentionally, we trained ourselves to relax and let go of stress whenever we need to.
Staying Focused on Your Dreams What are your passions and dreams? What makes you alive? Are you working on it? These are questions that would give us a clue where we are at with our dreams. If you can name your dreams, write them down and have it in a prominent place. Take encouragement from this scripture;
This serves as a good reminder of what is in your heart and what you are working towards. If you are unsure of your passions and dreams, I’d like to invite you to connect with us at JumpStart. JumpStart is a programme that will help you to discover what’s in your heart and you’ll also receive the tools to plan towards them. Engaging with a coach or someone to accompany you in your journey of the pursuit of your dreams and passions is a good idea regardless of where you are at.
Incorporating Your Dreams in Your Daily Life Pursuing our dreams as parents is a delicate balancing act. First thing to evaluate is our daily and weekly rhythm. What does your typical day look like? What time do you wake up and then what follows? Are there time in my day that I wasted? I surely have that, I sometime waste my time on the internet doing things like scrolling videos that did not help me to further my dreams. Including time wasting activities in our evaluation will help us to clearly make a decision of what work best for us.
Making pursuing our dreams part of our lifestyle IS going to cost us. Be prepared to make sacrifices for our children and also be gracious towards ourselves from time to time. I am a typical go getter hyper achiever type of person. When I am focused on something, it is not easy to slack that off. So for me, growth is to be able to slow down, enjoy the learning from parenthood, soaked in the love of the Father in my season and be gracious to myself when I did not achieve what I aimed to do. It will take longer for me to pursue my dreams but what’s important is that I am on the track.
These practicals becomes easier when it is lived with great intention. I highly encourage having someone to journey alongside you as you pursue your dreams. Our children are precious and they deserve to have great role models in us, their parents. May you find great fulfillment as you pursue your dreams precisely because of your children.
My dear sister Bea who was instrumental in bringing me to a space of living out my desire to be known has been supporting me to do something about it. That’s what got me into sharing my reflection weekly during a very trying time healthwise. God is so good in providing friends who supported me through it.
The second reflection is one that prompted me to step out in faith. One of my biggest struggle is faith in providence, it was difficult during my years as a full time lay missionary, it was still very challenging afterwards. With the lion within me awakened, I know what is required of me is just to step out in faith: I do what I know what to do (the natural), and then trust God fully that He will do the supernatural. Here’s the reflection written and shared on 18 December 2022, may you be blessed.
When desperate, call on St. Jude! That was exactly what I did on 9 Dec, asking many companions to pray together with me. St. Jude activated saints around me that loved me into the deep which eventually led me to stillness that brought about breakthrough.
Examining my desire to be healed led me to realise how much I did I not prioritise my body due to limited funds. I wanted to check the state of my body and take the right action, I did not. I wanted to do a proper body detox and cleanse, I did not. I wanted to eat more organic, that happened limitedly. Realising my own sin against my body; I apologized and reconciled with my body.
My body start opening up to respond positively to treatment. I started gaining more sleep with nightly deliverance prayer from anxiety. Then I started embodying a decisive identity of “I am important”. Being decisive to make me a priority led me to my current holistic doctor. With renewed hope, I’ve started a nutritional supportive regime and so far my body is responding well.
Praising God for His favour and thanking you for your continous prayer. As I dare to hope and trust in the Lord, I am also sharing my appeal with you. Please pray about this and I truly appreciate any form of support.
Love and blessings, Irene
#thebelovedwhosufferswell
With this reflection, I attached my appeal and my work in mental fitness promotional poster. For the purpose of sharing it here, I have removed edited out some information due to sensitivity and ethical practice.
The responses I garnered were mixed; some are very encouraging, some even took action to bless me financially, some immediately helped me to promote my work and some went totally silent. The silent part can be deafening and I took it with grace, believing that they are praying for me. This stepping out in faith exercise brought me to realization that I finally get it: I get the lesson that God is teaching me since the beginning of my YES to Him. The idol of my false sense of self sufficiency was well and truly shattered this time. I realized all these while, what I thought was lack of trust was rooted in me trying to control all the outcomes of my life including my attempts to control God. Now I understand the sense of lack of freedom whenever I am invited to trust God in financial providence. With all sincerity, I tried my best to trust and allow God to work but there’s more anxiety than freedom. This amazing breakthrough that came with the awakened lion within is grace from God. I am also seeing this partially as the fruit of my own daily practice of mental fitness. All these has been prepared before hand for me to come to a moment of grace where I dare to step out and I also dare to trust and allow God to provide as He pleases.
So here I am stepping out in faith to invite you to consider my work in mental fitness training. If you are curious about this, connect with me. If someone you know may benefit from this program, send them to me. I pray that you are blessed by my reflection and that you are encouraged to find victory in your challenges and sufferings. May you find the courage to step out in faith!
Having the privilege to be off drugs and living pretty well for a short period of time has been nothing short of a blessing. Being inflicted with a nasty flare up of Myasthenia Gravis around end of November all through December of 2022 has become an awakening for me. I am given yet another chance in life. I praise God for the people He placed in my life to bring forth “a new life” in me. I was so sick that I can only share my reflections personally with close friends. Those who supported me has been a blessing to me and has been blessed by my sharing. So here I am sharing my past reflections in parts as I believed that everyone deserves victory in their suffering.
This was written and shared on 11 December 2022 and it was my breakthrough reflection.
Upon being invited to stay with the desire to be known, so many things came out. One identity I am invited to take on now is “The Beloved who Suffers Well”. I sensed my own discomfort in it but then who is the first Beloved who Suffers Well? None other than our Lord Jesus Christ. He showed us that the Cross is the way to Glory and I am to be focused on the grace of the moment.
What came out of my reflection surprised me. I only want to be known of the good stuffs but in my reality now I am crying out to be known in my suffering. To dare to bare the suffering. So here are the symptoms I am experiencing:
– muscle weakness – unable to swallow properly without drug. It’s sometimes hard even with drugs – severe double vision – dizziness – unstable movement – jittery feelings on my muscles – cold numbness on my lips and pallate – slurry speech – loss of appetite – heaviness on my chest – anxiety / depression (drug related) – diarrhea (drug related)
I desire to suffer well like Christ and I recognise opportunities to do that. When things felt good, praise Him and when it is not that pleasant; look to the Cross for His grace for all these shall pass.
Continue to pray for me.
Love and blessings, Irene
#thebelovedwhosufferswell
I pray that you are blessed by my sharing and that you find victory in your suffering.
The vivid thing that I remember was being overwhelmed with grace in the beginning of the diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis (MG). When I first started having symptoms, we did some research and were desperately hoping it was something mild and less nasty. The illness progressed really quickly to the point of hospitalization and looking back I now know I was just a day or two away from a full on myasthenic crisis, where intubation would be necessary. We are ever so grateful for the grace and the favor from the Lord upon us that I was just in time.
I was determined to make my season of healing a season of grace and that mindset became the guide of my search. The journey was tough and at every juncture, I searched for the blessings behind it. My mother was in my house helping me at the early stage and she needed to get back to my hometown for her doctor’s appointment; so my niece helped for a week followed by my sister for another week. Then the lockdown happened. I was a little more than month out of hospital, still very weak and found myself without any help. My attitude was “think possible and do what’s possible”. With the outlook of gratitude, here are some things I learnt (please note that these are my personal opinion derived from personal experience);
Emergency care is life saver I am alive today thanks to emergency care where I get immediate help and rescue medication. In my case IVIg was administered to bring my body back to a more stable state. I am evermore grateful for my dear friend who helped me in the admission and also my neurologist who is respectful and dedicated to saving me at the time of hospitalization.
Get a medical insurance coverage in case you need it This is where grace was really abounds. My work as a lay missionary paid me nothing monetarily and so that led me to a decision to put my insurance to a holiday mode. Thank God I get to restart it in time for its use. We are privilege to have private hospitals that can attend to us immediately. The bill was really huge for us and thanks to my medical insurance, I paid only a fraction of it. I got my medical insurance when I was young with the desire to not ever need it and it turned out to be a blessing when I needed it.
It’s liberating to unlearn limiting beliefs and learn new ones I’ve worked as a medical representative for quite some time and the medical field was one that I looked from a one sided perspective. When I was diagnosed I was told there is no cure for MG and that I would be on medication for life. I know the fact that there is a possibility to depend on drugs for life but I do not like that option. So I start researching extensively on the topic of autoimmunity. The search opened my eyes to a whole new possibility of healing naturally. I learnt not only about autoimmunity but also about cancer. The whole dynamic of the body becomes something I start seeing a whole. It’s like scales were peeled off my eyes that I now am able to embrace the fact that the body is really interconnected. I may have an autoimmune of the nerves but healing my gut would be the gateway to heal the autoimmune.
Understanding the modality of natural means of healing gave me a lot of hope. My research led me to meet my Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor who helped me to heal to the point of wellness. This in turn enabled me to start tapering down the immunosuppressant I am on. This is hope enfleshed and I am so grateful.
Diagnostic tools of modern hospital are helpful I have a good relationship with my neurologist and I appreciate his care for me. Some MG patients are not as lucky as they did not meet good doctors who are respectful. The diagnostic tools in modern hospitals are really helpful in the navigation of disease management. Yearly CT scan is needed for me to monitor the thymoma, blood tests will give an indication of what’s going on. So for me, even though I am experiencing healing through my TCM doctor, I am still going under the care of my neurologist.
Mental fitness is a plus for healing journey I am privileged to have gone through my own mental fitness journey in 2021 and now on the journey of advance coach training in this area. Mental fitness is our ability to take on life challenges with a positive rather than negative mindset. It’s the work developed by Positive Intelligence (PQ) and the programme has helped me tremendously in stress management. It is a well known fact that stress is a root cause of many diseases and I believe the it was major contributing factor to me getting MG. Since the diagnosis in 2020, I made it a point to regulate my emotions well. With PQ I was able to identify the source of stress in my life and am able to regulate even more effectively. I learnt tools that helped me to stop the spiraling down of negative thoughts and emotions that often resulted in stress and unhappiness. My PQ journey has seen me being happier and more productive in my work. I run an eight weeks mental fitness journey to as a foundation for clients who desires to achieve their desired outcomes with ease and great happiness. Connect with me to find out more.
Healing is possible when we take responsibility Self responsibility is so crucial in healing. I take full responsibility for my healing by educating myself on the disease, being discerning on what I put into my body and choosing a healthier lifestyle. Education is what helped me to tap into hope of healing through the natural means and what I learnt is such a treasure on every front. Formerly a drug rep, I know well how modern drugs work. I acknowledge that modern drugs can be quite helpful especially in the beginning phase of getting ill. Dealing with symptoms can be debilitating and having drugs to help control it for a little while helps us get back on track. However, to gain full healing, it would be worth it to look at natural means. In my condition, the drugs I was on just could not bring me to a state of wellness. I thank God for TCM modality that brought me to where I am. Getting to know other people who are sick and stuck, it became apparent to me that they lack the courage to take responsibility of their bodies. They are likely to embody an attitude of helplessness and depended fully upon the advice of the healthcare provider without any question or research. Those advices are great but as responsible adults, we are invited to discern what’s best for us. Nobody knows your body better than you do, in all logic, we should be the “expert” of our bodies. What went missing that we became so disconnected from our bodies? I can answer that for myself – I was not present to my body and I did not know how to love my body fully. Through MG I learnt to reconnect, listen to and love my body the way God intended me to.
I intentionally choose my diet, lifestyle and what kind of medication I allowed in my body. Healthcare providers had encouraged me to take certain drug for prevention of some disease. My response was to check on the recommended drug; is it necessary? What are the contents of the drug? What potential side effect would it bring? Would the mechanism of action injure me due to my condition? What is known about this drug? Is it even ethical? These are some of the questions I would bring to the table of discernment whether to take any additional drug. In my discernment I would tap into grace of the Living God and connect to my instinct for decision. When it concerns life, I think it’s important to go beyond our rational mind to our intuition. All these requires a sense of self responsibility. This body is a gift from Christ and it is my responsibility to take good care of it.
God heals the way He pleased One of my first response when I got sick was to pray. I invited family and friends to join me on a 54 days rosary novena with the intention of my healing. I secretly wished I would be one of those who received healing instantaneously. However, in my case God is pleased to heal me according to natural law. It’s a process that I go through with some days being great and some being really crappy. I learnt to be grateful through it all. This is a journey of endurance and trust training. I certainly see my trust in the Lord increase steadily. Do I still cry when it’s difficult? YES I do! I also experience recovery from the negative emotions way faster and with every hurdle comes greater trust. I am learning as St. Paul taught us to find contentment in all circumstances (Philippians 4: 12).
I hope my little nuggets of learning is helpful for you. Wherever you are in your healing journey, the burden feels lighter if you have someone who walk alongside you. Should you be considering a coach, I am here. My prayer for you is that you find fullness of life in the midst of your circumstances.
The recollection of events that happened 2 years ago is still vivid in my mind. It sometimes felt surreal that we’ve been through such drama, especially now that I am in a much better state physically. Just a few weeks ago I shared my grace of healing with a Myasthenia Gravis (MG) support group, one response that I got was pretty astounding: “that’s crazy, you are one lucky person!”. Indeed I am really blessed to have found healing through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
I can count so many blessings that came out of my healing journey; one of them being my openness to unlearn what I thought I know to be the “right” way of viewing sickness and relearn to connect to my body through natural means. As a former drug rep, this is a sanctifying journey and I am just simply amazed at the grace of openness that I was able to tap on. Because of MG I enrolled myself into all sort of health education programs and the irony is that I finally understand a little bit of the principle of TCM through an English speaking American program despite growing up more deeply rooted in Chinese culture (I only speak a few Chinese languages but am unable to read or write Chinese scripts).
Acupuncture has been attributed to being quite helpful for MG, with that knowledge I started praying and looking for an acupuncturist from the very beginning of the diagnosis. I finally found one after more than a year of searching when my friend shared his experience with his TCM who also does acupuncture. Meeting my TCM doctor was an answered prayer. I only wanted acupuncture to supplement my current conventional medicine regime but I was given more.
At my first appointment, I found out that my TCM doctor did his masters in autoimmunity, hence he was totally unsurprised by MG with thymoma. Another assurance came my way when I met his wife who had MG with thymoma 17 years prior. That gave me a lot of hope as I know then the doctor I found knows what he’s dealing with as MG is a rare condition. I started off with just acupuncture as I wasn’t sure about taking herbal meds on top of my current conventional regime. After consultation with my TCM doctor, his advice was to take the different meds at an hour and a half apart.
It was Aug of 2021, I started experiencing slight worsening when I finally met my TCM doctor. Came Sept, I lost my dearest younger brother and that bout of emotional stress threw me to the floor of MG flareup. I was so weak to the point of having difficulty in swallowing water. So at that time, I restarted steroid and pyridostigmine to help control the symptoms. Both my neurologist and TCM doctor had great empathy and were really supportive.
By early Oct, I started herbal meds with weekly therapy that involves cupping, chiro work and acupuncture. Within 3 months, I showed signs of improvement to the point of wellness. One example would be computer screen time. At the peak of when symptoms was relatively low on conventional drug treatment, I could withstand computer screen time up to 10 minutes and then my eyelids will start to droop. By that point, my whole body would feel a tiring sensation like an out-of-sync-electric-current numbness that runs through my body. I would need to lie down for at least 20 minutes to recover. After 3 months of TCM treatment, I can withstand computer screen time up to an hour before I started feeling my eyelids. I only need to take an eyelid rest by closing my eyes for about 30 seconds and then I am ready to continue with my work at the computer again. That’s a massive difference and I can only praise God for His grace that led me this far into my complete healing.
Today I am on yet another milestone journey – the last leg of immunosuppressant dose reduction prescribed by my neurologist. The last appointment in Dec showed how much I improved clinically and that somehow gave him the confidence to propose the beginning of the dose reduction. I am ever so grateful at the mercy God is showing me. His mercy that enveloped me from the beginning of the journey. His grace that led me to decide to make this a meaningful season. I’ve learnt so much through this and it has certainly changed me in the way I view life, the world and the way I honor my relationships. My heart is filled with gratitude towards everyone who jumped in support of me and my family during the most difficult time. I am praying for you daily as I thank God for the healing I received.
Being able to turn any circumstances into blessing is indeed a grace I received and happy to tap on. One of my way of blessing others is sharing my journey and what I learnt. My next post will be focused on what I’ve learnt through my healing journey. When I prayed for healing, I was expecting an immediate miracle. God, however has a different thought (Isaiah 55: 8-9). In His mercy, He allowed me to experience the fullness of loving myself – transforming my mind, teaching me patience, forming me in His love and my trust in Him. I experienced a miracle that manifests itself in the ordinariness of life, the power of natural remedies and the effectiveness of life long mental fitness training. Praising God in my own transformation and looking forward to share more with you.
I used to be a person who proclaim certain ways of eating some food as being food crime. How could someone possible put rice on pizza? Or what a strange way to eat chips with ice cream! There were heaps of comments that I would make as I was a picky eater. Then the ultimate funny thing happen when I actually started liking the very food crimes I used to judge. It started when I ran out of ingredients to cook the conventional way. What’s the best next option in that case? Creativity kicked in and I started experimenting making food in ways that was crime for me. Those turned out to be the most fun experience as I managed to turn a challenge into a blessing.
Seeming misfortunes happen all the time because our plans do not always turn out the way we want it. The matter here is our response towards those incidences. Some are small matter that can be easily turned into something good and some are heavier stuffs that need time and space to make sense of. Big stuff like the diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis for me was not a pleasant thing that happened. I certainly did not choose that misfortune. However, I have the power to choose my response to move forward to make this a meaningful season in my life.
The experience of making the best of the worst that happened reminded of the song, This is How We Overcome. It says: “You have turned my mourning into dancing, You have turned my sorrow into joy”. Such powerful way of turning the worst scenarios into a blessing – turning to God almighty for help. Even your deepest hurt can be turned into a gift to the world. That brought me to a principle I learnt in prayer school that says: “Your deepest hurt becomes the launching pad of your greatest calling”. More often than not, this is hard to comprehend as deep wounds like childhood trauma often scars people deeply. So much so that some chose the destructive path.
Tragic childhood trauma like an abuse is indeed very detrimental to the person. It confused the child and sent wrong messages to the child which in turn destroyed the true identity of the child. It takes a lot of work and heaps of courage in the part of the victim to rise up to victory – reclaiming their true identity as a beloved child of God. We know for a fact that none of us are immune to trauma whether inflicted by a trusted person, teachers, schoolmates etc. Treating ourselves with great compassion and taking the courageous path of healing with trusted companions have proven to be a path towards great victory. Putting these misfortunes in its right place bring out blessings that would otherwise be hidden.
In my current season of immersion in Positive Intelligence (PQ), I see a connection to this concept. The author of the book, Shirzad Chamine shared his childhood wounds were indeed blessings in disguise. It took him heaps of work to be where he is today, a deeply compassionate person who is directly blessing me with this programme. The inspirations drawn from this program is beyond what I imagined. Being an active gift and opportunities seeker in all circumstances is a powerful gift to self and the world we live in.
Dear friends, what are you facing today? I pray that you are given the grace to turn EVERY circumstances into a blessing. My father’s death which was a tragic event has taught me so much about life precisely because I choose to grieve with gratitude. This blog is one of the beautiful fruit coming out of that season of grieving. Be encouraged dear friends to be conqueror that is capable to tap in the grace of God – turning misfortunes into blessings. In the event that you need some help in getting there, feel free to contact me for coaching information.
Recently we recorded a podcast with the title The Cry for Affirmation, that turned out to be such a powerful and healing experience for me. The past year has been focused getting my body back into a new optimum and we are also aware that the past year has been tough for most of us. Isolation has been especially hard for me due to my natural preference of being around people. Little did I know, I slowly lost sight of my true self. I have not surrounded myself enough with people who live with a lifestyle of affirmation. So happened word of affirmation scores high for my love language.
With the challenges of the lockdown that rendered us to react rather than respond also has activated the survival part of the brain big time. Reacting to every announcement made became a constant fight or flight response. Not only it is stressful for the body, it also has the ability to rewire the brain in an unfavourable way. I was constantly tired, unmotivated and found myself settling for the small things. We have managed to find ways out of those episodes of reactions.
God is truly generous in providing resources like the availability of communion, books, courses as well as master classes that I can learn from. We dare to dream bigger with each hurdles we overcame. It has been a slower process when we are isolated. Going back to coaching is also a great blessing and now being part of my friend, Justin’s podcast Don’t Just Talk Lah, I am provided with a platform to give. All these works are possible also thanks to my body’s healing progress. I have the attitude to give as I am, although still not 100% healed yet as I occasionally get mild symptoms.
The recording of the affirmation episode helped to dust off the dirt that covers the whole true self. I have somewhat become less affirmative through this challenging year. Being affirmed through the recording, I was so energized and decided to live that more fully again. So I started affirming my daughter for every little things she did well, even to the detail of her listening to my instruction. She was glowing with joy with my new attitude; so was I and my husband.
Challenges ahead when met through the truth of own goodness can produce wonderful results. When we choose to overcome problems and deal with sin through the lens of our inherent goodness, we are elevated to a place of higher praise. I believe that is a place of freedom and happiness!. After all, if negativity has ability to rewire our brain unfavourably; positivity ought to do the favourable rewiring.
Dear friends, if you are in a place of uncertainty or are embarking on a new venture, do surround yourself with people who affirm you or hire a coach to achieve better results. A coach will help you see new perspectives when you are met with blockages; hear you out and affirm you in your journey as well as celebrating progresses with you. May you be blessed in your venture and remember you are worthy of happiness and joy in life.
I recently learnt that healing is circular instead of linear; that was quite astounding for me. There’s great encouragement and wisdom in that school of thought. I found myself experiencing setbacks in the midst of progress periodically. Those moments can be discouraging but when seen through the lens of a circular healing journey, it’s quiet empowering. Setbacks just meant it’s time to take a pit stop and evaluate. It becomes a circle of learning more of myself and the condition. With every circle of learning, I also come to appreciate myself and the whole journey more deeply.
In an older post, I elaborated the importance of celebration. Living celebration through my healing journey from Myasthenia Gravis (MG) has been a great experience of affirmation. We started celebrating from the moment we’ve got a confirmed diagnosis as we finally knew what we are up against. When I was discharged, we celebrated with a good meal. I remember vividly how nervous was I when I finally started driving again. Thanks to the lockdown, the option at that time was me driving out to collect donations of expressed breast milk (EBM) for my child. We were blessed to have generous donors who helped us through those early months of fully breastfeeding our child. I knew my limit very well at that time, so there were great planning involved – with full gears of sunglasses and hat plus praying really hard for an overcast morning. I came back within an hour with new supply for the baby and feeling victorious. We celebrated that big time as it was real progress and such a great milestone.
Then came the time when I started on the steroid dose reduction, it was a happy day and great celebration. After a few months and was almost off steroid, I started having regression. It was quite discouraging but I did not allow that to stop me. Pushing through with a good mindset and a strong network. I was still experiencing a fair bit of symptoms back in Dec 2020 but we decided that my birthday is a good day to celebrate. Every initial disappointment after the doctor’s visit was being treated as an opportunity to find a better remedy for me.
Having friends that introduced various natural remedies to me is a true blessing. I am glad people are open and they know me well enough to be confident that I take responsibility for my decision whether to try the remedies they introduced or not. The values that I believe in and live by has also been a navigating post for me. I cannot imagine missing out on good remedies just because of being a scary blamer that absolutely nobody dare to recommend anything. Being daring to try stuffs (some of which did not work) is certainly something worth celebrating.
Celebrating progress keeps us going and it makes the journey pleasant. Dear friends, I encourage you to be creative in your celebration keeping in mind that this is not just a reward system. Celebrating yourself is directly celebrating the One who made you. Think about it, who gave you the grace to see goodness in the midst of darkness? Who enable you to work through your issues? Who is the happiest when you are happy? My answer to those questions: none other than God. I wish you a great time honoring your Creator by celebrating you.
Fully Alive 