Tag: Love

The Fruit of Myasthenia Gravis is Priceless!

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Celebration, Coaching, Courage, Faith, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Mental Fitness, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers WellLeave a comment

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.

With lots of love,
Irene

This Is My Body

On By IreneIn Faith, Grace, Healing, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Sacrament, Season of Life, SufferingLeave a comment

What do you do when you cannot understand the priest at mass?

My response was to pray that God speak to me directly. I read this sometime ago that not being able to understand the language fully (in this context, Latin), the grace to enter more deeply into the mystery becomes present. That has certainly been my experience while attending mass in Latin. The beauty of Christ is veiled in the Latin language, I found myself free to just be and connect to the mystery of my salvation in an inexpressible way. But when it is in English, a language I am familiar with, it feels really hard when I cannot understand the priest. This can happen when the priest speaks in a thick foreign accent.

God is still present nevertheless. My difficulty in understanding the priest does not undermine God’s grace. I can still “hear” him and I find this very interesting every time I have difficulty connecting to the priest. So in this particular mass, God spoke to me when communion was distributed. I was looking straight ahead at the priest distributing communion and this came to me. The Body of Christ was broken and distributed to each communicant, as we each receive His Broken Body, Christ gather us into One Body – His Body. Then this scripture came alive in me;

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.”
><> 1 Corinthians 12: 26 <><

My years of living with Myasthenia Gravis sure connects to this scripture. April of 2023 marks a deeply traumatic event in my journey; I had a myasthenic crisis that led to respiratory failure. The grace of God that overwhelmed me at that time also provided the space for me to connect the dot as to what may be the cause of the disease for me. Just a disclaimer, my view of the body is a whole, not fragmented into multi discipline of medicine branches. I am a whole person with different parts and each part is connected to the other. I felt strongly at that time that heavy metal poisoning was a plausible cause. The Holy Spirit confirmed this through my husband and my Integrative Medicine doctor; as both of them said the same thing to me. With that, we decided to move in that direction of removing all the mercury almagam filling while going on a heavy metal detox protocol. Praise be to God that I started getting better with each dental filling removal and replacement.

You see the poisonous mercury filling were all in my dental cavity but the poisoning affected my whole body resulting in a chronic illness. What does a chronic illness looks like? Imagine this; you have a cold and it lasted for a week, your body recover and you breath normally again. For a person with chronic illness, that one week last for years. It takes a split second for the onset of disease and it takes a much longer time to reverse it. We catch a cold just like that and it takes a week to reverse it. As for chronic illness, the disease may have been brewing through our toxic environment and when it reaches it’s peak, our body are not be able to hold it any longer, that’s when we are forced to stop and pay attention.

Similar to the Body of Christ, when one part is hurting the whole body hurts. When someone in the Body committed mortal sin, the whole Body hurt. We cannot ignore it. We need to nurse that part of the Body to health again. Question is how do we do that? In our highly snowflake and sensitive world, it felt out of place to point out sin. I have that difficulty because I feel that we should mind our own business. So what would be the most plausible way to nurse the wounded part of the Body of Christ back to health?

Personally I think the first step is to be aware that I am also a sinner and to remember what brought me to repentance in the first place. It is this living relationship with God that brought me back to the arms of the One who first loved me. Love stronger than death, most definitely stronger than my sins; touched my heart deeply. Ultimately our deepest desire is union with God for His love is sweet and life giving. Making amends to turn our life towards God is worth it. Repentance is sweet when we are in love and hence I believe the remedy is LOVE.

For someone to commit a mortal sin and not able to repent, it is very likely that this person does not have a living relationship with Christ. In our world where quick fix is glorified, it is so tempting to also do that to our brothers or sisters who is suffering the effect of mortal sin. But in reality, we are human. I started to grasp the reality of not quick fixing the others after becoming chronically ill. Not many people can grasp the fact that my condition cannot be fixed overnight, it’s not just a cold. I had to suffer through unrealistic expectation of others that I should be fine after some short period of time. Some still could not accept that I am no longer able to take too much rice (and carbohydrate in general), that choosing a different lifestyle supports my healing. Whenever I had a worsening, the frown on their faces was distressing to me. For this season of healing, I am also experiencing healing on a much deeper level. Those were moments of grace that taught me that my healing is not overnight. The “ah-hah” connections helped me to see that grace works in time. When the time is right, God revealed His message. So it is the same with the Body of Christ. The part that needed nursing back to health requires heaps of patience from the whole Body. We cannot rush the process!

The journey back to the heart of Christ is perhaps complex or in another way of looking at it, it is super adventurous. The result of our experience depended upon the choice of our view. Plain language may express it as being complex and when we choose to see it as an adventure, we yield our life to trust deeper. An adventure is both fun and stretching. In our journey of repentance, the joy and meaning that awaits us are enormous and it is possible through us saying yes to do the heart stretching work. May we find divine strength in our own journey of repentance and may we find compassion in accompanying the rest of the Body to wholeness.

With lots of love,
Irene

Navigating Motherhood through a Chronic Disease

On By IreneIn Bountiful Potential, Celebration, Faith, Family, Grace, Hope, Journey, Motherhood, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Providence, Rest, Season of LifeLeave a comment

My world was in a daze back in February when I fell flat on my face on the road before being diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis (MG): an autoimmune disorder that attacks the neuromuscular juncture causing muscle weakness; including voluntary muscles used for breathing. The first thing I was asked from every person I talked to was: “Were you carrying your baby when you fell?”. Thank God I was not carrying my baby. It all started a little less than a month prior to that fateful mid February day, when I noticed difficulty in chewing my food. I thought it was the effect of me feasting away during Chinese New Year.

The symptoms got worse that I started making my food softer and did some research on what could be happening to me. MG came out as the top possibility. Reading more about it made me dread it and kept hoping that it’s not MG. My GP was hoping of the same but somehow my symptoms worsen to the extent that I could not lift myself up from sleeping position, chewing became increasingly difficult that often followed by slurry speech, lifting my arms for short while took a toll on me, smiling was a task and I was constantly exhausted.

Upon arrival at the hospital, the neurologist ordered a brain MRI scan to rule out stroke. MG was given as a preliminary diagnosis that was to be confirmed the following Monday (I went in on a Saturday), when the nerve testing centre is in operation. We decided to go home for the night and planned to be seen as outpatient on Monday. However, I started having difficulty in breathing. It was a scary evening, the what ifs were all over the place.

Sharing with community of friends who prayed for me certainly helped me through that evening. I received the grace to accept the diagnosis and to enter into treatment regime. Upon seeing me as inpatient, my neurologist quickly ordered the necessary tests to be done and had me started on IV immunoglobulin (IVIG) rescue therapy while also start me on my longer term treatment. I was blessed to have tolerated the treatment well. After the first dose of IVIg, I could tie my hair and that felt so good. A Chest CT scan also revealed the existence of a thymoma which means surgery is needed to remove it but that can only be done once I am stable enough.

My biggest worry was my daughter. How am I going to mother? How am I going to provide for her anymore? I enjoyed our breastfeeding journey and does that mean I need to stop altogether? God was so gracious to speak to me at that time by inspiring me to seek breastmilk donation. I am grateful we have a very good network of breastfeeding advocates. Through the group and through friends who helped out, I managed to source out enough donated breastmilk that nourished my baby. Till today she is still enjoying the benefit of human breastmilk thanks to the generous giving of our local Mama Tribe. My own breastmilk supply has suffered a great decline due to the treatment. Even if it is limited, I am still grateful my child still get something from Mama.

We recognized that strength is the major challenge for MG patient, hence we were quick to get practical help. My mother arrived the day I was admitted to the hospital which was such great help for us. She helped me with the baby and daily household stuffs when my symptoms was at the worst. We also arranged for cleaning company to clean the house. My mother’s stay for almost a month helped me to balance a new lifestyle. I was able to get the rest I needed and to get around organizing stuffs that would aid daily living.

At the peak of the treatment to suppress the autoantibodies and to replenish my strength, I was swallowing 20 tablets daily with the help of 5 alarms to remind me of the timing. On top of that, I also started taking specific health supplement tablets to aid with my body function as well as to counter side effects of treatment. The first month since the diagnosis was really blurry. I could only hold enough strength to play with my daughter. I was afraid to carry her in case my strength fail and she slipped off my arms. My emotion was all over the place partly due to the side effects of the medication. Normalcy were hard to imagine.

Source from this link

Days passed and then months, I started to feel much better. Looking back at the timing, I can testify to the goodness and mercy of God. After my mum left, I got help from my niece and sister for a short while. I’ve also got a friend to help out with cooking on some days. At that point I started to take back the cooking role at home. God in His mercy showed me His unique way of empowering me forward.

Due to the lockdown, we were short of an extra pair of hands after my sister went back to her home and also was locked away from hiring help for cleaning. By that point, my symptoms has started to stabilize to the point that I was confident to carry my baby with the help of a carrier. But I still occasionally feel overwhelmed and limited. So I asked God what was the best view to see my situation? God was quick to answer: “think possible and do what’s possible!”

It was a great place to begin. What’s possible were different on day to day basis. Some days possibility looked like a clean house and warm meals, some days it’s the grace to be grateful that the day went well with little done in the house. There were times possibility meant just being able to pray and connect to my Source through the demands of motherhood. The invitation was to enter to a place of trust and rest; and I happily accepted that invitation.

One of the first breakthrough was me driving alone to pick up my baby’s breastmilk donation. Heaps of preparation ahead of time and I was so pleased that I made it. Driving can be difficult as the bright sun tends to tire me and often resulted in ptosis (droopy eyelid). That fateful morning was bright as and I responded with praise because if God allowed it, then He must be planning to show me His glory.

Thinking possible and doing what’s possible has also helped me to recognized my own preference. I realized piles of chores can overwhelm me, so I start to manage household chores in bite size. Meals became simpler and priority to spend time as a family became our top agenda daily. As my baby grow, her needs also evolve and I am invited to follow her growth with an open mind. The abounding grace I receive through prayer has helped me to have enough time and strength to learn about supporting my child’s development. One of the most fun thing we have decided to apply is Baby Led Weaning method of introducing solids. I had so much fun watching my baby enjoying her food and growing in her fine motor skills. Through all these, the joy of the Lord is my strength!

What brought me through from the peak of my flare up (with the autoantibodies level 200 times above the positive trace) to where I am now; is this scripture;

do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

Isaiah 41: 10

A dear friend of mine reminded me to let the One who loves me hold everything up for me. That encouragement has helped me in my process of surrendering and that eventually led me to my rest in trust of the Lord. There’re still heaps to figure out and many are graces that I need. I pray that sharing my story with you will give you a sense of awareness about MG and that you are also encouraged to live in your victory through your circumstances.

With lots of Love,
Irene

Motherhood

On By IreneIn Bountiful Potential, Celebration, Commitment, Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Journey, Love, Motherhood, Pro-Life, Season of Life1 Comment

Finally holding my child in my arms was a feeling that is beyond words. Our little one decided to come early and turned our world around. The idea of sleep deprivation and not knowing what to do became a day to day normal. It was truly not easy given the fact that hormones were also erratic and making my mind unclear. Tears of joy and then tears of defeat all come at once. Self doubt, spiritual warfare, lack of confidence, feeling at loss; you name it.

I thought I knew what it’s like or at least I thought I could imagine it well enough. Turned out that my imagination was not as concrete as the real experience. Never in my wildest imagination would I have seen conflicting idea of parenting would occur with my own mother. The reality of sacrificing for the sake of my child helped me to get a glimpse of what it was like for my mother to care for me as a little child totally dependent on her. I have the privilege of my mother helping me during the first few weeks postpartum; that was a great blessing as well as an opportunity for conflict to arise.

Some days were so difficult that made me say things I regretted immediately and some days were just too overwhelming that I could only cry. As I calmed down, I asked myself what was more prevalent? Gratitude for my mother’s presence or the occasional conflicts? I was overall more grateful for her presence. My husband wisely pointed out that I took most of what my mother taught me. There were just a few things that I stood my ground and not taking her way. Those were the stuffs that kept being magnified by the enemy; making me feel like a horrible ungrateful daughter.

The more I communicate with my mother, the more I see my own poverty. One instance was her suggestion to help my child sleep better. Due to lack of space in my home, I did not take her suggestion. After she left my place, there’s only me and my husband with our child. Between the two of us, I am the main caretaker and I quickly realized how valuable were the extra pair of hand. My child is not the best when it comes to sleeping, hence the idea of getting sleeping aid came into our conversation. I admitted to my husband that my mom made some suggestion but in my pride; I refused to acknowledge it.

After the conversation with my husband, I asked myself, what was happening to my heart when I refused to acknowledge that my mother was right about the sleeping aid. The words “I told you so” were sounding loud and clear. My whole being cringed to those words but how could I respond better? It was by the grace of God that I can come to a place of forgiveness, rest and acceptance. My mother was just trying her very best to be of service.

A few days after that, I told her about our decision to get sleeping aid and she was supportive; without telling me “I told you so”. That was one amazing work of grace! Threading through motherhood has taught me how much I do not know and how much I am dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. Learning from my experience with my mother I wonder if I would step on my daughter’s toes when it is her turn to be a mother? God willing, I guess I will find out when the time comes. Meanwhile, it is now time to be present in the moment.

The unsolicited parenting advice from other people is also a rather annoying thing we have to deal with. Everyone seems to be better in parenting my child than me and my husband. For this, we decided to not invest too much emotion in it. People has all the freedom to say whatever they want and I can choose to be polite and just take what is useful and chuck away what’s not. After all, my husband and I are responsible for our child not other people.

Now that my child is physically in my care, I can really say parenting is hard work. I come to appreciate every sacrifices my parents made for me. This new role of mine also opened up my heart to embrace the struggles of work from home mom. I used to think it’s the easier path until I became the main character in this story. Being so used have full control of my time, I am learning everyday to prioritize my child who is genuinely in need of me and whose survival depended on me. I want to give the best chance in life for my child and I want her (and her subsequent siblings hopefully) to grow up with our values. Hence, I am well aware that my husband and I are choosing the narrow path in such a time as this where single income household is almost impossible.

Our child has also inspired us to start a new venture with the aim to encourage parents in our parenting journey. We know now how hard it could be, so why not have some fun by seeing the lighter side of parenthood. Do check out Bountiful Potential for more info. Tell us what do you think about it and how can we serve you better.

We wish every parent grace upon grace as you raise children who are full of potential into great adults. May your journey be filled with joy.

With lots of love,
Irene

When Providence is Insufficient

On By IreneIn Commitment, Faith, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Providence, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

It was one of my hardest struggle to face. When I decided to leave self-providence behind for God’s providence about 6 years ago, financial insufficiency has been an uphill journey complete with challenges of the elements. Flipping from being self sufficient financially to being totally dependent on God has been quite a crazy move. Looking back I am so convicted that it was grace that brought me through it.

When I move into my new lifestyle I did not know it would be that difficult as things has always been relatively easy for me. I sailed through university smoothly, got a job less than a month after graduation, moved to a high paying job in less than 2 years and I excelled in everything I put my heart into. Then the calling to leave familiarity behind to an adventure of mission came. It was LOVE that got me to give my yes to this beautiful journey and it was also LOVE that has allowed the purification that came with it.

Being a capable person, it was not easy to be dependent. The concept of being dependent entirely was foreign to me. So the hard lesson began. Over the years, things has not gone the way I wanted it to be financially. I could not raise enough funds for my living expenses let alone raising enough to pay off my mortgages (properties that I bought not knowing God will call me out of my “normal” life). My family ended up helping me out for the debts that I started to accumulate. But there was only so much they could help me by.

It was really conflicting as to why there were deep peace in my radical response to God and at the same time, providence wasn’t sufficient. I was hearing all sort of unpleasant stuffs from my loved ones who was helping me and that led me to judge myself as being irresponsible. I hated being irresponsible as that is just against who I am as a person. Financial scarcity became a giant I have to face through my sincere response to the Lord being in mission.

Those difficulties has thrown me into bouts of doubts about my call. Questions like; “if I have heard and discerned this correctly, why isn’t providence pouring in like a floodgate being opened?”; “maybe I have heard God wrongly”; “maybe this is just me wanting a fantasy of being holy”. All sorts of thoughts which was not entirely wrong but certainly confusing. I pushed through because I knew greater things were yet to come. The grace of God has truly sustained me and I did experience some miracles of finances along my path. There must be good reasons and great treasures awaiting me if God allowed those financial difficulties to be part of my journey. The hours spent in prayer has certainly shaped me in ways I would not have imagined. How my heart was able to truly surrender this giant to the Lord was just simply miraculous.

What struck me today as I look back into my journey of conquering the giant of financial difficulty was the immensity of love I’ve experienced from the people I am indebted to. I would rather be owed than to owe because I believe it is more blessed to give than to receive. However, being on the end that receives mercy, taught me heaps about humility and the way God’s economy works. The people who has bailed me out financially has nothing but pure love for me. I would love to repay them but I guess peace in within my heart can only come when I allowed God to provide in His time. One friend of mine whom I am indebted to assured me that the providence will come when she actually needs the money. Someone being that generous to me showed me a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. I came to acknowledge my own pride and my brokenness that needed great redemption.

As I look into my life today, I can still easily see areas where providence is insufficient. The difference in me today is my response. I am rather at peace to just simply praise God for what is provided and keep praying for open doors. It’s surely not easy when we are not doing that well financially but I am very sure that’s also an opportunity to be creative. It’s a matter of priority and being happy with what we have chosen. For example; choosing to home cook our meals over eating out; choosing quality goods over less durable stuffs so that we don’t have to replace our goods too often (that way we are also reducing the amount of waste on the planet). More importantly; choose to live simply and trust generously.

Dear friends, I pray that you are sustained through times of difficulties. When providence is insufficient, take heart that grace is always overflowing to bring you through it. Greater things are awaiting you at the other end of the trying time. May you be blessed abundantly.

With lots of love,
Irene