Happy Birthday my beautiful baby sister squared

The story of my sister and I goes like this.  Our parents met when I was 14 and she was 5.  I fell in love with my baby sister from the very first time we met and she fell asleep on me in the car.
We grew up in separate houses (her mom married my dad) but when we did see each other I don't really remember anything but joy and wanting to hug and protect her.
When my dad adopted her at 6 years old, I made sure that I was at the courthouse because she was going to be my family too.
I was the big sister that took her to the big city when I was in my twenties and she was a teenager.  We always had lunch at least for her birthday when she was younger.
When she went away to college and became a disciple of Christ, I believed her when she said that she had found her place with God and I saw how mature her decision was even if I didn't understand it.
Melissa met her husband to be and she got married and has two amazing children.  She celebrated her 10 year anniversary this year and I can't tell her how proud I am of her and her role as God's child, wife, mother, sister, and friend.
I have learned so much from my baby sister who grew up in the important ways long before I did.
She showed me God's love, she showed me her commitment to the life that God had chosen for her, and she saw things in me that God revealed to her that I didn't see in myself.
Melissa and I have been through sin and saved together.  We have been through sickness (lots of that) and health together.  We have always loved each other and God has always allowed us to do it as unconditionally as possible.
Biologically we aren't related, by law she is my sister, in my heart, she is the baby girl that I still want to love and protect and grow with.
In Christ we are inseparable.
Melissa
I want you and everyone else in the world to know that we were always meant to be best friends.  That God's plan was that we would forever and always love each other.  That my life would be so different if you had not been stragetically placed in it.
I love you with all of my heart and I praise God that I get to spend another year with you here in this world and forever with you in heaven.
Happy Birthday honey.

K

Grateful

Today is Thanksgiving.  It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  This year I feel incredibly blessed just to have been able to be at home with my family to spend the day with them.  I just got out of the hospital, again, on Monday.
This day is a day every year where people list what they are thankful for. Who they are grateful for and list the wonderful things that have happened to them.
My list this year is a little bit different than in years past for me.
I am grateful for my illness.  As I sit here and write this, I am surviving Type 1 diabetes, a double organ transplant, infections from a compromised immune system,  surgery after surgery, procedure after procedure and I know for sure that in this lifetime my body will need to go through so much more before it finally rests.  I'm in pain right now.
I see this illness as something to be grateful for because God doesn't give me more than I can handle and he has always given me the strength to handle whatever comes my way for the last 40 years.  I also think that in this life God gives us a choice on how to deal with the struggles of this life.
Many times I have relied on myself and I was strong enough at the time to get through, God built me strong to begin with.  But now, I rely on God and his wisdom. Now I don't know how else to make it through.
I don't know why these things happen to me.  I don't know what else is to come.  But I do know that I will survive in the arms and the love of my God.
My illness has humbled me.  It has filled me with love.  It has grown my compassion.  It has allowed me to be hurt over and over again by my own sin and other's sin and still keep going.
It has made me so incredibly weak so that God's amazing strength can be seen.
Person after person has said to me how do you do it?  How can you possibly see this as a postive thing?  How do you smile and laugh and continue the joy that you have in your life when you are going through so much?  When you may have to face worse?
That answer is easy. It glorifies God every time I say that it's not me healing myself over and over.  It's not me that has the strength to face whatever comes.  It's not me that smiles at the nurses and doctors every time there is bad news, even if through tears.
It is God.  It is Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit that resides inside me that laughs, that makes jokes about my illness, that continues to face the world with joy.  Through me and every person that God touches with the Holy Spirit there is a strength, a love, a beautiful thing that happens where God takes tragic circumstances and pours love into them.
A woman at the hospital this time came to talk to me before they discharged me and told me that sick as I was I had a smile on my face and a light in my eyes.  I told her it was God.
She looked me straight in the face and told me that she knew that just by talking to me.
That is why this illness is something that I am grateful for.  It allows God to shine, even if people don't realize that it's him, it gives me the opportunity to tell them what he has done for me and keeps doing for me.
And because I will not be here forever, there is an urgency to me talking to people about God that I just wouldn't have if I didn't know that my time here is not guaranteed and could be taken at any moment.
I have freedom to love my God openly and unashamed without worrying about what others will think because of this illness.
And I praise God for that freedom and all the other freedoms that he has given to me.  I praise him for this illness.  Thank you God for allowing my weakness so that I can see my need for you and rejoice in it.

K

The poetry of illness

It started as a disease

Something that I refused to let define me even as a child.

I was different but I thrived on being different.

I was young and didn’t know any better

I would survive

I was smart, and funny, and sweet and 8 years old.

In my innocence I believed that I would always have a handle on it

 

When I got older I realized freedom that I didn’t know would hurt me

I did things to and with my body because I thought that I was invincible

That I would blow past it and keep going

I would survive

I was fun, and free, and wild and 22 years old

However genetics were not on my side

 

Years later I would come to find out that the disease had produced a side effect

Another disease that would be the beginning of many others

That would be a reality check for a while

I would survive

I was strong, and determined, and a fighter and 31 years old

This would be the true beginning of the pain

 

I refused, as usual to let it change me into what I didn’t want to be

Life changes with or without your consent and mine did exactly that

Time and time again

I wasn’t sure that I would survive

I was sick, and abandoned, and scared and 35 years old

The fighter kept going and fought

 

Major surgery taught me about true weakness

 Something that I don’t think that I had ever truly understood

I sat and cried as others cleaned my house and gave so much of themselves for me

I almost didn’t survive

I was weak, and humbled, and changed at 37 years old

With the love of my friends and family

 

I finally believed it was the year of new beginnings

A new body, husband, son, house, and relationship with God

I was blessed, and loved, and new and 38 years old.

I knew for sure that I was going to survive

Now I look at the differences along the way

And realize that all along there was a plan

 

I started out young and hopeful

I got older and became free

I got even older and found the strength of humanity

As I matured I grew from pain, heartache, and weakness

 

Now I look back at it all

And laugh

I understand now, that I was never really whole.  Until now.

I never really felt love, Until now.

I never knew pain that hurt enough to force me to grow, Until now.

And this is my life until I leave this earth.

To grow in weakness, show faith in love, show mercy in sorrow, and grace in pain.

This is the life that was planned for me and as painful as it still might be sometimes

It is joyful, and amazing, and blessed, and mine to live

 

Though my smiles are sometimes filled with tears and my heart sometimes aches in the breaking

I know now that I don’t need to question why, I just need to trust what comes, good or bad, to make me into who I am meant to be.

Forgiven, and humbled, and loved.