anxiety

2024: A Year of Unexpected Lessons and God’s Perfect Timing (Part 2)

In October and November, 2023, I began experiencing pain in my right arm and shoulder. I could still use it for the most part, but it was steadily getting worse, even with rest. In January, I decided to get it checked out and was referred to Physical Therapy. At first they thought it was a rotator cuff strain, but it quickly became clear it was a frozen shoulder when I began losing range of motion. This was very unexpected, very painful  and certainly not something I would have chosen. 

Frozen shoulder is most common in women ages 40-65 with no injury. It occurs because estrogen, which is a vital anti-inflammitory, is decreasing. Lucky me!!! I fit right into that category!
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2024: A Year of Unexpected Lessons and God’s Perfect Timing (Part 1)

Happy New Year! Can you believe it’s 2025? Time keeps speeding up, and I wish I could slow it down a bit. 

How was your 2024? Did you meet some goals? Did you change some habits? Or was 2024 a year of survival for you?

The New Year promises change and growth, but not always in the way we think. For me, 2024 was not what I expected. God allowed things to happen that I never anticipated, but I grew because of it. 

In January of 2023 my son, Josiah, was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, Pawassan Virus and Epstein Barr. Shortly after that diagnosis we learned he also had pneumonia, which ended up being a stubborn case and took a while to resolve. He became quite sick, lost a lot of weight, strength and stamina.
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Hope Restored (part 5)

In v. 3 Paul points out “we give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Giving thanks is a foundational discipline in the believer’s life, and I had forgotten that. I had stopped giving thanks. I wasn’t choosing gratitude for what I had, instead I was in despair because I was focused on what I had lost, how hard things were, and all the difficulties I was experiencing.

That didn’t mean that my grief would suddenly disappear because I started being thankful. Gratitude and grief can exist together - God’s grace can handle both at the same time. 

In v. 5 is where the word hope shows up, and the first glimmer of healing began. 
As believers, we are thankful because of the hope we have in Christ. When we lose hope we become depressed and anxious, which is exactly what happened to me. But we have a secure hope in something that we can depend on, which is the hope of Heaven.

He went on to talk about Rom. 5:3-5 - where it say: “...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 
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Hope Restored (part 4)


Through all of this, I continued to read my Bible, pray, and I was asking the Lord to deliver me from this intense grief and exhaustion, but it felt like God was so distant. I didn’t know how to close the gap.

I am not very good at opening up and sharing the deep struggles I am going through, especially with my family, but I was so desperate for help that I called my Dad a couple days after my dream. I told him about my dream and explained everything that had been going on and sobbed on the phone. It was like a dam that broke, as it all rushed out. 

Dad, in his wisdom said that this was a heart issue, that I needed to give up my control over to God.  I remember agreeing with everything he said, but I told him I didn’t know how to do that.  He knew how much I had been struggling, even though I hadn’t shared a lot, and he and Mom invited the kids and I to come down and stay for a month or two, so I could get some rest and help. 
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Hope Restored (part 3)

As time went on, I became exhausted and my physical and mental health began to suffer. I started struggling with anxiety over the smallest things. I would worry about the kids getting sick, I would worry about the smoke detectors chirping in the middle of the night because of a low battery, I would be anxious about not being able to sleep, which then caused me to not sleep. I would obsess about the future and fear all the “what ifs”, which deepened my anxiety.

My sleep continued to decline. I could fall asleep without an issue, but staying asleep was impossible. I often woke up at 1 or 2 am and was awake for the rest of the night over and over and over. My anxiety continued to increase, I fell deep into depression, and because I was so exhausted all the time, I had to eliminate some of the things I enjoyed doing. As I cut things from my schedule in order to have space to rest, I began to unintentionally isolate myself. I had no idea it was happening, but it added to my anxiety and depression.
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Meet Lisa Bailey

 
Life hands you things you don’t expect sometimes.  

When I was 33 years old, I lost my husband to cancer after a 3 ½ year battle.  At the time, I had two small kids and was trying to do it all - homeschooling, run a small business, single parenting, make everything from scratch, eat healthy and take care of myself. I was afraid of stopping. I was afraid of feeling.  I was afraid.

Eventually, my body crashed.  I was grieving deeply, struggling physically, dealing with anxiety, and I didn’t know how to move out of that place.  God orchestrated circumstances and placed people in my life to help me deal with these issues through counseling, moving, and starting fresh.  He opened the door and helped me heal both emotionally and physically, and placed resources in my life that have made a huge difference. 

I now feel better than I have in many years and have healed from many things. Grief still shows up, and I have to pull back and work through it, but because I am healthier, it doesn’t consume me. Restoration and healing didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.

You don’t have to do this alone.  Let me walk this journey with you to hope and wellness. 

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