Monday, February 20, 2012

balance between doing too much or nothing at all

Everything in me wanted to stay in my PJs and just stay home.  The only reason I went ahead and left was because we had friends expecting us to join them at church, and I knew that getting out with my Husband is rare so we better take the opportunity.

I had only slept about 5 hours the night before so I was feeling exhausted and just generally not in a great mood.  We got to the church and met our friends.  And within the next hour I realized that I had made the right choice.  The service and being with our friends was just what I needed to pull my head out of the sand and be rejuvenated.   After church our friends took us out to eat dinner and it was wonderful just to spend time with people we love so much but don't get to see very often.  It was just where I needed to be last night.  But I almost missed it.

One hard thing about living every day with physical limitations or pain is that we have to choose what activities we will do and it's easy to choose wrong.  I've learned the hard way that sometimes pushing myself to go somewhere or do something can backfire and take days to recover from.  When I was younger I used to go with our church youth group to Creation Festival which was a long weekend of Christian concerts, camping and HOT temperatures.  I enjoyed being with friends (and the fact that my now Husband was there didn't hurt), but I always ended up getting heat exhaustion and even passing out from extreme pain after walking uphill in the heat.  That probably wasn't somewhere I needed to be and my stubbornness only made matters worse for me and everyone who ended up worried when I got so sick.

Each of us has to learn the balance between things we should push ourselves to do, and things that would be unwise for us to pursue because of our pain or circumstances.  Wisdom definitely takes time and trial and error (I've had PLENTY of trial and error over the years!) and lots of balance.   It is far too easy to swing too far in one direction: Never doing anything for fear that we will regret it and end up sicker, or trying to do everything in stubborn pride and hurting ourselves and those around us in the process.  If you are reading this and deal with physical limitations, chronic pain or illness - please do take the time to work on learning balance as you seek to live a good joy-filled life. 

1 comment:

  1. Great post Ali! I have been in situations when I really have to think things through before I make a decision. Going out can really tire me out, and often times I just don't do something because I am afraid of the consequences. I'm so glad you made a good decision and spent time with your friends from church!
    mo

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