Can a blessing look like an illness?

For me, it does.

When the world shut down in 2020, and then sputtered and squeaked forward again, it didn’t look the same. The page of history marked 2020 left an indelible mark on everyone. We all walked through a season that, for good or ill, has changed us to some extent.

For me, 2020 pulled me closer to God. It gave me time to pause and contemplate His word. It caused me to seek ways to apply scripture in a way I hadn’t done before.

And all because I prayed for wisdom to know a biblical way to respond to the pandemic. I didn’t want to react in fear or blind obedience. I wanted to know how God wanted me to choose my actions.

It was a growing year and a difficult one, too. I made decisions that stood in stark contrast to the actions and beliefs of friends and relations (and that I didn’t always want to make) but were based on the scripture that God had brought to mind when I asked Him what I should do.

As always happens, one year ends and another begins. So, too, the year 2020 soon became the year 2021 and slowly that rolled over into 2022.

A new normal seemed to be opening up and spreading out around the world, and I stepped into it thankful for the lessons I had learned, for the closeness to God I had felt and cultivated, and with a sense of relief that that part of life was maybe, just maybe, in the past.

It wasn’t.

Despite following guidelines, getting vaccinated, and not leaving the house much – since I work here rather than in a public setting – I managed to come down with a case of c-vid. My husband brought it home.

Or I suppose I should say that God delivered it to my doorstep.

Yep. That’s how I think of it.

For Easter of 2022, God gave me c-vid.

BUT, the real “gift” came after the acute phase of eyes running so much I couldn’t see, copious sinus drainage, and coughing that sounded as if I was attempting to expel a lung. It was a pretty miserable two weeks, and I was so happy when the coughing slowed and then stopped, and I could see and breath again without excess fluid causing issues.

I was excited to get back to walking and doing all the things that had been put on hold while I convalesced. I started slowly adding things back into my life, and I began discovering that I seemed to be going backwards fatigue-wise rather than gaining vitality.

And then, the brain fog set in. C-vid brain is no trifling matter – especially to a writer who relies on her brain to work. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write. I sometimes even had trouble getting thoughts from my brain to my mouth or fingers (when typing).

Long story short: my journey with c-vid wasn’t over. It had just morphed into “long c-vid.”

Through my research into ways to help myself improve, I discovered something called neurocycling in a video by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I took her idea and ran with it. I didn’t know if I was doing it right or wrong. I just knew I had to try something, and according to her video, it took sixty-six days for a new neural pathway to be formed. I could do that. I could do this neurocycling thing, or my version of it, for sixty-six days.

So, my goal was set.

Then, I just needed some source material to get started and decided that the topic I would use for the exercises would be scripture.

If a girl was going to try to renew her mind, I thought, she ought to do it with scripture. Then, she would have the power of science and the Holy Spirit working on her brain, right?

It worked.

Every morning, I wrote out and meditated on at least one verse of scripture – often more—and you know what? It didn’t even take sixty-six days before I could feel changes beginning in my brain.

I was learning so much about God.

I was growing in my faith, and a thirst and hunger for more built in me.

I felt as if things were not right on days when I had to skip my journaling time for one reason or another.

My mind was literally being renewed by God, and my morning times with God were becoming a strong habit that was more of a deliciously precious time than a chore.

As my brain got stronger, I added an element to my Bible journaling time. I started sharing verse graphics and some of my thoughts on social media. I didn’t always do it every day. There were days when thoughts just wouldn’t formulate into anything post-worthy or coherent. (Some days, the brain fog still gets me, and it can hit hard. As of November 2023, I’m still working on recovering.)

I added the sharing, not only to push my mind to grasp the concepts I was thinking about, but also so that my blessing of meditating on God’s Word could be shared with others. I just didn’t want to keep all the wonderfulness to myself. I wanted others to know about it, too.

After I had been sharing these posts for a while – and going back and forth about whether it was something I should continue or not – my older sister told me that she had been enjoying reading them and that she thought I should gather them together and publish them.

She often has good ideas. This is a gathering of some of those thoughts and the sharing of new ones as an online publication. In the future, I plan to organize these posts into published journals for those, like myself, who wish to keep a copy in our libraries.

Who knew that a pesky, world-disrupting virus would be the start of a publication like this or the books that come in the future? I sure didn’t. And honestly, I’d be glad not to have any other publications or books begin this way. LOL

I do, however, hope and pray that a portion of the blessing I found in studying God’s Word as I fought (and still fight) to regain the ability to do normal-to-me things, such as writing, will be caught by you.

It is my prayer that our loving heavenly Father uses the words I write to help you draw closer to Him, for next to Him is a most wonderful and blessed place to be.

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