Grief..why we must deal with it.

I've been focusing on health and nutrition topics but I want to take a moment to discuss something more personal. Did you realize that your emotional state can affect your health? If you are dealing with negative emotions this can lead to stress, depression, anxiety or many other issues. If you are trying to live a healthy lifestyle you cannot neglect your emotional needs as well as your physical needs.

I've been struggling with emotions the past few days. I wasn't really sure why but then I realized tonight at my Healing Journey Class that I was indeed grieving several things. Now I will not get into all of them but there is one topic I wanted to touch on.

People that know me know my daughter, Arianna. She is 5-years old and such a blessing!

Well Arianna was born with 5 congenital heart defects and a genetic condition called, DiGeorge Syndrome (also known as 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome)

She had open heart surgery at 5-months old and will require another heart surgery in the future. She has endured numerous tests, procedures, 2 surgeries (heart related), therapy sessions, doctors appointments and much more. She is my Hero!

As I was sitting in my healing journey class tonight and the topic was on grief and how important it is to allow yourself to truly grieve and then invite God to heal these wounded areas of your heart.

I realized that I am always grieving when it comes to Arianna's health. There will be times I hear about a friends child starting kindergarden and I just want to cry because my daughter has a compromised immune system and after only 6 weeks of preschool I had to take her out of school. I may hear someone complain about having to take off work because their child is sick and I just get so upset because they can fight off an illness with some rest and TLC, where almost every time Arianna gets a respiratory illness she is on oxygen and it tends to turn into pneumonia. I wish we could deal with the simple things in life but everything is always so complicated when it comes to my daughter.

Now that being said I am extremely grateful that God choose me to be her mother. Having a child with a chronic medical condition has been eye opening. I do not take anything for granted and cherish every day I have with my kids.

I'm now learning that I not only have to allow myself to grief the lose of a healthy child but I have to give all these painful feelings up to Him. No one can heal my wounds but God.

Maybe you don't have a child with a medical condition but you are holding onto something that is disrupting the peace in your life. I encourage you to seek God and give Him the hurtful things of your life. I'm still learning how to do this. I can honestly say if it wasn't for the Healing Journey Class that I've been taking the past 26 week I would not be able to sit here and write this blog right now. I felt ashamed of my feelings and what I might say offend someone. But not anymore because God is healing my wounds. I know out of my hurts I want to help others. I am not perfect and may stumble from time to time but I know as long as I get back up and keep pressing forward in the life that God has planned for me then I will have the blessings of the Lord poured out in my life.