Not long after I was diagnosed someone strongly suggested, “You should thank God for this.” I wanted to hit her. I wanted to scream that she had no right to say that because she wasn’t the one who was now signed up for a life of pain and possible disability. I wanted to tell her to mind her own business.

It was really bad timing on her part.

I was grieving. I was coming to terms with what this would mean for my three little boys and my husband and my own life. I was reading too much on the internet about wheelchairs and disability and all the ways that this disease could steal your life.

Nine months would go by as I sat on the right-hand side of the couch looking out the windows to the backyard and questioning God with why he would take me out this way. Turning over and over again all the reasons this didn’t make sense. It is not lost to me that the exact length of time it takes to bring a baby into this world is the same amount of time it took until life was breathed back into me and I got up off the couch.

That was twenty years ago.

Recently in a bio, I wrote, “I live with Rheumatoid Arthritis and on good days I see it as a gift and on bad days I remind myself it is a gift.” Someone questioned me, someone with RA, about what I meant.  I had used that sentence for so long and life had gotten significantly more challenging the last couple years that I had to remind myself of what I meant.

Webster’s says a gift is “to endow with some power, quality, or attribute.” RA has certainly endowed me with qualities and attributes and power.

It has given me perseverance when I would have rather given up. Compassion and empathy have been birthed in me as I began to understand what daily suffering really meant. Humility was forced to emerge as I have to ask time and time again for help- open the jar please, carry this please, would you mind pulling the car up, please slow down- I can’t keep up. Patience slowly formed as I tried to navigate a silent disease that most people didn’t understand. I learned how to grieve loss and emerge with hope for a different kind of life.

I look at the person I was before RA and the person I am now and I like myself so much more. It deepened me in a way that only suffering can. It slowed me down in a way that allowed me to notice God working around me.

That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been loss. There has been significant loss. Things I loved to do are no more- hiking, bicycling, tennis, walking the neighborhood. There have been plenty of pity parties and bursting into unwanted tears when it overwhelms me. As the disease has progressed, I’ve given up so much. And yet, perhaps I’ve gained as much if not more.

The most significant gift was the reliance on God. The times when I didn’t think I could get out of bed and then the strength would take hold. The times when my self-worth took a huge hit because I couldn’t keep up with my pastor job or my mom life the way I wanted and I had to listen closely as he whispered in my ear that I was still worth it. The times when I felt hopeless that my life would continue to spiral down and he granted hope that even if that happened, he would be there and there would still be purpose.

RA is not a gift I would ever have wished for. It is not something that I would give anyone or hope that they would receive this gift. It is something that I pray my children will not have to live with.

But having been diagnosed with it. . . it has become an unlikely gift. Leading me on a path to loving better.

On my good days I see it all as a gift. And on my bad days I don’t but I work hard to remind myself. To be honest, some days I’m more successful than others. I’ve learned to be ok with that. To be kind to myself and to recognize that there might be some new loss to grieve and to give myself space to do that. I’ve given myself permission to feel the way I feel in those moments. Then, when I’m ready, to count and name all that I’ve received through this gift.