Nothing prepares you for the part of chronic illness where “being strong” stops working. Not the diagnosis. Not the surgeries. Not the endless appointments where you show up, answer the same questions, swallow the same fear, and drive home with the same unanswered ache. None of that prepares you for the moment your body finally says, I’m not doing this the way you’ve forced me to anymore.
For a long time, I lived on adrenaline and grit. I could push through, tucking pain into the back of my mind like a folded letter I didn’t have time to open. I could pretend—at least for a while—that I was still in control and be “fine” in front of other people. I could smile, keep moving, keep producing, keep mothering, keep wifing, keep living. Then one day you realize the trick is gone. The part of you that used to muscle through the impossible caves in… not with a show, not with a clean breaking point, but in quiet ways that change everything. You become less patient. Your energy doesn’t return after rest. Your nervous system braces itself constantly, like it’s anticipating the next hit. You take longer to do simple things and you’re so tired of explaining why.
I want to be a dedicated wife. I’m trying so hard to keep up with my side of the marriage, to show up emotionally, physically, practically… like I’m not constantly negotiating with my body. I’m trying so hard to be the mom my girls deserve—the safe place, the steady voice, the soft landing, the one who remembers everything and carries everyone without making them feel the weight of it. But chronic illness doesn’t just take from the sick person; it reaches outward. It changes the temperature of an entire house. It doesn’t ask permission before it steals the version of you your family is used to.
And then there’s that moment—the one I keep replaying. You see the look come across your spouse’s face, or your child’s face. The look of hurt. The look of being pushed past their limit. The look that says, I didn’t deserve that, even if they don’t have the words for it… and you know you did it. Not because you meant to be cruel. Not because you don’t love them. But because you’re depleted down to the bone and something in you snapped. When you see it, your heart shatters on the floor with regret. It’s one thing to suffer. It’s another thing to watch your suffering splash onto the people you love most. It’s another thing to realize your pain has a ripple effect you can’t always control, and the guilt shows up fast—sharp and absolute—like it’s trying to punish you for needing help.
That’s the part that ruins me: knowing I don’t get to rewind the moment I raised my voice. Knowing I don’t get to take back the tone, the words, the edge. Knowing I can apologize, and I do, but apologies don’t undo the fact that it happened. They don’t erase the memory. They don’t give you back the version of the day that could’ve been gentler. You just have to live with the heartbreak. And I wish there was a way I could articulate everything ruminating in my mind—the mental math I do every hour, the scanning of my body, the calculating of what I can handle, the constant trying to decide what gets done and what gets dropped and who gets the best of me and who gets what’s left.
I wish they could understand how my body feels… how depleted I am. Not “tired,” not “stressed,” not “run down.” Depleted like a phone at 1% that’s expected to keep running apps. Depleted like waking up already behind. Depleted like I’m carrying something heavier than I was designed for. I don’t want my kids to grow up measuring my pain with their eyes. I don’t want my husband to carry the stress of watching someone he loves suffer. I don’t want the people I love to become collateral damage in a war happening inside my body. I just wish there was a way they could see it—not for pity, not for sympathy… but for understanding, for context, for grace. I want to be the person they need. The person they want. I want to be the kind person I am: compassionate, gentle, patient. I want to be a wife who has something left at the end of the day besides survival. I want to be the mom who doesn’t have to fight her own body just to make dinner and keep her voice steady.
And I’m praying—desperately. Not polished prayers. Not pretty ones. The kind where you’re asking God, What am I missing? What am I not picking up on? Show me what to do with this. Show me how to love them well when I’m empty. Show me how to hold my family without breaking in half. The hardest part of chronic illness isn’t always the symptoms. Sometimes it’s the slow grief of realizing you can’t “push through” your way back to who you were… and the holy, humbling surrender of asking God to meet you right here, in the unraveling, and teach you how to live anyway. If I could ask for one thing in this season, it wouldn’t be a lecture about strength. It would be mercy—mercy for the parts of me that are tired, mercy for the moments I don’t get right, mercy for the days when my body wins. Mercy inside my home, where love has to exist alongside limitations. Lord, help me do this with softness. Help me do this with wisdom. Help me do this with a heart that stays tender… even when everything in me wants to harden just so I can make it through.
