I’m almost six years into this journey with debilitating insomnia.
I’ve walked through other hard seasons—years of bullying because of my weight, the long road of a 100-pound weight loss, and the pain of an emotionally abusive marriage—but this? This journey with insomnia has tested my every limit.
I couldn’t possibly fit every detail here, but I want to offer the heart of the story—not just to help others feel less alone in their struggle, but to share how God has met me in this wildly imperfect, achingly real, and still so very blessed life of mine.
Some Background – A Night Owl To Nothing
For most of my life, I’ve had a little trouble falling asleep. I always just figured I was a natural night owl. Falling asleep was a little tough, but sleeping in? Oh, that has always been my jam.
As a kid, I’d let my imagination run wild at bedtime to calm me to sleep. As a teenager, I could easily stay up watching TV until 3 a.m. and then sleep until noon without missing a beat.
In college, I started taking melatonin to try falling asleep faster. That didn’t go well for me at all (you can read more about that whole mess in this post – Stop Taking Melatonin Every Night).
Eventually, I broke my dependence on melatonin, and my sleep felt…fine. It still took me about an hour to fall asleep each night, but once I was out, I stayed asleep, and I still loved my slow, sleepy mornings.
When My Body Stopped Sleeping – Pregnancy Insomnia?
In August 2019, my body stopped sleeping. Well…stopped sleeping like a normal person, at least.
Insomnia was actually the first sign that confirmed I was pregnant. I still remember having a wild, vivid dream the night before I took the test. That hour or so of dreaming? It was the only sleep I got that night.
At the time, I chalked it up to excitement. I knew pregnancy could do all kinds of strange things to your body, so I didn’t think too much of it, especially not at first.
We were overjoyed to be expecting a baby! The lack of sleep just felt like another quirky symptom.
“You’re Fine.”
(No, I’m not.)
I brought up the sleep issues to my (first) doctor at my 8-week appointment, and without asking a single follow-up question to find out how little I was actually sleeping, she shrugged it off.
“That’s just a normal pregnancy symptom. You’re fine.”
If only she knew what my journey has looked like for the past six years—I think she’d edit that statement.
And just to clarify: when I say my body stopped sleeping, I mean it stopped sleeping entirely.
Daytime naps didn’t happen either. I tried. A lot. But very quickly, my language downgraded from “nap” to just “rest” because sleep had simply stopped being something my body could do.
It’s something most of us take for granted—like your heart knowing how to beat, or your lungs knowing how to breathe. Your body should know how to fall asleep when it needs rest.
But mine just didn’t.
I Tried Everything
I wasn’t passive about this. I tried lavender essential oils, pressure points, massage, and stretching. I exercised, got morning sunlight, and stuck to a strict bedtime routine. I was checking every box.
Our bedroom was optimized for sleep—blackout curtains, electrical tape over every light, a white noise fan, a cool 68-degree room. I wore earplugs, a weighted blanket, an eye mask—sometimes even a pillow over my head to block out every sound and sliver of light.
We went to bed and got up at the same time every day. Textbook sleep hygiene.
Still, I’d get only an hour or so of sleep each night. And as you can imagine, that kind of deprivation catches up with you fast. It slows your brain, exhausts your body, wrecks your emotions, drains your creativity, and shortens your patience, especially when your body is already working overtime growing a baby.
I was also running my own online business and trying to get ahead so I could take some kind of maternity leave. I ate well. Took walks. Tried to care for my body in every way I could.
But at every single OB visit, I brought up my insomnia with increasing urgency. And every time, I was met with the same dismissive response: “That’s just normal. You’re fine.”
It stung every time. I had grown up with deep trust in doctors – my dad is a retired family practitioner, and I always kind of equated his role as a doctor to something like Superman. But being patted on the head and sent away over and over? That didn’t sit well with me.
So I started my unofficial second job as a professional Googler. I dove into research studies, website articles, and online forums about pregnancy insomnia.
And what I found was that, yes, pregnancy insomnia is a real thing. Hormonal changes absolutely mess with sleep. But even among all the stories I read, mine felt… extreme. I couldn’t find anyone else quite like me.
I struggled through those nine months, but honestly? I really and truly believed that once I had the baby, my sleep would return to normal. Yes, I knew newborns wake often, but I assumed my body would finally let go and rest again.
I even had a friend tell me, “You are the only person I’ve ever met who might actually get more sleep after your baby is born.”
If only that had been true.
A Pandemic & a Traumatic Birth
I had Noah just a few months into the global pandemic. It was such a weird, isolating time already, and then we added a traumatic birth on top of it.
I had hoped that after giving birth, my sleep would settle back into some kind of rhythm. But it didn’t. Not even close.
It turns out, adding a nursing newborn to an insomniac who was already functioning on barely an hour of sleep a night? That cuts things down to about 20 minutes. Total.
On top of that, I started having flashbacks from the birth that hit out of nowhere. My body was stuck in hyper-stress mode, completely unable to come down. I was exhausted, but never sleepy. I had to work so hard to even try to fall asleep, and even then, it wasn’t a given.
I started a long, mentally taxing wind-down routine each night, walking myself through Psalm 23, trying to release tension from my body, and praying over every person in my life. I tried audiobooks, meditations, sleep stories. I got out of bed and tried again. I stayed in bed and tried harder. Nothing consistently worked.
Sleep became a high-stakes mission. My room had to be just right, almost like a sensory deprivation chamber, just to give myself a chance.
Even the feeling of my own heartbeat could wake me. If my husband so much as turned over, the whole process started from scratch.
And all of that was before the colic.
Sleepless Days & Screaming Nights
Noah had colic. Not the “evening fussiness” kind of colic—this was full-body, red-faced, inconsolable crying almost all day and night, only pausing when he slept.
Looking back, I’m sure his birth had been traumatic for my highly sensitive boy, too. I have no doubt that my sky-high cortisol levels didn’t help. But I didn’t know how to fix it. I was drowning in exhaustion, trying to function far beyond my physical and emotional capacity.
Most days, I was in our front yard, bouncing him and singing “Come, Thou Fount” on repeat. That was all I could manage.
And COVID had forced my husband to work out of town. He was gone for very long days, home just to sleep, then gone again.
So it was just me and this screaming baby. Day after day. On zero sleep. With a nervous system that couldn’t calm down.
Desperate Prayers & Deafening Silence
My prayers during that season weren’t eloquent. They were constant, tearful, frantic, desperate, and pleading.
Most days, I probably whispered “Help me, Jesus” a hundred times before lunch. It was my lifeline. My breath prayer. My survival chant.
Mostly, it was grief. A heavy, hollowing kind of depression. I was devastated that this was still happening. That this cruel, unrelenting insomnia was stealing the joy and connection I had longed for in the newborn season of my firstborn.
I didn’t understand why God wasn’t removing this thorn from my side.
How could stumbling through life as a hollow shell of a human be useful for the Kingdom of God? How could this possibly be used for good – for my kids, my marriage, for anything?
I couldn’t reconcile it.
I believed God was good. I still do. But I was holding that belief in trembling hands beside the unrelenting reality that He was still allowing this struggle to continue.
And I kept asking for help. I was on my third doctor by this point. I begged her to dig deeper. Sleep studies. Bloodwork. Send me to some research facility. I didn’t care where—just don’t write me off again.
But her response? “That’s just normal for a new mom. You’re fine.”
No tests. No questions. No bloodwork. No referrals.
Nothing.
So I kept googling. My searches had shifted from “pregnancy insomnia” to “postpartum insomnia.” The stories changed a bit, but the pattern was the same: what I was experiencing was not typical. Postpartum insomnia is a real thing, but I couldn’t find a single person who described what I was going through.
That kind of loneliness makes it incredibly hard to find hope. Or help.
But I didn’t stop searching. And I didn’t stop praying.
Nine Months In: When Noah Slept, but I Couldn’t
When Noah was about nine months old, his colic had settled and he started sleeping through the night.
That should’ve been my moment of relief. But I was still only sleeping 20-minute nights, and my alarm bells were going off.
It’s one thing to be severely sleep-deprived when you’re up every few hours nursing a newborn. People expect that. But when your baby is finally sleeping soundly through the night, and you still can’t, something is seriously wrong. It stops making any sense.
At that point, I’d been so careful. During pregnancy and throughout nursing, I avoided every medication or supplement my doctors advised against. Not even melatonin. As a first-time mom who deeply trusted medical professionals, I followed their guidance to the letter.
But after Noah turned 11 ½ months, I decided to stop nursing earlier than I’d planned because I was desperate to try anything that might help me sleep again.
That’s when I started cautiously experimenting. I tried hormonal support like vitex (chasteberry) and even occasional sleep aids like Unisom and Benadryl.
Sometimes they gave me a little extra sleep. Sometimes they didn’t. But even when they did, I paid the price the next day.
My body has always been incredibly sensitive to medications. If there’s a side effect listed, I’ll probably experience it. Hard. The grogginess, the brain fog, the mood swings – all of it hit me like a truck.
And worst of all? The “sleep” part didn’t even consistently work.
It felt like I was constantly choosing between a night of almost no rest… or a night of maybe slightly more rest, followed by a day when I could barely function.
There were no good options. Just exhaustion, frustration, and an ever-deepening sense of helplessness.
A Growing Support System
When Noah turned one, we moved to Texas.
When Noah turned one, we moved to Texas. My mother-in-law suggested I make an appointment with an OB/GYN named Dr. Zimmerman, a woman from her church.
I still get tears in my eyes thinking about that first visit.
Jackie wasn’t a sleep specialist. She didn’t come in with a magic cure. But she was the first medical professional who gave this life-altering struggle the time and care it deserved. She listened. She asked questions. She didn’t dismiss me or rush through my story. She looked me in the eye and said, “This is not normal. I’ll do everything I can to help.”
She validated everything I had been feeling – how debilitating, exhausting, and isolating it had all been. And then she rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She ran bloodwork. She made phone calls to specialists. She didn’t pretend to know all the answers, but she was willing to try.
When my lab results came back essentially normal, just some mildly abnormal thyroid levels (subclinical hypothyroidism), she referred me to an endocrinologist to dig deeper.
At our first appointment, she promised she wouldn’t give up until we found answers. After six months of labs, hormone panels, saliva tests, and ultrasounds, she gave up. “You’re a very healthy woman with a very puzzling sleep problem. I can’t do anything else to help.”
It felt like the end of the road medically.
But it wasn’t just about sleep anymore.
At first, that was the goal—just get more sleep. But more symptoms had been ignored along the way: brain fog, unexplained mood swings, and physical anxiety (which, by the way, is nothing like ordinary worry). I still believed these things were rooted in the ongoing sleep deprivation, but they added new layers of struggle.
And I was still crashing, emotionally and physically, every few weeks, sure that I couldn’t possibly survive much longer like this.
Yet somehow…I did.
And a big reason was the community God had placed around me in that small Texas town.
I hit the in-law jackpot. My mother-in-law didn’t just bring us dinner and offer support—she took Noah for sleepovers when I desperately needed rest and connected me with women who would become some of my dearest friends.
These women didn’t offer advice or solutions. They offered support. They showed up. They left milkshakes and warm loaves of homemade bread on my doorstep, often with handwritten prayer cards tucked inside. On the days I felt invisible, they saw me. On the days I felt like I had nothing left, they carried me.
They didn’t have the cure for my insomnia.
But they were the hands and feet of Jesus in that season—and they got me through.
When I shared my story with new people, I often heard, “I don’t know how you do it. I’d be a beast without sleep.”
The truth?
There were times I was a beast. And those moments came heavy with shame and defeat.
But I also fought hard not to live there. I didn’t want that to become who I was.
Meticulous Routines & a Flicker of Hope
Practically speaking, I did everything I could think of to tighten up my sleep hygiene. I went to bed and “woke up” at the same time every day, regardless of how little sleep I got. I drank only one cup of coffee in the morning—and never a sip after 11 a.m. I cut out all caffeine after 4 p.m., even as small as a chocolate chip, just in case it might steal away even a few precious minutes of rest.
I was doing everything I could to give my body a fighting chance.
And in the midst of all this struggle… we decided to have another baby.
To my surprise, my pregnancy with Asher actually brought some relief. It was unpredictable, but especially during the second trimester, I experienced something I hadn’t felt in years: sleepiness.
There were nights I slept a full eight hours.
There were evenings when I felt drowsy—actually drowsy—and I clung to that unfamiliar sensation with everything I had. I paid close attention, trying to track patterns, hoping to replicate anything that might be helping.
I was so hopeful, in fact, that I started drafting a blog post titled: “My Pregnancy & Postpartum Insomnia Story (I Barely Slept for 2 ½ Years).”
But as I moved into my third trimester, I could feel it slipping again. The drowsiness faded. The nights got longer. The desperation crept back in.
And this time, unlike with Noah, I didn’t carry the same optimism that sleep would return after the baby was born.
I had tasted rest again. And now, I knew what I was about to lose.
Asher’s Arrival & the Return of Sleeplessness
Three years into my insomnia journey, Asher was born.
This time, things on the surface were much calmer. He wasn’t colicky like Noah had been. He was an extreme cuddler, meaning he wanted to nurse or be in my arms at all times, but there was no global pandemic, no birth trauma, and no husband commuting hours away. Adam worked normal hours in town, and that alone made this newborn season feel more manageable.
But my sleep?
It was about the same as the first time around.
Unrestful. Interrupted. Stressful. Long.
Twenty-minute nights were common. One-hour nights were considered “okay.” And if I got two or three broken hours, that counted as a great night by “Becky sleep” standards.
“But Has Your Body Gotten Used to It?”
During this season, someone gently asked me, “But does it feel like enough now? Has your body just gotten used to it?”
That question—meant kindly, I’m sure—hit my already cracked and crumbling heart like a hammer. I want to cry just remembering it.
No. It never felt like enough.
Even on my “good” days, I was drowning in not-enoughness.
My body wasn’t adapting. It was just barely surviving.
When You’re Not Just Exhausted—You’re Misunderstood
By year four of this journey, I wasn’t just physically exhausted—I was emotionally and spiritually worn thin, too. Especially from feeling so consistently unseen.
When my insomnia came up in conversation, people were quick to give advice without any real curiosity.
“Just get blackout curtains!”
“Melatonin works great for me.”
“Can’t you just add a nap to your day?”
And while I know those words were meant to help, they often landed like gut punches. Those suggestions reminded me, yet again, that most people didn’t grasp just how deep and long this struggle had been. And some, truthfully, didn’t want to.
Sometimes, I had the strength to nod politely and let it roll off. Other days, it stirred something deeper – grief, frustration, even anger. The ache of being dismissed when I was fighting hard and barely holding it together.
And then there was the dreaded question: “How are you?”
When you’ve been struggling for years—not days, not weeks, not even months—it’s hard to know how to answer. People can sit with short-term pain. But long-term suffering makes them uncomfortable. They want to fix it or faith it away.
“You need to pray harder. Trust God more.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
But I wasn’t looking for a fix or a bumper sticker. I needed compassion. Someone willing to sit with me in the hard.
Instead, I’d often just smile, nod, and take the easier (but inauthentic) route: “Good. How are you?”
Micromanaging the Mystery
As soon as I began trying medications, supplements, or treatments, things got even more complicated.
Every day felt like a mental game of detective:
What’s causing this? A side effect? A normal off day? Was the dosage right? Too much? Too little?
It became constant. And exhausting.
Eventually, I created a detailed spreadsheet to track everything—my sleep hours, my symptoms, my supplements and medications, even small changes to my routines. I was trying desperately to uncover some kind of pattern. Some clue that could crack the code.
But sleep isn’t math. It doesn’t follow rules. And no matter how diligent or disciplined I was, it kept slipping through my fingers.
Learning to Live in the Tension
This became the testing season of my grief.
The world around me kept moving. I wasn’t giving up on finding a cure. But I also couldn’t keep putting life on hold while I waited.
I started trying to reintegrate. To live more fully again—even in the middle of the mess.
I still met with my beloved OB/GYN occasionally. I also added a new primary care physician—someone from our church—who, like her, really listened. He didn’t pretend to know everything, but he asked thoughtful questions and researched every option I brought to him.
In a season when so many didn’t know how to walk with me… he did. And that mattered more than I can say.
But it was during this time that a hard truth really settled in:
Becoming My Own Medical Team
It’s a strange and jarring shift to go from believing doctors can fix everything to realizing that even the most well-trained professionals don’t always have answers.
Our bodies are too complex. Too individual.
And somehow, without a single medical degree, I had become the head of my own healthcare team.
I spent hours upon hours reading research studies, listening to podcasts, scouring forums, and learning everything I could. I was the one finding potential treatments and pitching them to my doctors. I was the one tracking symptoms, analyzing patterns, and adjusting protocols.
I wanted to be able to hand over the data and let someone else solve the problem.
But instead, I carried the burden—on very weak, weary, discouraged shoulders.
I didn’t know the right questions to ask. I certainly didn’t have the answers. But I kept trying. Because I had to.
Desperation & Darkness: The Fear-Filled Nights
For about a year, I cycled through medications – diphenhydramine, doxylamine succinate, and Doxepin – trying to find something that would help me sleep.
None of them worked consistently. Each came with their own set of side effects. And eventually, I had to go off of them entirely when I started a new treatment called Cereset—a kind of brain “reset” therapy that uses neurofeedback to try and rebalance brainwaves.
I was hopeful. And I was exhausted.
When Your Bed Stops Being A Safe Place
For most people, their bed is a happy place—a place of comfort, rest, and safety. A cozy escape at the end of a long day. It used to be that for me, too.
But when insomnia set in, my bed became a battleground.
There was no promise of rest. Just the looming dread of another long, fitful night—another failed attempt at the most basic human need.
And while I can’t offer you any theological proof behind this, I can tell you this with certainty from experience: there is something uniquely vulnerable about nighttime insomnia.
Not sleeping during the day is frustrating. But not sleeping in the middle of the night—when the world is dark and quiet and you’re completely alone—hits different.
It feels isolating. Oppressive. Spiritually vulnerable in a way that’s hard to describe.
The Counting, the Dread, the Pleading
Your mind starts doing math you don’t want to do.
“Okay… it’s 3 a.m. If I fall asleep now, I could still get two or three hours…”
Then it’s 4:30.
Then 5:15.
And the countdown shifts to how long you have until your kids wake up.
There’s fear in every layer:
- Fear of how you’ll survive the day ahead with a baby and a toddler on zero rest
- Fear of failing at work, of disappointing others, of not being able to provide
- Fear that you’ll never feel okay again. That there’s no relief coming. No end in sight.
It’s not just physical exhaustion. It’s mental torment. It’s soul-weariness.
And man… was I praying hard for healing.
My Widow’s Mite
During this season, I clung to the story in Matthew 12 about the widow’s mite.
She was living in poverty. She had practically nothing to give, especially compared to the wealthy people around her offering “large sums.” But when she gave her “practically nothing,” Jesus saw it as everything. She gave all she had.
It was intentional. Sacrificial. Costly. And Jesus noticed.
He didn’t just see the two coins. He saw her—her trust, her surrender, her heart.
That story became my anchor. My breath prayer. My offering.
Each morning, I’d start the day with the same quiet plea:
“Lord, I don’t have much, but what I have is Yours.
Here is all the energy and brain power I have to offer today.
Use my widow’s mite to honor You. Amen.”
And you know what?
He did.
When God Calls You in Weakness
It was during that season—when I felt the most depleted and unequipped—that He started calling me into ministry.
First, it was teaching at our women’s Bible study. Then helping facilitate it—guiding and encouraging table leaders. Then, alongside Adam, stepping up to lead a small group in our home.
It made no sense on paper. I had no margin. No stamina. No idea what tomorrow would hold for my body or brain.
But somehow, He showed up in my lack.
And every step of surrender turned into a new invitation to serve—even when I had nothing left to give.
When the Med That Gave Me Sleep Took Everything Else
Nearly five years into my insomnia journey—after two pregnancies and weaning both boys—my doctor and I decided to try Ambien.
We started with low doses, but they barely made a dent. Eventually, he prescribed the highest extended-release dose available.
And for the first time in years, something finally worked.
No, it wasn’t perfect. I still had 20-minute nights here and there. But they were far fewer. My “normal” night crept up to about four hours. Occasionally, I’d get five or more. And those were glorious.
Most nights, I didn’t have to “work” to fall asleep. It just… happened.
The next-day grogginess was manageable—nothing like what I’d experienced on other meds. For a moment, it felt like I’d finally found my lifeline.
The Missing Puzzle Piece… or So I Thought
Remember when I said sleep was only one piece of the puzzle?
It took me a full year to realize that when I finally “fixed” that piece, everything else started falling apart.
At first, I thought it was perimenopause. The hot flashes. The night sweats. The sudden waves of unexplained anger and intense anxiety. The fog that clouded my thoughts and stole my memory.
I started hormone replacement therapy. It seemed hopeful, but didn’t help.
That year, I was the frog in the boiling water—so focused on celebrating my improved sleep that I didn’t notice I was slowly being cooked alive on the inside.
My brain fog became so intense I couldn’t remember the lyrics to lullabies I sang every night. My nervous system felt completely fried. Joyless. Apathetic. I had to coach myself into being “me” each day, but even my best attempts felt like a shell of who I used to be.
The final straw came on a Christmas beach trip with my husband’s family. It was practically perfect—beautiful weather, kids playing in the sand, no stress. And I felt nothing.
No joy. No peace. No wonder.
Just a hollow kind of numbness that scared me more than the sleep deprivation ever had.
Everything Was Touched by This
Around that time, my husband started sleeping in the guest room so I could rest better. He’s a restless sleeper and had to be up early, so it made sense.
But it still felt like another loss. Another thing insomnia had stolen.
Because that’s what people don’t understand—when someone says “I have insomnia,” they don’t see the ripple effects. The total life takeover. The quiet, invisible unraveling that touches everything.
If my boys know you, they’ve probably prayed for you to “get good rest.” That’s how deeply ingrained this has become in our home. It’s the daily cry of our hearts, and in our family, it’s become one of our greatest expressions of love.
It touched everything—my marriage, faith, parenting, work, friendships, even my home and body. And while not every impact was bad (God’s creativity in redeeming pain is truly wild), this was definitely my season to stare directly into the ashes.
A Holy Ache
I lamented hard during that season. My prayers were full of ache and frustration. I was angry. I was anxious. And more than anything, I was so tired.
I wanted to feel whole. I wanted relief. I often felt like a victim—this was something happening to me, and I was helpless to stop it.
I’d stepped into ministry roles by that point—facilitating Bible studies, leading a care team, hosting a small group—but I felt like I was failing at all of it.
I didn’t have enough to give. I wasn’t enough.
And that was maybe the hardest part of all: knowing exactly how I wanted to show up in these areas of my life, but not having the capacity to do it.
I knew God hadn’t left me… but I couldn’t sense Him like I used to. I couldn’t hear Him clearly. It felt like I was wandering in a spiritual desert, unsure of where He’d gone—or where I had.
I poured over my spreadsheet, desperate for answers. I even uploaded it into ChatGPT to see if it could find a pattern I’d missed.
Nothing. Just more silence. More blank space. More waiting.
Until one night, in the shower, it hit me.
I audibly gasped.
It was the Ambien.
Coming Back to Life—Without Sleep
I had talked to my doctor at previous appointments about how to safely wean off Ambien when the time came, so I followed the plan we had discussed.
The first night I didn’t take it, something shifted – I could feel myself coming back to life.
Within three days, it was like I was living in color again. My brain fog started lifting. My personality started coming back. That familiar feeling of being connected to God—of hearing His voice—was suddenly there again.
And the strangest part?
I was hardly sleeping a wink.
Cutting the Noise
Two weeks later, I also weaned off all of everything. I needed to see what my body could do on its own. I wanted to cut out the confusion of all the meds and get back to the basics before adding anything else back in.
My body was adjusting to a lot—and it showed.
The withdrawal was intense. For the first month off Ambien, I couldn’t sleep longer than 20 minutes at a time. I had to work for every micro-dose of rest, then start all over again.
My body ached from all the tossing and turning. The nights were long and disorienting—what I imagine newborn sleep must feel like as an adult.
Is This What Healing Feels Like?
And yet… slowly, my sleep started to improve.
Not all at once. Not in any consistent, predictable way. But there were moments. A little more rest here. A little less fight there.
And for the first time in a long time, I started asking myself:
“Is this what healing feels like?”
I still don’t know the full answer.
What I do know is that my insomnia is deeply tied to my hormones, but no one—no doctor, no specialist, no study—can tell me exactly how or what to do to fix it.
But I also know something else:
I’m not the same woman who started this journey six years ago.
70 Months In: Still So Very Blessed
As I write this, I’m 70 months into this insomnia journey, just one month away from the six-year mark.
Right now, I’m averaging about three broken hours of sleep a night. Sometimes a little more. Sometimes less.
It’s not restful. It’s not restorative. But it’s survivable.
And honestly? I’d call this the acceptance stage of my grief. I’m not living on the edge of desperation anymore. It still feels far from “enough,” but I’m no longer drowning in the feeling of not-enoughness.
I’m still gently on the lookout for answers. Still praying. Still hoping. But I’m learning how to live within the uncertainty now, not paralyzed by it.
God’s Provision Without a Cure
It feels strange to end this story with a declaration of God’s provision without being able to declare His healing.
But that’s what I’m going to do anyway.
Because even without a cure, God has provided.
He sustained me through days where it made no sense for my body to keep going. When I had no strength left, somehow “not enough” was always just enough to get through another day.
He gave me the mental clarity to keep multiple businesses running during this time, allowing us to provide for our family. We even bought a house during these years.
And through all of it, He gave me people—friendships that deepened, ministries to serve in, support systems that showed up with homemade bread and prayer cards.
Not My Strength, But His
God continues to call me into places where I feel unequipped. He asks me to lead, to show up, to speak—not from a place of overflowing energy or perfect health, but from utter dependence on Him.
As a planner who finds safety in knowing what’s coming next, this journey has been excruciating in its unpredictability.
But it’s also been refining.
It’s painful to die to self.
To have my “self” – my control, my plans, my strength – ripped away.
But in that stripping, He gave me something better: peace that doesn’t rest on me, but on Him alone.
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