Playing our hand well

I've always heard it said but it didn't really apply to me until today.
"You cannot change the cards you are dealt but a lot rides on how you play the hand..."

I grew up never making allowances for weakness. I'm learning that I spent a lot of years being a slave-driver to myself. I think today's lesson applies to all of us. I confused "making excuses" with acknowledgement. In acknowledging our weaknesses, we are NOT "giving in" or "giving up" we are equipping ourselves to the be the best possible version of ourselves. When we know ourselves, we know how we operate best and how to obtain the highest level of personal success. I'm ready to stop glancing over at the next girl and instead start looking more closely at my hand. I'm not (fill in your local super-woman's name here). I'm me. And the sooner I get on board with me, the better.

Up until very recently, some of my goals have proven to be unreasonable for my personality, my state in life, my finances and most importantly (and most relevant to this post) for my health.


By finally acknowledging that I have a disease that is, most likely, not going away (unless God decides otherwise, again) I am living in reality; and this up-until-now elusive reality has room for Jenna. I can make decisions that impact the course of my life for the better, I can surround the REAL Jenna by people of faith and hope. I can search out a work schedule that is healthy and fruitful. I can be gentle on myself and watch my body's outward signs carefully.

I began this new chapter by meeting a new friend, Julie, who also walks with the same disease as myself. We are, quite literally, 2 in nearly 2, 000, 000. We have a disease called Acromegaly and like Diabetes, it is an Endocrine disorder and its signs and symptoms must be monitored very closely. Unlike Diabetes, however, our disease was initially caused by a growth hormone- secreting tumour on the pituitary gland (brain tumour). I've had two surgeries and Julie has had one. I got the side-order of height with mine because I was pre-pubescent at the time of diagnosis while Julie was diagnosed later in her life (post-bone fusion). Our disease calls for vigilance because if left unchecked (without monthly injections) we face organ enlargement, bone changes, and a whole host of other ramifications ranging from digestive to dermal afflictions.

Julie and I with her children Devon and Sydney.

Both of us live beautifully full lives despite the "hand we've been dealt".  When I say "full" I don't mean living right up to the line of collapse, I mean full for us. I am newly married and my husband and I are training for my second half-marathon next month. Meanwhile, Julie is wife and also a mother (aka perma-marathoner) to two precious little ones and works three days a week in public health. St. Therese wrote about the different levels of sanctity and I think that carries over into our earthly lives as well. When it's all been said and done, a life lived well will be full. Whether it's a thimble-full, a barrel-full or a swimming pool-full. We will be filled to the brim.

"After her mother's untimely death when Therese was only four, her father and older sisters took over her instruction. Therese had a deep love of God and her sisters were patient in explaining the mysteries of heaven. At one point, her eldest sister Pauline had Therese get her father's large glass and her own small thimble and fill them both with water. "She asked me which one was fuller. I told her each was as full as the other and that it was impossible to put in more water than they could contain. [She] helped me understand that in heaven God will grant His Elect as much glory as they can take, the last having nothing to envy in the first." -Story of a Soul

As I told my husband today, I feel like I've turned over a new leaf; I'm ready to face the music and to make music with the instrument I've been given (to mix up the metaphor a bit). Life is certainly full of gifts and surprises.