Lets get real ... a little bit of raw dialogue from the Wilson 3 household.

On Monday night as my husband lay on the couch sick with a cold (which he never usually does because he is constantly on the go). He had time to watch me play with Tatum, and then get her ready for her bath. Out of the blue he says to me " You are a completely different person now then when we got married." I instantly knew what he meant, but being the female that I am, I asked him "what do you mean?" just so he would expand on his thought process. He then went on to explain how even when we got engaged I was so different. Physically I could hardly move, walk, or do simple tasks due to my chronic illness with vertigo and pain. I couldn't walk into a grocery store, I couldn't hold good conversations with people, I couldn't really do anything. My illness slowed me down to an almost not functional human being. He said my attitude was different, my outlook on life was different, everything was different. We hardly went anywhere, or did anything because I was so sick, and if we did go anywhere or did anything, it all revolved around how long I could last or if I could even make it there at all. He continued the conversation by saying ...

"Don't take this the wrong way or be offended but, I would relate it to being in prison. Playing basketball out in the prison yard one second, surrounded by barb wire fences, then all of sudden the fences are gone, and you realize you aren't in prison anymore, but you are just shooting hoops with your friends at a park. Set free."

Wow, how intense is that ??? I WASN'T offended ONE bit. I knew exactly what he meant, and exactly how he felt.

You see, what most people don't know, or understand is that in many senses of the word, we WERE in a prison. Not spiritually, we ALWAYS had the Lord, but physically we were bound to the confines of a very sick and deteriating body. We were chained to the 4 walls of our small dorm room that we lived in. And we were trapped within our own understanding of how sick I really was. We didn't know how to verbally explain it to others so they would grasp the intensity of it. Nor did we want to burden others with the extensiveness of it all. I was in bed literally 22 to 23 hours a day, Jeremey was my crutch as I walked, and my voice to others when I didn't have the energy or the brain power to speak. If I did go out, and see people, and act semi-normal it was only because I was pumped full of medication that alltered who I really was ... 

My husband went on by saying " We can't forget how hard it was, or how far we have come. You are a totally different person now. I know you are still sick. But sometimes it doesn't feel like I have a sick wife anymore, when I tell people you are, it doesn't even sound right." 

Again ... WOW ... these are words I never thought he would say. We reflected on all the things in which I CAN do now. How we are actually able to go places and experience things outside of where we live. How instead of constantly thinking about my illness, we can focus on our daughter. We can take her on walks, play with her at the park. We grocery shop together, we parent together, do chores together, go to church together and so on. We always say our life is very simple, and people probably think we are pretty weird or not "put together" because of that. We don't have a 5 year plan, (we just got so to use to living hour by hour with my illness.) We don't own a house, or have any near future goal to get one, and we don't vacation to luxerious destinations or desire to. We don't dress awesome, haha, or shop a lot, we don't stay out super late, and we don't always have to be DOING SOMETHING. To us, just hanging out and having family dance parties in our living room, is light years beyond what we USE to do, and far beyond what I thought I would ever be doing. Raising a child together ... on our way to raising 2 together, is one of the biggest miracles I can possibly fathom. To raise our children up in the Lord is what we desire and see for our future. This isn't always easy, and we definitely fail a lot, but it IS our ultimate goal

I am so so so thankful, for the beautiful, simple life the Lord has formed for our family, and for how far out of the darkness he has pulled us. Ironically, today, as I write this, I am feeling very sick. My dizzness/vertigo is bad, and my body is weak and a train wreck due to my growing belly. During pregnancies I tend to revert back to a lot of my previous symptoms, probably due to the crazy hormones and everything else that carrying a baby entails. But I take none of my words back. I am not healed, I still have rough days. But I am BETTER. My husband is an insightful man, and a tender one, to watch me interact with Tatum while he lay sick on the couch, and to recongize the sheer growth and tremendous differences that the Lord has done with my illness and with our familiy. It's moments and conversations like the one on Monday evening, that really put life into perspective!