Personal
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2020: Week 2
Hey, all! How has your week been? Meeting those goals? My week 2 was a strong one for the most part, but it was also challenging. I quickly realized my music theory skills are quite rusty; however, I did good on the quiz, so with some practice, I’m confident I can pick it back up. Here are some goal check-ins, as well as some revelations or moments of pause that I experienced throughout the week. I don’t get to dictate how someone else grieves or for how long. Job was struggling, and I think his friends were helping him most when they were sitting with him and letting him be.…
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2020: Week 1
We made it through the first week of 2020. What have you accomplished? I don’t usually set New Year’s resolutions; however, I do practice goal setting. I often set a few for the beginning of the year and update them as my priorities change. A couple of my goals started on Jan. 1. In 2020, I want to read the NIV translation of the Bible chronologically and deepen my music theory knowledge. To read the Bible through, I’m following Tara-Leigh Cobble’s The Bible Recap plan and listening to the short podcast episodes associated with each day’s reading. The episodes are super helpful for digging deeper into God’s Word. I chose the NIV…
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#IDontLookBlind
I recently joined a couple of retinitis pigmentosa support groups on Facebook. People with RP are sharing their stories and experiences and encouraging us to embrace this part of our lives. Nobody plans to have a disorder, and it can be difficult to cope with for many reasons, but it helps to know that we’re not alone in this. Joining groups never really occurred to me because I believed — and still believe — that God can restore my vision, or at the very least stop it from progressing beyond what I experience now. It’s what I pray for often, what I know God is capable of doing, so I…
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Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month
It feels weird to acknowledge this month because my RP is progressing slowly. I can see much better than those who are in the later stages of the disorder, and I only have one or two truly bad eye days a month. I’m incredibly thankful for that and thank God for it often. Even though I don’t currently struggle with extreme vision loss, plenty of people are dealing with the effects of RP every day. It’s a scary disorder, knowing that more than likely you will lose most of your vision but not knowing when. Accepting it as the new normal can be difficult as well. I know my future…
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The eyes God gave me
Growing up, I wanted blue eyes. My brown eyes were too normal for me, so I would often wish that they would change colors. It wasn’t until I learned the story of Amy Carmichael that I decided my brown eyes weren’t too bad. Amy wanted blue eyes and remembered her mother telling her that God answers prayers. So, she prayed that God would give her the blue eyes she wanted. Amy was very upset the next morning when she didn’t get what she had prayed for, and her mom explained to her that God sometimes answers “no” and that God had a reason for her brown eyes whether or not…
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The photo I wouldn’t share
I believe that we are all created by God, knit beautifully together just as He sees fit. I believe He’s God over genetics and that He has ordained which genes are passed to each child. I’ve already talked about how genetics gifted me with RP, and now I’m going to explain how genetics gifted me with a specific tooth problem and how tomorrow it will be fixed once and for all. When I was a probably 8 years old, I lost the baby tooth next to my front one (lateral incisor if you want to be technical about it), and I’ve been missing a tooth since then. The permanent tooth came…
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Retinitis pigmentosa
A couple of years ago, I woke up with a bunch of eye floaters and some cloudiness. Nervous about what it could mean, I called my optometrist to set up an appointment. He referred me to a retina specialist, and thus the journey began. The retina specialist did not see anything to indicate a detached or torn retina, but he did ask me if anyone in my family had blindness. I thought it was a weird question, but I answered no, not anyone I knew. I scheduled follow-ups, and the specialist asked me more questions about my family and explained that he was suspicious that I had retinitis pigmentosa (RP) but…
