Turning Lemons into Lemonade
By: Jennifer Miles
One of life’s biggest lemons for me, which has allowed me to make tons of lemonade out of it would have to be… given a wonderful life sentence of an incurable disease!
You may read that and find yourself scratching your head, or even thinking to yourself, “How in the world can you make a good tasting lemonade out of that big old lemon?”
I am here to tell you in the beginning of my journey I would have said the exact same thing! From all the emotions going through many years of testing, of being made to feel crazy, or even treated like a drug seeker, I found you can still manage to make lemonade out of it!
But trust me even though you think you have gotten all of the juice out of that lemon, each day somehow, I manage to squeeze more out, because this lemon is the one in your life that isn’t going to go away! No matter how many doctors you see, or how many different things you try to help ease the symptoms of it, everyday there is something new that challenges you.
YES, this lemon is called Fibromyalgia/Lupus!
If it wasn’t for this, I would have probably never slowed down in life to enjoy the little things! I would have never found my inner voice and learned how to use it or learned how to use the word “NO” and not feel bad when saying it! It helped me find my crafty side, which I honestly never new was there! But most of all it has made me the person I am today! I am stronger than I ever could have imagined I could be! So yes, it is what I call a “life sentence,” but it’s one that has turned me into a better person.
Don’t get me wrong… there are some days, weeks, that I struggle to make lemonade out of this large lemon, and it feels like it is almost all dried up and ready to be thrown away… but then I remember how much lemonade I have made with this one lemon before, and I find the strength to make some more!
Don’t ever give up! I know how dark and lonely this journey can be, but you just have to remember how far you have come, how strong you are now because of it, and get back up and keep moving forward!!
