Flare

I know my last post was about RA, and yet another. But I am still learning what the reality of this disease is. Last night I think I experienced my first flare and was brought back to January and the pain of when this all started happening. I also realized the different types of pain I experience with this. Now some mornings I wake up with just an achy stiff feeling in my fingers, but this goes away after a few hours and I am lucky to only rarely experience it. I also have days where I am exhausted. This flare feeling is way worse. It starts and I can feel the joint (yesterday's case was my ring finger on my left hand) feels like I need to crack my knuckle but then that feeling intensifies to where it almost feels like a broken finger. Keeping it straight hurts as much as bending it...there is no place where I am not aware of the pain and of my body's attack on me. Luckily I was exhausted from two days of work so I still slept last night, though fitfully because it kept bothering me. It is already feeling a little better...I can use my finger to type but I do still notice it in most activities.Hopefully it will be fully functional by the time I work tomorrow... it should continue to die down. When my RA started this was the sensation I had essentially every day but it would move from joint to joint, immobilizing them. The hard part is I feel it coming on but there is really nothing to do but anticipate what is about to happen, anticipate not getting any sleep, anticipate what I needed to do the next day that might have to wait.
It is easy to feel like just giving up and staying on the couch all day, but I want to live...I want to be a part of my life and not wallow in my sadness and feel that I am alone. That is my biggest struggle with this right now, is feeling alone in it. And I have been blessed by friends standing alongside of me through all of this wanting to be a part of it. My pastor says that Satan longs to isolate us because in that isolated place we do start down that path of nobody loves me, the Lord doesn't know what I need, nobody understands me, etc...we give up hope. But I am learning to not allow myself to be isolated, but to speak what I am feeling and struggling with, what lies I am hearing. So I guess this long ramble to say today I thank the Lord for community and for his love that is unfailing. This morning we sang Great is Thy Faithfulness, so I will leave with the words from the chorus which I can sing and believe fully even in the midst of my pain:
  ...All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided
    Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto Thee.