My journal, September 2nd, 2015.  Things have gotten better since then, but I thought I would post it still.  It’s the best way I’ve been able to express myself.

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If you had asked me two months ago what my least favorite thing in the world was, I would have said getting the stomach flu or nosebleeds.  Now, one of the things I hate most is the orthodontist.  There has so far been one appointment that I didn’t cry about; before we went, or after we left–or, more likely, both.

The latest thing they put in my mouth is the palate widener, which restricts talking, chewing, and swallowing.  I can’t eat popcorn, eating anything else takes forever, my voice is different, swallowing is hard.  I don’t feel like myself–at all!  I feel like my mouth is worthless.

I wish I didn’t have to finish eating last.  I wish this lisp would go away.  I wish people could understand me.  I wish I could talk without feeling like a three-year-old.  I wish I could sing.  I wish I could eat popcorn and apples, and pasta.  I wish I could eat Mom’s spicy Chinese noodles.  I wish I could sit through a prayer with my head bowed without tipping it back to swallow.  I wish I could blow the pencil shavings off my drawing paper without being afraid I’ll accidentally spit.

I wish I felt like myself.  I wish I didn’t feel like this hunk of metal demolished my identity.

Not being able to sing without hating how it sounds has made me think differently about playing the piano and just listening to music.  One of my new favorite albums is “Loved” by J.J. Heller.  I love all ten songs on it, but “Better Things” is the only one that I felt applied to me personally.

There are far, far better things ahead,
Than what I leave behind.
Will you help me find my way?

There are ‘far, far better things’ in the future.  I don’t feel like it right now, but I believe it.  There is  a promise land beyond this desert, if I can only learn to stop looking back to Egypt.

I’m on a journey,
I’m losing who I used to be.
I am learning how to die,
It’s changing every part of me.

There are far, far, better things ahead,
Than what I leave behind.
Will you help me find my way?

Maybe I think too much about ‘myself’.  Who I am.  Because I am “losing who I used to be. . .”

One of the worship songs we sing at church has the chorus:

You’re a good, good Father.
It’s who You are, it’s who You are.
And I’m loved by You,
It’s who I am, it’s who I am.

I am loved.  It’s who I am.  I am the daughter of a good, good Father.  That’s all the identity I need.  And no hunk of metal can ever, ever change that.

“I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” -Philippians 4:13