Most of the time chronic illness isn’t a death sentence; that’s how it gets to be chronic.  And it may not cause physical damage, but it does kill your quality of life, crush your spirit and weaken your faith.

Some people, in an attempt to make you feel better about your situation, will tell you to think of all the people who are dying of cancer.  While I agree that it is tragic and final, chronic illness means your misery doesn’t end.  You don’t die and your pain is over; you’re not healed and your struggle has ended.  You just go on struggling with pain and/or feeling varying degrees of awful.

I don’t love all the platitudes you find on Facebook.  Some might be true, but they are hard to swallow when you are dealing with the pain, fatigue, depression, frustration and overwhelm you find within chronic illness.  Here are some of my favorites and my (and probably your) sarcastic though justified responses to them:

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1. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. 

If that were true, I’d at least be able to lift my arms above my head!  And I wouldn’t be crying at toilet paper commercials!

2. Today’s struggles are the seeds for tomorrow’s blessings.

I’m expecting a boat load of chocolate, a check for a bazillion dollars and to be crowned queen of universe any day now!

Here are my (and probably your) updated chronic illness sayings:

1. What doesn’t kill you…only makes you MISERABLE!

2. Today’s struggles are sometimes the seeds for tomorrow’s FRUSTRATIONS.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the blessings through the pain and fatigue or whatever else you are dealing with, especially when it is combined with other struggles not related to chronic illness–when everything happens at once and you feel like you’re 90 when you’re only 52.  That said, God is still with me and I cling to His promises. It just doesn’t make me feel better to see or hear these kinds of things in the midst of my struggles.  What say you?  What’s your story?