This week I was speaking with a woman who was feeling some fear and anxiety about all of our new unknowns surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. I asked her if I could share my story with her (a short version). We had the most amazing conversation. I was asked several months ago if I would share my full story, especially after my husband Steve has publicly shared his, but the timing never felt right. I knew I needed to, and wanted to share it, but it wasn’t the right time. By this last weekend I knew that the right time was now. So my friends, here it is below...
Sending love from my home to yours,
xo, Gloria
...........
On a Friday, December 21st, 2012, just as everyone was settling into Christmas holidays, I was diagnosed with what would be the first of two major autoimmune diagnoses over the course of 14 months. This first diagnosis was Type 1 Diabetes, my pancreas had just decided to stop to producing insulin. I had been getting increasingly sick throughout that year, in and out of clinics unsure of what was happening. By that Fall, my hair was falling out and my weight was dropping below 100 pounds. I sat in my doctor's office, after they had just closed for the Christmas break, with shock and a heavy weight falling on me. You see, what no one knew, outside of my doctor and my husband Steve, was that by miracle I had also managed to get pregnant. I was 5 weeks along the day I sat there. And no one could reassure me that the state of my health hadn’t affected the development of the baby. Everything went dark for me that day. We had prayed for almost 10 years about having another child - and I prayed for joy if I would get pregnant again. But everything went black. I couldn't pray in those first weeks. And so I sang the doxology over and over to myself. It was a comfort. And kept my mind from spiralling further.
Sam was born happy, healthy and strong on August 8th 2013. I was just beginning to get an understanding of how to manage this new lifelong disease when the following March I was hit with a sudden second autoimmune disease. I had left my downtown studio early for the weekend feeling flu-ish, and said goodbye to my small staff. That would be the last day I saw my staff or my studio. This second diagnosis knocked me off my feet. There were a lot of unknowns surrounding it, including recovery time, or if I would ever fully recover. And so, with my job still as a mother to our infant and to our daughter, Steve and I made a quick decision to close a major portion of my business, so I could put the majority of my focus on my health and my family. I had spent 10 years pouring everything into building and growing a business. I had spent a lifetime dreaming of it. And I had always had all the health and energy and drive in the world. We took a significant financial hit by closing most of Kate & Birdie. But Steve and I knew that as long as he had his job, we would be okay, and we could bounce back. Then, as I was beginning to learn a "new normal" with my health, Steve lost his job. He would also be laid off a second time, less than two years later. The word "overwhelm" took on a new meaning to me. In one moment, I felt it in a physical sense - it came upon me like a tsunami wave, and as I stood there in the kitchen, it took my legs right out from under me. The fear felt primal, and my anxiety threatened to drown me. I fought the darkness by declaring what I knew to be true. "God is good. God is always good. God will not abandon us." And the more afraid I got, the more I got on my knees. In the living room. In the dining room. On the kitchen floor. And the louder I sang in praise to God. I was fighting an unseen enemy.
It was fall when Steve was laid off a second time. When he walked through the door and delivered the news, I told him I had no more tears to cry. My family received devastating news 19 days earlier and I hadn't stopped crying. Now I didn't have anything left. I told Steve God knew. He had a plan. He must. He had to. All of this couldn't be for nothing. And so I declared, we would trust him. I didn't shed another tear. Weeks later at Christmas, December 21st, 2018 - exactly 7 years from my first diagnosis, we found ourselves back in the hospital. This time Steve needed emergency lung surgery. He was still laid off. He looked at me and said, "I can't be laid off AND in the hospital." But here's the thing... we sat there in his hospital room, my feet perched up on his bed, and we were filled with the most incredible sense of peace. We even had joy. We laughed. We had no idea what our future held. Our life had so spiralled completely out of our control, there was nothing to do but trust in the One who had it all in his control. And in that was peace. Because here were the things we knew: we still had our warm home. We still had food. Our kids were taken care of. We had cars in our driveway, and a furnace and a hot water tank. Getting sick was a gift that gave me the opportunity to slow down, and more time to spend with my family, and it gave me a new deep love for relationships and sharing stories, which was far greater than what I had before. God had given us a miracle baby, Sam. God had given us a miracle in Steve walking away from 25 years of an all-consuming addiction to marijuana. He gave me a new husband and the kids a new dad. And only months later He would provide Steve with the opportunity of a lifetime, a dream job, in sharing his story of redemption from childhood trauma and drug usage with teens and youth. And our community and the outpouring of love we would experience would explode.
God did not abandon us. When the storm raged, and the unknown and fear threatened to drown us, He was there. It was all in His control. The beauty in the calm after the storm is indescribable. It is good. He was good all along. And he was faithful. He can be trusted. We may have experienced a blow to our earthly riches, but the richness we have in love and community, and even the ordinary, is extraordinary. These are riches stored in secret places.
When the anxiety is great within you, just look up. Don't look down.
"Cast your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." - 1 Peter 5:7
