Mistakes

I heard it again tonight. "God doesn't make mistakes." My responses usually vary from the same ideal. This will be no different but a little more personal.

When I was a young girl, still in single digits I was at the Toledo Zoo with my aunt and her Girl Scout troop for The Lights Before Christmas. It wa the dead of winter and I had my warmest, thickest coat on. Suddenly my heart exploded in my chest, I'd never felt it beat so fast. I told my aunt and I remember her putting her hand on my thickly, covered shoulder horrified because she could feel my heart beating through my coat from my shoulder. It eventually calmed down, I saw a doctor, wore a halter monitor with no events to record, got some explaination and carried on with my life periodically having tachycardic episodes and eventually finding ways to resolve them.

Flash forward 20+ years to January of 15. After years of stress and the weight of what we were going to got to me I began having anxiety. For some reason that would cause my heart to act up. I saw my doctor and she said WPW. I'd never heard that before. Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome is what I have. I'm not special, it's anything but rare. It's actually almost common. Non life-threatening for the most part. Most people who have it are asymptomatic and never need more than a pill if that. Mine was affecting my life. I've had days when it's so touchy that i'm almost afraid moving will cause an episode. I don't take stairs, I do little more than walk unless my terror of a 3 year old runs away at high speeds. There are plenty of people who live with this. That's their choice. There are people who take meds to help contain it. I chose the surgery. I don't want to keep gaining weight from being sedentary. I want to be able to run with my kids. I want to feel a panic attack come on and not prepare to stop heart rates over 180. I don't want to fear a possible eventual cardiac arrest.

There are an estimated 700,000 transgender people in the US alone. All of them were born that way. Due to lack of knowledge, social and familial stresses or influence some may not have realized it for quite a while. Like with WPW some people are little affected and can deal with just presenting as their gender identity and nothing more.  Others desire a more physical intervention via pharmaceuticals to help align the exterior with the interior mindset. Still others eventually realize that in order to have less burdens, in order to free themselves from the constant reminder that the outside doesn't match the inside they choose to go ahead with identity affirming surgeries. Surgeries to better their quality of life and possibly extend their life expectancy.

No one is saying God made a mistake. He gives us what we have so we can learn from it. So that they help us to become better followers of him and to help other people who will come after us.  Maybe my heart condition that I was born with was given to me so that I would better understand my kid. Or so that maybe you will.  #belight #belove #weareflawless