Seven Deadly Sins Of Fibromyalgia

As most Christians know there are seven deadly sins that are the mother of all other sins. They are pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. While they have their place in our personal spiritual and physical salvation, they also have their place in our life of chronic sickness. Understanding the seven deadly sins of incurable invisible illnesses help us to know how they apply to our chronic illnesses can help us live a better quality of life.

1. Pride: Is the excessive belief that one can deal with fibromyalgia alone, with help from no one else. All this will do leads to even more misery than fibromyalgia has already caused. Pride is the idea that we are better than anyone else and can do all things by ourselves. That sounds ludicrous to the ear, there are those in all walks of life that suffer from pride, the original sin. Pride prevents us from receiving Heavenly help in our painful path of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and all other types of invisible illnesses. We need to let the medical professionals into our journey as well as quality advice and support from those who are going through what you are going through.

2. Envy: Envy is the desire to have for ourselves that which belongs to other people. As we communicate with the community of invisible illnesses we come across people who have been through what we are going through and they are having more success than we are in managing their illness. They have a better, kinder doctor than we do. We need to find joy in our hearts for them and not envy them for their good fortune.

3. Gluttony: Is an inordinate desire to consume more than which is healthy for our chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain or other invisible illness. If one pain pill takes the edge off the pain, then why not take one more to fully take away the pain. If exercise relieves stiffness and helps a little with pain management and helps with keeping our sedentary heart a little more healthy then if a little is good, a lot more is much better, right? Wrong. Overdoing medicine, exercise or any other type of therapy can do more harm than good.

4. Lust: In the case of chronic invisible illnesses like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and POTS lust is an inordinate craving for wanting what we can or shouldn’t have or an inordinate craving for what we shouldn’t do. Part of the way to get rid of that lust is to focus on what we can do without exacerbating our current condition. This is tough because what we want to do is to be normal. Is there anything wrong with that? Not for people with invisible Illnesses, but for us with fibromyalgia it will just make our symptoms worse.

5. Anger: I am not speaking for everyone, then again maybe I am. I find anger one of the worsts of these seven deadly sins. I want to be able to run like I did more than thirty years ago. I want to ski the best snow on earth in the mountains of Utah. I want to wake up at five in the morning and go fishing. I want to get on the floor and play with my dog. I want to, I want to, I want to . . . and the list goes on and on and on. Not being able to do these things makes me angry. But what I need to do is be grateful for what I can do and love what I can love, most especially I can love my wife and children all the more for the support they give me. I need to fight anger with humility, gratitude and love.

6. Greed: To be greedy is to want more than Heavenly Father is ready to bless us with. He is teaching us lessons with his blessings. We need to be patient. We need to accept that assertion and we need to always keep God in our lives and be grateful to Him for all that we do have. We fight greed by being grateful for what we do have. Maybe we have POTS or Fibro but we don’t have all the symptoms. Perhaps we can do things that we shouldn’t be able to do because of the blessings from God.

7. Sloth: Is avoiding physical or spiritual work to manage our various chronic invisible illnesses. What I am going to say may not sit well with many victims of invisible illnesses like POTS, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic pain and other invisible illnesses. In spite the extreme chronic pain, fatigue or other debilitating symptoms we need to work on coping and dealing with the symptoms. Many of these symptoms are manageable. Some symptoms can be managed to the point of going into remission. But we need to do the work, even if that work is simply praying and going to doctors appointments and taking our medications as prescribed.

These seven deadly sins of incurable invisible illnesses are very important to consider if we want to have some control over the quality of our life with these protracted illnesses. There are countless medical things we can do and there are unlimited things we can do outside of medicine to fight the good fight for some degree of peace and wellness in the midst of our journey with chronic illnesses. We need to be aware of the seven deadly sins that get in our way of peace, hope and joy.

Troy Wagstaff ©

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