Worry = Gray

Over the past 9 months, I've watched my hair grow more and more gray. I've had gray hair since I was 21, so it's not like I had a panic attack at the first site of it. But it was always...always under the top layer of hair. 1 or 2 would pop up, no biggie. Then I have my surgery and my recovery gets drawn out. And drawn out some more and I started to see that strands of hair were half gray half brown. Where the gray is at the root pushing my beloved brown down down down until it gets brutally snipped by my fabulous, though very cold hearted, hair stylist. Not only that, I'm seeing gray in the bangs, on the sides, on the crown, in my EYEBROWS! Everywhere just screaming at me, "Look at me, I've multiplied!!" 

The President of the United States comes to mind, all of them in fact, and how as they go through their term, how quickly their hair turns gray from all the stresses and worries and all the weight they carry from their position. That's me!! Granted I'm no President by any means, but I see what the worry and anxiety has done to me. In my skin, my hair, my health and I don't like it. The Bible states in Matthew 6:25-34 clearly that I am not to worry. (v.27)That worrying isn't going to add a single hour to my life. (v.33) But to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things (that I'm worried about) will be added to you. And this I love and really should live by daily!!  (v34)So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  AMEN!! Though I know I'll fail over and over with this, because it's in my nature to worry and think..'how am I going to make it tomorrow, this week, month, or next 9 months?' But in the end I come right back to the fact that God has me all wrapped up in His arms. He's going to walk me through all this and I really shouldn't have anything to fear. I know he WANTS me to give it all over to Him and trust that He's not going to leave me in a lurch. It's just getting to the point of that full and complete surrender of my circumstances. Easier said than done. 

Maybe that's why I've been sick these past 2 days, and my face has gone under the attack again. I've been stressing and worrying about a conversation I had with the woman from the retirement office and Dr. P. Another comment she made while I was there initially, or rather a question was: 'Do you think this was work related?' I immediately state that I've from the start; said it wasn't a work related injury. 'But', she counters...Do you think that work might have been a cause or that even though you could have had the issue before joining CDC that it might have sped up the injury??' Well...now I don't know. Work might have been at fault. I'm informed that if I DO choose to say its a work related issue, file a worker's comp claim and after all is said and done get approved for an Industrial Disability Retirement I will be given 50% of what my last paycheck was, every month from here to the end of my days. Well that sure sounds great. BUT, if I don't say it was work related and stick with the Disability Retirement, which was my initial plan, I'll only be getting my years of service x 1.5% (or something like that) which is obviously no where near the 50% of pay. hhhmmmm what to do, what to do... So she leaves the ball in my court, telling me to talk to Dr. P. Because without my Dr.'s support and his documentation that he believes work caused or could have caused my disability it will be an uphill battle the WHOLE way. I give his office a call and leave a message that I'd like to speak to him. Doesn't call, doesn't call. 3rd day of waiting, I call again. Finally late that night he calls me. And I mean late, almost 8pm. We talk for 20 minutes. It was a head in my hands conversation. He was so reluctant to say that work might have had a play in it all. All he kept saying was he didn't want to lie, he wasn't going to change the charts, he wasn't going to be on a witness stand answering to some lawyer....huh??? What does he think I'm doing? Scamming the state? Asking him to falsify medical documents?! Anyone who knows me knows that's not what I'm about.  Yet that's what he thought. I really was dumbfounded by the whole conversation. He finally conceded that it was a possibility that work might have caused the disability. That statement alone took 20 minutes for him to say. 

So as I waited for the paperwork he had to fill out for the retirement to come in the mail, I sat and stressed and thought and worried and finally...prayed. Prayed for what direction I should go in. Industrial Disability Retirement or Disability Retirement. It took days to get to think, 'huh, maybe I should pray about it.' And at that point my face had already done what it knows best when stressed, breakout! After praying, whenever I would think about the workers comp route, I would always hesitate. Something about it just kept putting me off and it wasn't just the headaches I knew I would have with the worker's comp office since I've been on worker's comp for another injury before (that was a clearcut work related injury). I'm aware of the annoyance that is: Workers Comp. It wasn't until Dr. P.'s paperwork came in the mail that a bit of clarity shone through. He checked all the boxes that said "wasn't work related." There it is there.  He's scared. That's obvious. But he didn't want to back the decision. I pretty much had my answer and I really started to look at myself and question if I was wanting to file worker's comp for the money or for the legitimate possibility that work was a part of the cause. I truly have no doubt that work played a role in my injury, but it really can't be proven. I saw a little bit of greed in me when I really prayed and looked for what God wanted me to do. 1 Timothy 6:10 says; For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. That's what I was doing. Longing for it, thinking I should have it, but really, at what cost?! It's more important to be rich in Christ than rich in wealth of the world. 

I'm learning hard lessons. Mainly because I wasn't listening the first 50 + times it was told to me. So as I nurse myself back to health by having made a yummy and oh so healthy minestrone from my good friend Jenny's blog Yam Man Minestrone Soup <--- (click there, its delish!!) I'm realizing God knows what's best. God knows what He's doing. And I definitely don't need more than what God knows I need...which is usually a lot less than what I think.

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