Letter from Gabrielle Morris

Green landscape dotted with trees, completely still and covered with a morning fog.

Photo by Eberhard Grossgasteiger

Dear sisters in Christ,

When I said my wedding vows, I didn’t know what relevance “in sickness and in health” would soon hold in my life. The morning of my wedding, I distinctly remember noticing stiffness in my fingers. It only lasted for a little bit and I didn’t dwell on it too long (Afterall, I had more important things going on that day.) But it was the first time I remember noticing anything different about my body, and for a few seconds, I stared down at my hands, intrigued and confused.

It wasn’t for a few weeks until the stiffness returned. Again in the morning. Again for only a few hours. And again, it faded. This pattern repeated itself over the course of a month or so, until it slowly spread from temporary stiffness every few days in my fingers to a more lingering stiffness in my wrists, ankles, toes, and knees. Eventually, the stiffness turned into pain and the pain into swelling.

Looking back, it seems like something that should have raised more red flags. Walking down the stairs in the morning on my way to work caused pain in my knees that brought tears to my eyes. On some days, I couldn’t twist open the lock to the door or the cap of my toothpaste without wincing. Bending down and crawling to pick up something on the floor sent shots of pain throughout my body.

But just as quickly as the pain crept in, it faded away. By the time I got to work and had been moving for a few hours, the pain in my knees nearly disappeared. In the afternoon, I had no problems opening the lid to my lunch or twisting a doorknob. Walking up the stairs to my office didn’t cause the same pain it did in the morning. Every evening by the time I came home from work, I had yet again convinced myself that nothing serious was going on. “It’s probably nothing,” I kept saying to my husband. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the reality that there could be something wrong with my body.

Partially due to my desire to have it all together and partially my fear of burdening others with my struggles, I’ve never been one to easily admit to my hardships. I hated admitting something might be wrong or that I needed help. I was always in the mindset that someone else needed help more than me. I was also much more comfortable helping than being helped. That’s probably why it took over five months before I finally saw a doctor about my symptoms. I was fine, I’d always be fine, and I didn’t want anyone thinking I wasn’t.

But eventually, the frequency and length of the pain increased until I could not ignore my symptoms any longer. Many months, countless doctor visits, procedures, and more blood tests that I ever would have wanted later, I was officially diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, along with two other autoimmune diseases. A new world was opened up to me: a world of regular blood tests and doctor visits, chronic medication with unpleasant side effects, lifestyle changes, and symptoms much harder to address than joint pain.

In seemingly no time at all, much of my world seemed to spin around. And it left me exhausted.

Much of my life has been shaped by a desire to do everything. In college, I thrived on being involved in many clubs and organizations and jumped on every opportunity to take on leadership roles. My planner was always full to the brim and I loved every minute of it. Even my prayer life was perfectly planned; weekly Adoration, daily Mass, and time for prayer was perfectly planned out and carved into my schedule. I found purpose and direction in my constant serving, studying, helping, and doing.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite as up to “doing it all.” Even after months of medication began greatly improving the pain in my joints, I felt far from healed. I began experiencing deep waves of fatigue, a common but unpleasant symptom of many autoimmune diseases. Feeling fine one moment, a wave of fatigue would hit me and suck the energy right out, leaving me feeling drained and incredibly frustrated.

For the first time in a while, I felt like pulling back instead of jumping all in. Instead of being excited and energized by the full week ahead of me, I dreaded going straight from work to graduate classes. Spending my entire Sunday at the church volunteering for religious education classes was more daunting than exciting. Even small things like cleaning a room in my house or cooking dinner often wiped me out. I was no longer planning out time in the chapel or in front of the Blessed Sacrament and the quality of my spiritual life took a hit.

I read an analogy of rheumatoid arthritis to perpetually having a pebble in your shoe. Sometimes, the pebble sits right underneath your heel and pain shoots through your foot every time you step down. Sometimes, it slides to the side of your foot and causes discomfort, but not much pain. And sometimes, it moved next to your big toe so you hardly feel it at all. But you can’t get rid of the pebble and you always know it’s there. It’s always in the back of your mind and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I’ve spent the last year learning to manage this pebble in my shoe that slides around a lot. And mostly, I’ve failed.

For so long, I had ingrained in myself the need to do everything and do it all well. After all, I had found so much purpose in my constant busyness. In my helping, my serving, my studying, my giving, my doing. But suddenly, I found myself exhausted by those things that used to fuel my purpose.

Instead of constant doing, I was left with being. Instead of always giving, I was left with receiving. Instead of only serving and helping, I was left with being served and being helped.

At first, I was wildly uncomfortable with this. When friends asked how I was doing, I would quickly reply, “I’m fine, thanks!” and move on in conversation. I didn’t want to admit that I was exhausted in a way I had never been before. Or that I was brought to tears the night before yet again in my frustration from all the changes. Or that I was struggling to grasp my inability to do as much as I had always done.

But I have slowly learned to be okay with not being okay. I’ve learned it’s okay sometimes to not feel fine. It’s okay to have bad days and to struggle and be angry and tired. It’s okay to complain to a friend or cry on my husband’s shoulder. It’s okay to stop volunteering at religious education classes because at the moment, it’s just too much. It’s okay to take a semester off of classes. It’s okay to postpone a phone call with a friend because I feel awful. It’s okay to go to sleep at seven o’clock for the third night in a row. It’s okay to allow myself to receive the help I have always rather given others.

It’s okay to allow myself to simply be.

This season of my life has led me to find comfort and strength in simply being. Not only has my physical health called for a rest from the constant pressure of busyness, but my spiritual health as well. Most of my prayer life over the past years has focused on my studies, my service, my work, or other things I was doing. I always prayed for something or someone concrete and specific. I hardly ever spent time simply cultivating my relationship with Christ. Slowly, my prayer life has transformed from just another item to complete in my planner to a time simply spent in the presence of Christ.

Instead of constantly talking to God and listing out intentions in a steady stream of thoughts during my scheduled prayer time, I have been sitting in prayer. Sometimes I will listen to music, sometimes I will paint or read a line of scripture, but often I just sit. I’ve been sitting with God and allowing myself to just be. Not be the person who “has it all together.” Not be the person who’s constantly doing. Just being in His presence.

My purpose isn’t found in action. It’s not found in doing it all and doing it perfectly. My purpose isn’t found in anything that I do. My purpose is found in being. It’s found in being a daughter of Christ and beloved of Jesus. It may have taken a few autoimmune diseases to really sink it in, but how freeing it is to finally know this.

I am a beloved. I am a daughter to a king. Nothing I do, nothing I don’t do, will ever change that.

In Christ,

Gabrielle

Photo of Gabrielle Morris

About the Writer: Gabrielle Morris is the Assistant Director of Admissions at a Catholic classical elementary school in Massachusetts and volunteer editor for The Catholic Woman. Born and raised in New Hampshire, she returned to New England after spending her undergraduate years at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. She recently celebrated her one year anniversary with her high school sweetheart and can usually be found in a competitive game of Catan or cooking in her kitchen. Her favorite things include coffee, country music, her family, and Jesus.