REAL TALK | Having Hope

disclaimer // You should probably read {this post} before you start reading, just to get a baseline of where I am coming from. Also, I do not think that the oils have "healed" me, only have helped me tremendously. I still believe in the power of doctors, and the amazing things that they can do. Oils affect people in different ways, and you should talk to your oil specialist &/or doctor about it if you think you liked to start using them. thank you.

I felt like I had lost faith. 
And hope. 
In doctors. 
In myself. 
Falling into the darkest place in my mind. 
And I needed help out. 
I needed something/someone to bring me out, or rather yank me out. 

But not my hair, please.

I love the doctors I have now. I am extremely blessed to have finally found them, but it's taken me a long journey to get to this place. 10 surgeries from doctors, who have straight up told me, 

I can fix this 

I can get rid of this, and take your pain away completely 

This WILL work 

Only then to come to me afterward in my groggy state, and tell me that it would take a miracle for me to get pregnant, and I will most likely have to get a full hysterectomy before I'm 21. 

I am beyond grateful that they attempted to help me. And that their hearts were in the right place - at the time. But then once they realized I was a "lost cause", they just wrote me off. Gave me a script of pain meds, and sent me on my way. 

I lost faith that I could ever feel normal. Or better. Even to just get to a safe place in my own body, and mind. It was a hard thing for me to get a grip on. It was a hard thing to tell my soon to be husband, that I would most likely never get pregnant. I was 20 when a miracle happened only 9 months into our marriage. 

Those two beautiful lines that appeared on the pregnancy test.

I didn't really think I was pregnant. It was even a fluke that I even tested myself. I went through a phase of getting overly excited, thinking I might be, in the first couple months we were married, but all the negatives were just a deeper spin with the knife. But the my sweet sister in law talked me into just "making sure" one night. 

That warm rush of love that completely washed over me when I saw it was positive was indescribable. And it's a feeling I'll never forget.

Skip ahead a year and a half later, and we come to now. 
We have been married for 3 years, and have, an almost, 2 year old. 
I remember one hard day when I was talking to Keagan on the phone, while he was on his way to work. 

I was crying to him. Telling him how I don't feel like a good wife, or mother. He told me to make an appointment with my doctor because he wanted to talk to her about a type of surgery that he had researched. I snapped at him that I wasn't going to go back under the knife, less than a year after my last one.

I told him I have zero faith in doctors. I'm done with false hope, and ideas. 

He said to me, "You aren't allowed to lose hope. You aren't allowed to lose faith. You need to find hope in something, because false hope doesn't exist. You will beat this. You are stronger than this. I need you stronger than this."

I needed that wake up call. I've been becoming a person I don't necessarily like because I'm letting this disease get the better of me. I refuse to let it.

Now enter in my amazing neighbor, Nicole. 
We live in the same building, and she lives in the room directly across from us. 
We had met a couple times, just saying hi, and the usual neighborly things. 
But then one day things changed. I can remember I was struggling that day. 
Keagan couldn't come home from work early, so I took Ren to the park to be outside, and get worn out. Nicole was there with her 2 youngest babes, and they were pushing Ren on the swing. We started talking, and then I ended up telling her everything that was going on with me. It was a little difficult to tell her because, well, I don't really tell anyone that part of myself. I don't think it has to do with embarrassment, or anything other than me not being able to let myself become vulnerable. But I literally felt this warmth come over me, reassuring me that I can trust her, and I am so glad that I did.

She made me feel so loved, and immediately asked what she could do for me. She told me that she is a Rep for Doterra, and that she would love to look up some oils that might be able to help me. I had heard about Doterra a few times from various friends, but I never really paid much attention to it. My thoughts were, "If actual doctors can't help me, or help alleviate my pain, what much can oils do?" She told me that she'd bring me over samples that night, and we'd go from there. She probably brought me over 10 samples, and had me try different combinations, and see what ones helped the best. 

It's taken me a little bit to start to see and feel a difference, but I do feel it. I see it in my family. I can feel it in myself. There are days when the oils aren't enough, but I'm hoping eventually I will get to the point where they will be. 

The ones I use the most are Clary Calm, & Lavendar. I'm slowly getting more in my collection, but I haven't been so excited about something like this in a long time. I haven't had hope like this in a long time. If Nicole hadn't been willing to go above and beyond for me, at that point, a stranger to her, I don't know where I would be right now or how I would be feeling. 

The saying, "it takes a village" is so completely accurate. It really does. We need to be there for each other. 

As women. 

As moms. 

As sisters. 

We are a community of hope and light, and it's our duty to share it with others. To share it with our sisters around us, and help each other when times are tough. Not beat each other down, and judge one another. Our love is eternal. Just like our service should be. And I am forever grateful for Nicole, and love she had for me to show me what she could offer to help make my and my family's life easier. I'm so blessed to call her my friend, and have her in my life. The love and selflessness she has given to me was beyond anything I could of ever imagined. She has done more for me than just show me what essential oils are. She's changed my outlook on a lot of things in my life, and I can't even begin to thank her for it. 

I hope you can do the same for someone else. 
It doesn't have to be something like this. 

It could be a conversation with the lady who's baby is screaming his face off in Target. 
Or a meal for the mom who is on her chick cycle, and can't move. [Cookies are always mandatory with those deliveries ladies ;)] 

Anything and everything we do for one another makes a difference, and makes this world a better place. And that is the world I want Renner, and possibly, future children to be apart of. 

My pain might get the best of me somedays. But I refuse to ever allow it to take away my hope. Because really, having hope is all I have to beat this.