Buckle Up For The Roller Coaster Ride

Watch your step as you enter the ride. Make sure your seatbelt is tight and the shoulder restraints are locked in place. Keep all body parts inside the car, and enjoy the ride. A rollercoaster is one of the most accurate descriptions of a life with Parkinson’s. One minute you are chugging along up the hill and then the bottom drops out and you are in a freefall. This up and down continues until the ride is over, and often, the same can be said for life.

In so many ways, and in so many aspects of life, this constant up and down is present. One day you’re are humming along, and things are going well up on the mountain, the next day the world is turned upside down, and looking around, you have no idea how you got in the valley. With Parkinson’s, you never quite know what a day will hold. One day your medicines are working great, and your symptoms are very mild. The next day you get up and you can hardly move, and you really have done nothing different.

These ups and downs are not just physical, many times they are emotional as well, and often this is tied to how you are doing physically. There are days when I am upbeat and optimistic, and there are days when I am discouraged and I just cannot face it anymore. Days when I am happy and joking, and days when I am in tears and cannot talk about it.

Many times as Christians, we think we should always be up, always be joyful, and always be optimistic about the future – that we should always be on the mountain top. But real-life is not like that. In real life there are serious valleys, and there are days of great discouragement. There are days when we are not okay with our current situation, and days that are full of tears.

With Parkinson’s, the days are very unpredictable. You will have good days and you will have bad days – and many times from minute to minute, you will not know which day you will get. On those down days, it is hard to hope, and very hard to see the light. During those valleys we can beat ourselves up for how we are handling things, causing even more discouragement. In reality, we need to realize that the downtimes are part of life.

We will not always be on the top of the mountain. We will experience valleys. We will have days that are hard, and these days will cause discouragement. Yesterday I was laughing and joking, even making jokes about my Parkinson’s. Today, I woke up in pain, having only slept three hours, not feeling good at all, and was on the verge of tears many times, and that was okay. It was okay that I was in a valley today.

Too often, when we are in the valley, we try to hide it, and pretend that we are okay when we are not. By doing that, we do not help ourselves, and we rob those around us of the opportunity to help and encourage us. For when we are in the valley, we need our community more than ever. God did not design us to walk always on the mountain. “Yea though I walk through the valley…” – it is right there in Psalm 23 – we will walk through valleys; we will have tough days.

But valleys and tough days are not without hope. As Tauren Wells reminds us, He is the God of the Hills and the Valleys. The rest of that verse in Psalms 23 says, “…I will fear no evil for thou art with me…”. On this rollercoaster ride of life, He is with us for every up and down.

Next time you find yourself in a tough day, remember He and your community are with you. Instead of hiding it from them, let them see and welcome their encouragement and help. We all have hard days, and we all need help and encouragement. It is not weakness to accept these things – sometimes it is the strongest and most courageous thing you can do.

Enjoy this song: