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Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt

I was once told by a person in a responsible position in a patient advocacy organization to “be positive, let them know that lupus isn’t all that bad. Don’t be negative.” The message this well-meaning person seemed to want was more akin to “celebrate the survivor,” a phenomenon borrowed from other disease advocacy realms. And…

A cheerful glance brings joy to the heart; Good news invigorates the bones. Proverbs 16:30 Whether personal or of the world, there is no lack of bad news feeding our lives and hearts. Of late, I’m facing a couple of serious diagnoses, additional to those I’m already grappling with. In world news, we are all…

Lent is over. Advent is a long while away. But, today, I’m going to wear purposeful purple! May is Lupus Awareness Month, and today is Lupus Awareness Day, and the color is purple. Purple is a deep color, sometimes mysteriously so, and lupus is the quintessentially mysterious disease – there’s no cure, there are not…

May is Lupus Awareness Month. For those of us with lupus, it might seem beside-the-point; it’s almost impossible to have lupus and not be aware of it each day, not only in May! I’m not going to go into “what is lupus?” nor am I going to list the statistics of the disease “population,” nor…

If you’re like me, you find that your prayer list gets longer each day. World problems, individual petitions, personal prayers – we skip around this globe quite a lot when we sit down to have our quiet time with God. But if we’re too scattered with our prayers, we might lose sight of the very…

We give flowers, gifts, meals. We make visits and phone calls. We hug them, help them, maybe even harmonize with them – remembering a lullaby or other song from our childhood. But, what can we say for all they’ve done for us? What finite words can sum up our infinite gratitude and love? My mother…

Oh, Lord, I’ve been told that there is nothing that can be done, that I’ve run out of options, that I’ve hit a dead end. But I know that you, Lord, are endless, timeless, all-knowing and all-loving. I know, too, that in every moment of life there is grace and light. Please, Lord, bring me…

I’m forever marveling at the wonderful diversity of God’s creation, especially in the animal kingdom. Meerkats, in particular, are fascinating to me. They live very active, sometimes, frantic lives, taking care of life in their communities, dodging predators, searching for food, and making their homes in often-inhospitable places. But, sometimes, meerkats kick back, as the…

It’s all right, now, this moment. You feel so very sorrowful that your health is lost. Everyone’s telling you to “be strong,” “have faith,” “be positive.” But all you feel like doing right now is crying. And, it’s all right, now, this moment, if you do. We’re human, and we have strong emotions, and sometimes,…

Well, I’m nearly 15 years into my diagnosis of lupus, and “they” still don’t know what causes it, really. Sunlight can trigger it in some people, and certain medications can bring on drug-induced lupus. But beyond that, well, it’s pretty much a mysterious “combination” of environmental and “other” factors and, perhaps, heredity. This last factor…
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