The Unseen Battle

I don’t talk about this a lot.
But for the past year and a half,
I have been living with something called Myasthenia Gravis.
MG is a rare autoimmune disease that causes severe muscle weakness.

Sometimes it shows up in my eyes as double vision or a drooping eyelid.
Sometimes, in my face, where chewing or even smiling can feel harder than it should.
And sometimes in ways no one else can see.
Fatigue that feels crushing.

I manage it well, most days.
I don’t let it control me or slow me down.
Mostly out of sheer stubbornness, if I’m honest.
It probably won’t shorten my life.
But it’s always there.
Always a factor.

And then there is the fear.
There is a fear that it could spread deeper one day.
Fear that could change everything about daily life.

And is that not true for so many of us?
Life is full of hidden battles.
The grief no one knows about.
The anxiety kept quiet.
The loss that never got spoken aloud.

I have learned that the surface rarely tells the whole story.

Which makes me slower to assume.
Slower to judge.
Slower to pass someone by.

Because what if the person in front of me is carrying the weight of a diagnosis, or a disappointment, or a fear they have told no one.
What if the way I speak, or even the way I listen, becomes a lifeline for them?

That is the power of kindness.
It does not erase the unseen battle.
But it can steady the hands of the one who is fighting it.

Scripture says in Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

I can’t take away someone else’s problem.
And no one else can take away mine.
But we can carry one another by showing mercy. By slowing down. By remembering that there is more happening beneath the surface than meets the eye.

So today, I want to live a little gentler.
Because everyone you meet is carrying something unseen.

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