Hepatitis C can often bring many questions and stir of emotions that each Hep C patient has to deal with. How to Live Beyond Hepatitis C is not determined by the disease. Being a Hep C patient myself for 20 years I’ve dealt with my share of raw emotions.

I felt shock, when I was first diagnosed with Hep C and flooded with disappointment and discouragement when my first two treatments did not bring results. I had to make peace with many areas of my life and learn how God wanted me to live my life beyond hepatitis C even while I was in the midst of battling Hep C.

I learned that life beyond hepatitis c did not depend on what modern medicine could do but what God could do because my life is in His hands. The number of my days are determined by God, not Hepatitis C. Our outlook on life depends on us. It’s our choice. I had a choice to allow Hep C to dictate my passion for life, to withdraw and allow circumstances of the disease to rule me or give it to God to make beauty out of the ashes.

Many times I’ve pondered how to live beyond regrets, beyond the past, beyond disappointments, beyond forgiveness or beyond the last 5 minutes! Can you relate?

At times I’ve fallen into entanglements of focusing on circumstances which leads me down the road of disappointment and discouragement, which never leads to a happy place. Do you know this road? One negative thought can beget another. Lord, throw a Detour Sign in front of my face!

I love the old V-8 commercial, where the person makes a less than desirable choice and a hand comes out of nowhere administering a slap of good sense to jolt them back on the right path.

Whether I get entangled in discouragement from disappointments or dwelling on things which I cannot change, I hear God whisper to my heart these words, which provide my V-8 moment.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19

In Roy Lessin’s Devotional book, Meet Me in the Meadow, he reflects on this verse in Isaiah and says, “In order to move forward in God’s plan and will for your life you must be free from your past. To move ahead with confidence is to know that there is a God who goes before you as your captain and your guide. To move ahead with freedom is to know this same God is behind you as your rear guard to keep you from being defeated by any failures or disappointments of the past.”

I can choose to accept and believe with confidence that God is for me and making all things new in my life. That is His will, it’s up to me to believe it, step into the shoes of obedience and tie them with trust and walk forward in faith.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV
We walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV

The Serenity Prayer written by Reinhold Niebur has served to be an anchor prayer to help lift my troubled heart to the Lord and seek His guidance.
God grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change, Courage to Change the things I can and the Wisdom to Know the difference.

I lift my eyes to the hills—-where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber. Psalm 121:1-2

This entry was originally published on Life Beyond Hepatitis C, and is reprinted with permission.