You thought you had made peace with what illness changed. Then your body changed the plans again. Another thing you can’t do. Another conversation about needing help. Another loss you don’t quite know how to explain.

Sara “S.G.” Willoughby knows what it is to rebuild a life and become sick again. After years of illness that began when she was fourteen, she experienced a period of improvement, grew into adulthood, and got married. Facing new health challenges brought familiar grief back with some very uncomfortable questions: Why are we doing this again? What was the point of everything I already worked through?

Sara and April talk about the exhaustion of ongoing loss, the emotions that can surface after survival mode, and how difficult it can be to receive love when you’re measuring yourself by what you can do. There’s also a practical conversation about marriage, making room for a caregiver’s feelings, and asking for the reassurance you need instead of expecting someone to read your mind.

You don’t need a finished lesson to belong in this conversation. There is room for faith, questions, brain fog, a little laughter, and the grief you thought you had already dealt with.

• The small, repeated losses that make chronic illness grief so exhausting
• Missing teenage milestones and feeling both older and younger than your peers
• Why grief can surface when your body finally has room to leave survival mode
• Becoming sick again after recovery and asking God, “What’s the point?”
• Receiving care without measuring your worth as a spouse by household tasks
• Honest communication, support for caregivers, and community that understands limited capacity

S.G. Willoughby is an author and the founder of the Diamonds ministry for Christians with chronic illnesses. Through her writing and community work, Sara makes space for honest conversations about faith and life with ongoing health challenges. She loves dark chocolate and superhero movies and lives in California with her husband.

Sara’s website

• Diamonds ministry and conference
• Grief resource guide · Email signup

• Ep. 67: The Things I Never Thought I’d Miss · More room for the ordinary freedoms and experiences illness takes.
• Ep. 68: The Loneliness of Being Misunderstood By the People You Love · For the gap between being loved and feeling understood.
• Ep. 63: The Faith Questions We Whisper: Trusting God Through Chronic Illness and Doubt · A companion conversation about bringing the hard questions to God.

Links & Resources

Join The Unseen Sisterhood

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/unseen-sisterhood-newsletter

Listen to the podcast

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/podcasts

Visit the website

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/the_invisibleillnessclub

Stay connected

Subscribe for honest conversations about chronic illness, faith, emotional exhaustion, boundaries, rest, and building a meaningful life inside limitation.

Join The Unseen Sisterhood: https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/unseen-sisterhood-newsletter

Hosted by April Aramanda

IIC Podcast

Music via AudioJungle

This podcast is for encouragement and shared experience, not medical advice. Please talk with your doctor or care team about your own health decisions.

You have prayed. You are still hurting. And a verse about rejoicing can feel very different when the life in front of you is the one you have been asking God to change.

In this solo episode of IIC, April walks through Habakkuk’s questions, his waiting, and the words “though” and “yet.” What does trust look like when you still have questions? How do you worship without pretending that pain, disappointment, and grief have disappeared?

There is room here to want healing, miss the life you expected, and keep talking to God. April shares a simple writing exercise for holding an honest account of what hurts alongside the faith you can actually express today.

• Bringing the prayer “How long?” to God without polishing it first
• Facing an answer you do not understand and allowing yourself another question
• Recognizing faith in small acts of staying and showing up
• Naming loss honestly without treating it as a failure of faith
• Rejoicing in God without calling suffering good
• Writing your own “Though…Yet” prayer without forcing words you do not mean

Read Habakkuk 1–3, NIV. Passages discussed include Habakkuk 1:2, 1:5–6, 2:1, 2:4, and 3:17–18.

• Ep. 74: A Valley of Worship: Faith When You’re Still Hurting, a companion reflection on turning toward God while pain and unanswered questions remain.
• Ep. 63: The Faith Questions We Whisper: Trusting God Through Chronic Illness and Doubt, for the questions you have felt afraid to say aloud.

Links & Resources

Join The Unseen Sisterhood

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/unseen-sisterhood-newsletter

Listen to the podcast

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/podcasts

Visit the website

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/the_invisibleillnessclub

Stay connected

Subscribe for honest conversations about chronic illness, faith, emotional exhaustion, boundaries, rest, and building a meaningful life inside limitation.

Join The Unseen Sisterhood: https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/unseen-sisterhood-newsletter

Hosted by April Aramanda

IIC Podcast

Music via AudioJungle

This podcast is for encouragement and shared experience, not medical advice. Please talk with your doctor or care team about your own health decisions.

The results say everything looks normal. You still feel exhausted, foggy, or unlike yourself. What do you do with the distance between those two things?

In this IIC conversation, April talks with healthcare attorney and author Joy Stephenson-Laws about asking questions when lab results have not explained how you feel. Joy shares how her work and her mother’s experiences with medical care shaped her interest in patient advocacy and her book, Your Labs Are Fine. You’re Not.

They discuss understanding what was actually tested, approaching supplements with care, checking the information in your medical chart, and preparing for appointments when energy and concentration are limited. Joy also introduces her Feel, Pause, Act framework, a way to acknowledge a feeling, make room to consider it, and choose a response that fits your capacity.

There is room here for frustration and unanswered questions. This conversation is an invitation to participate in your care without expecting yourself to become your own doctor. It shares Joy’s perspective and experiences, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan.

• What repeated reassurance can feel like when you still feel unwell
• Asking what your lab work measured and what questions remain
• Why a conversation about mineral deficiencies should not become a shopping list of supplements
• Preparing questions and practical support around your available energy
• Using Feel, Pause, Act without expecting a perfect response every time
• Reviewing medical notes and seeking care when something feels different or concerning

Joy Stephenson-Laws, JD, is a healthcare attorney, author, and founder of Proactive Health Labs. Her work focuses on helping people understand health information and take a more active role in conversations about their care.

Visit Proactive Health Labs

• Your Labs Are Fine. You’re Not. and other books from Proactive Health Labs
• Proactive Health Labs learning resources, Joy’s educational website discussed in the conversation

For additional context, these resources were checked during preparation and are not presented as resources named in the interview:

• Understanding lab results, MedlinePlus
• Dietary supplements: what you need to know, NIH Office of Dietary Supplements

• Ep. 58: The Invisible Full-Time Job of Chronic Illness, for the work of appointments, decisions, and keeping track of your care.
• Ep. 68: Chronic Illness and the Loneliness of Being Misunderstood, for the emotional weight of trying to explain what someone else cannot see.

Links & Resources

Join The Unseen Sisterhood

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/newsletter

Listen to the podcast

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/podcasts

Visit the website

https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/the_invisibleillnessclub

Stay connected

Subscribe for honest conversations about chronic illness, faith, emotional exhaustion, boundaries, rest, and building a meaningful life inside limitation.

Join The Unseen Sisterhood: https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com

You pray for healing and wake up hurting again. You pray for answers, and another test leaves you with more questions. What does worship look like in that kind of waiting?

In this episode of The Invisible Illness Club, April reflects on a valley of worship: turning toward God in the middle of pain, disappointment, exhaustion, and prayers that still feel unanswered.

Through Habakkuk’s honest questions and the words “though” and “yet,” this conversation explores faith that makes room for what is actually happening. You can bring God your anger, your uncertainty, and the grief of a life that looks different than you expected. You don’t have to arrive with a polished prayer.

We talk about:

• What worship can look like when you don’t feel like singing.
• The pressure to get your emotions together before coming to God.
• Habakkuk’s “How long?” and the space Scripture makes for honest questions.
• Holding pain and trust together without erasing either one.
• The simple prayer, “God, I’m still here.”

If you’re somewhere between “How long?” and “Yet,” there is room for you in this conversation.

Scripture explored: Habakkuk 1:2 and 3:17–19.

A question to carry with you: What would you tell God today if you didn’t feel pressure to make it sound better?

Follow The Invisible Illness Club in your listening app for more honest conversations about faith and chronic illness. If this episode gives words to something you’ve been carrying, you’re welcome to share it with someone who might need that language too.

Links & Resources Join The Unseen Sisterhood https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/newsletter Listen to the podcast https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/podcasts Visit the website https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/the\_invisibleillnessclubStay connected

Subscribe for honest conversations about chronic illness, faith, emotional exhaustion, boundaries, rest, and building a meaningful life inside limitation. Join The Unseen Sisterhood: https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.comCredits

Hosted by April Aramanda The Invisible Illness Club Podcast

Music via AudioJungle

This podcast is for encouragement and shared experience, not medical advice. Please talk with your doctor or care team about your own health decisions.

A familiar ache. A lower energy day. A call from the doctor's office. A test result in the patient portal.

Sometimes one small moment is enough to send the mind racing toward the next flare, the next cancellation, or the next piece of news that could rearrange life again. The fear is not only about what is happening now. It carries the memory of what your body and heart have already survived.

In this episode of The Invisible Illness Club, April names the fear that often remains beneath chronic illness life, even during a good stretch. She talks about symptom vigilance, the pressure to use energy wisely, the strange suspension of waiting for medical answers, and the cost of emotionally living through tomorrow before it arrives.

April also makes room for a faith that tells the truth. Trusting God does not mean never feeling afraid. Prayer does not require a calm body or a tidy ending. Sometimes faith sounds like, “God, I'm scared. Please stay with me in the waiting.”

You will hear reflections on:

• Why a small symptom can bring back the memory of an earlier crisis
• How good days can hold joy, gratitude, pressure, and fear at the same time
• The invisible work of living in the “maybe” of an unpredictable body
• The difference between useful preparation and costly emotional bracing
• Why fear is not proof that you are foolish or faithless
• How to ask what you actually know and need in this moment
• What it can mean to let fear be present without giving it every decision
• How honest prayer can hold fear, grief, uncertainty, and trust together

The future may remain uncertain, but you do not have to live every possible tomorrow today. The good moments do not have to promise permanence before you are allowed to receive them.

Follow The Invisible Illness Club in your podcast app so new episodes are waiting for you.

This episode discusses medical uncertainty, flare anxiety, test results, and waiting for calls from a doctor's office. Please listen when you have the capacity for those subjects.

Links & Resources Join The Unseen Sisterhood https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/newsletter Listen to the podcast https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/podcasts Visit the website https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/the\_invisibleillnessclub

Stay connected Subscribe for honest conversations about chronic illness, faith, emotional exhaustion, boundaries, rest, and building a meaningful life inside limitation. Join The Unseen Sisterhood: https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com

Credits Hosted by April Aramanda The Invisible Illness Club Podcast Music via AudioJungle

This podcast is for encouragement and shared experience, not medical advice. Please talk with your doctor or care team about your own health decisions.

How many times have you said “I’m sorry” this week?

Sorry I canceled. Sorry I am tired. Sorry I need help. Sorry my body changed the plan again.

For many of us living with chronic illness, those words become a reflex. We are not always apologizing because we harmed someone. Sometimes we are trying to soften the inconvenience of having needs, limits, and a body we cannot always control.

In this episode of The Invisible Illness Club, April talks about what happens when apologizing becomes more than something we say and starts shaping the way we see ourselves. She makes room for a difficult truth: chronic illness can affect plans and relationships, and other people are allowed to have feelings about that. But their disappointment does not automatically mean we have done something wrong.

Together, we explore the difference between a sincere apology and the guilt we attach to reaching a limit. We also look at what “I’m sorry” may be asking underneath the surface: Are we still okay? Am I becoming too much? Will you stay if this never gets easier?

You will hear gentle, practical alternatives that acknowledge another person without treating your existence like an offense, including:

• “Thank you for waiting for me.”
• “I am disappointed too.”
• “My body needs something different today.”
• “I care about you even though I cannot do this.”
• “Thank you for staying.”

This is not an invitation to shame yourself for apologizing. The habit may have helped you survive relationships where your needs were not met with kindness. It is an invitation to notice, little by little, whether you caused harm or simply reached a limit, and to practice something gentler from there.

You do not have to live in a permanent state of repentance for having a human body.

• When “I’m sorry” becomes a way of seeing yourself
• Why canceling plans can carry so much fear
• The difference between disappointment and wrongdoing
• How unnecessary apologies can become requests for reassurance
• Replacing automatic apologies with gratitude, honesty, or a clear boundary
• Caring about the impact on others without accepting blame for being sick
• Practicing grace without turning it into another thing to do perfectly

Join the Unseen Sisterhood: https://www.theinvisibleillnessclub.com/unseen-sisterhood-newsletter

If this episode meant something to you, share it with someone who may need the reminder that their needs do not require an apology before they are allowed to exist.

• 00:00 How often do you apologize for being human?
• 01:07 When life starts to feel like one long apology
• 01:34 Apologizing for harm versus apologizing for a limit
• 02:35 Canceling plans and fearing people will stop asking
• 04:19 Apologizing before anyone complains
• 05:25 The reassurance hiding underneath “I’m sorry”
• 06:31 Love should not require you to live on trial
• 06:51 The difference between apology and gratitude
• 07:48 Three questions to ask before apologizing
• 08:31 Illness affects other people, and it affects us too
• 09:20 Offering ourselves the grace we would give someone we love
• 10:08 You do not have to repent for having a human body
• 10:21 A gentle practice for the coming week
• 11:21 Your needs do not require an apology
• 11:41 You are not the disappointment
• 11:54 What if you really mean “thank you for staying”?