Pain Journal #2

This is a long post, but it includes two quotations the Lord has been using to heal me from the inside out. Bear with me and I hope you are blessed.

On February 9, 2011 I journal-ed: . "The virus then wiped the floor with me several times. I am not on my game as far as physical activity. The pain and hourly aches have dragged me to a new low as far as hope for this body." And even as I wrote about the need to center and turn to the Lord, I kept avoiding Him. I did turn again to "A Prayer of Trust." I think it was published in Forward Day by Day.

LORD, I WILL TRUST YOU. Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown. Give me faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You. Christ of the mysteries, can I trust You to be stronger than each storm in me? So I still yearn for Your glory to lighten on me? I will show others the care you have given me. I determine amid all uncertainty always to trust. I choose to live beyond regret and let You recreate my life. I believe You will make a way for me and provide for me, if only I trust You and obey. I will trust in the darkness and know that my times are still in Your hand. I will believe You for my future, chapter by chapter, until all the story is written. Focus my mind and my heart on You, my attention always on You without alteration. Strengthen me with your blessing and appoint to me the task. Teach me to live with eternity in view. Tune my spirit to the music of heaven. Feed me, and, somehow, make my obedience count for You.
O help me, sweet Jesus.

So I learned again over a couple of days that "the only path for me is practice centering, watching, using my pencils to attempt a glimpse of what I see in prayer and meditation, Glimpses of Eternity."

I also was using a meditation from Thomas Keating's Daily Reader for Contemplative Living, Sept. 10.
“Redemption Means to Heal You from the Roots Up”

“[Jesus] healed those who needed healing.”
LK 9:11 NIV
Until … basic childhood programs for happiness are repented of, that is to say changed, we’re engaged, all of us, in an addictive process which will show up if you live long enough in a specific addiction unless you take the spiritual journey to heart and as a practice to heal that situation. The Gospel is about the healing of our conscious and unconscious wounds … It is into this melodrama of everyday life that Jesus has come with the Kingdom and that’s where it works. That’s where it’s powerful. That’s where it’s to be found on an everyday basis. Right where you experience it and feel it. And it’s the gift of Jesus. And this is the full meaning of redemption – to heal you from the roots up. So that instead of self-centered motivation and a world in which you see everything from the perspective of the big I am of your ego, you see it from the big I AM of God’s selfless-self … That is the true view of reality. (Who is God?)

“Put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption.” PS 130:7 NIV

For several days I copied the first sentence in my journal, not realizing just how deep that healing work would go. By February 19, 2011 I knew the pain was out of control. "Sleepless and then awakened with pain. Even with Ambien I awoke 1 or 2 times. Woke up this AM & on leaving the bedroom burst into tears.
How can I travel to Ireland and change beds from day to day and TRAVEL period?
How can I handle Rowan as his little body grows?
This is a hard place to be...pain like broken glass in my body - burning acing UNRELENTING pain and knowing my added weight might be making it worse.
"Calm down, YIELD." It took multiple meditation tapes before Ambien brought me sleep. So uncomfortable, no relief."
And then I copied again
"Until ... basic childhood programs for happiness are repented of, that is to say changed," The repent word kept drawing me to it. To change and go the other way. So I had to admit that I was /am powerless over chronic pain and I admit that my life is unmanageable. I am willing to surrender to YOUR love and not my fears.
More on that next time!