Bejeweled? or just Forgetting?

Last Spring I began this entry. Guess it is time to finish it up! At the time I was undergoing injections of cortisone to reduce the inflammation and pain from a bulging disc. I was also entertaining ideas of the aging process and my evolving body in the midst of this aging. Respond for encouragement if you would.
I have been reading "The Awakened Heart" by Gerald May. He always has interesting ideas! He says in the section called Forgetting:

"If we want something badly enough, you would think we would remember it. He talks about our desire for food and other physical needs.
"But we have immense freedom with our desire for love. Real love can never be coercive; God relentlessly keeps us free even when we wish it were otherwise. If we were not able to say no to love's invitation, we would not be able to authentically say yes.
"God has an infinity of hiding places ... but we have only one hiding place, and there we can hide only from ourselves. because we live and move and have our being in God, we can hide only in our forgetfulness."

Now that got me thinking for certain! With my recent pain experiences I have had ample opportunity to try to hide from the reality of the experience, the fears about the future and the uncertainty of when this will end and I will once again be "comfortable." (I almost hate that word now!) In Genesis the first thing Adam and Eve did was hide from God when they had sinned. I, too, find it hard to stay in His presence when I am distracted by pain and fear. It is easier to enter what May refers to as forgetfulness. He goes on to outline what he calls the Ways of Forgetting:

"Look closely at how forgetfulness happens. At first it might seem like a sudden thing; a new thought flashes into consciousness and completely replaces what was there before. But like everything else in the brain and body, forgetting and remembering are transitions. They may happen quickly, but they take long enough to be noticed if you watch with bright, gentle eyes. With some reflection, you can see the transition into forgetfulness happening in two ways. The first is losing yourself, sinking into such absorption or dullness that you have no self-awareness at all. It can happen with an activity or relationship in which you become completely preoccupied, or when things are so routine and dull that your whole consciousness goes on automatic pilot. Either way it is entrancement; you might as well be a robot.
"The second way is the opposite; instead of losing your self-awareness, you become self-conscious. Although you are wide awake and not the least bit entranced, you are so self-preoccupied that you forget love's presence entirely. When self-consciousness reappears, it seldom traps me, says May. Instead it feels like something in me stretching; It is an occasion to yield once again to trust."

I know that I have not always used this recent pain experience to draw closer to the Lord. Often I wanted to just escape my mind and body. Video games and other numbing activities felt good! (Thus the picture from Bejeweled!) But they did not provide a good platform for quieting my soul or listening to my Lord in the midst of the difficulty.
As we remember the suffering and sacrifices our Lord made for us, perhaps we could look for new ways to try to stay present to Him in the midst of our own struggles.

I, for one, will be asking Him to teach me just that.