Pain sucks--get over it.

Most, if not all, of you know that I've struggled with pain the majority of my life. Not paper cut kind of pain -- as annoying as that is -- but debilitating, can barely breath, I'm going to puke or pass out kind of pain (may my college profs. forgive me for my lack of hyphens).

People ask me how my back is doing, and it's just too depressing to tell them that it's really my neck, shoulders, hips and entire left leg in addition to my whole back that hurts every day, all day. It even makes its way into my dreams. It's one of the those ongoing issues that seems like Mt. Everest.

However, what God has been telling me is that my pain entitles me to exactly nothing in His presence. It still doesn't even come close to the pain that Jesus went through to purchase my ticket for preferred seats in eternity.

Furthermore, it does not give me the right to grumble, gripe and complain and thus create a negative environment in which my family must live. I am not allowed to whine about it. I cannot keep making excuses to avoid the short-lived pain of working out because it will move me away from the long-term pain with which I currently live. I am not allowed to look forward and worry about what tomorrow will bring. The weight of tomorrow's possibilities will surely bury me alive.

So what can I do? I can pray and pray and pray and pray some more. I can trust that God will answer my prayers in His timing with the perfect (yes, I said perfect) solution--as in it won't be a problem anymore. Will I always have pain? Probably. But it doesn't have to be a problem. How strong is my faith? This is the question whose answer has value. It is this answer I will seek. What about you? What is your Everest issue? Are you ready to take it down?

Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (NIV, emphasis added)

Wading through the stuff

Have you ever looked at your life like an ocean,
Saying, "What clear, beautiful, blue water!"
Or is it more like a swampy, nasty potion,
Complete with all sorts of yucky matter?

Maybe your life is average like most--
A river with all manners of "small" pollution.
Or perhaps there are times you could boast
The yucky stuff, and times, that beautiful ocean.

The latter is where you'll find me
Wading through the stuff of life.
Sometimes gorgeous as far as the eye can see,
Others you could cut the pollution with a knife.

"Why," you might ask, in the nicest of tones,
"Is it sometimes one, and then the other?"
The answer is that each trouble hones
My ability to love my sister and brother.

Without life's troubles, I fear I would be
Someone without the knowledge of bad and good,
A person who lacks kindness and sympathy
Like a car with no engine under the hood.

"How," you might ask, ever so sweetly,
"Could hard times bring forth such caring?"
God's answer is that trials will increase greatly
Your endurance against relationships tearing.

Each trial and trouble you wade through
Builds muscle and strength and most of all joy,
'Cause as you look back at all of the sticky goo,
You realize you're stronger than some cheap toy.

You're made by God, filled with His breath,
Made not just for fun, but with a purpose,
Which will not end until the day of your death,
Yet out of His Love, even death He kept from us.

So since He sent His one and only Son,
I'll keep wading through all this stuff.
I'll keep my eyes on Him and call it fun.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, I'll find myself tough.

Tough enough to deal with nails and a cross?
Probably not. But I'll keep giving Him my all,
Keep striving to be more and more like Jesus,
Who saved those who believe from the fall.

A writer Needs to write

Okay, so I'm finally moving into the digital age. I'm starting a blog. As long as I can remember, (and if you count the stories the parents and grandparents tell, even before that), I've been a writer. Before I could write, I was a writer. However, since I had my third child, I've written about 20 e-mails for every thought about writing something. I'm in a rut and of all things, I'm teaching a writing class to impressionable young children. So that got me to thinking. I should be writing with them.
Enter this blog's purpose...for me to write. It'll be my warm-up, my publishing medium and also a way to share family moments with everyone who's not in the group of 15 people we see and talk to regularly. But mostly, it will be an opportunity to express life more artistically than I do at those momements when one child needs help with her homework, another just let in the puppy, who's covered in mud 3/4 of the way up her body, and the littlest one needs his nose wiped, diaper changed, a bottle and a nap all at the same time. In fact, I won't be publishing my exact responses to those moments at all. God knows, I've repented, and he forgives. Praise God!
Thanks for reading!