If you’re anything like me, you just turned the calendar page with a sigh of relief…the seemingly eternal 30 days of April are finished and we are facing a clean slate. Those who know me well, already know that I am a book lover–a voracious reader-a woman interested only in those purses big enough to hold a book. Turning pages is great.
And new things are great… cracking wide the binding of my next journal, freshly laundered sheets every Saturday morning, experimenting with new recipes, a new walking route…
Right about now I’m longing for something new….especially in the area of health. You see, April marks the FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of my back pain. Five years ago, my life changed drastically, when out of nowhere I could barely move.
So far I’ve been through almost 44,000 hours of physical pain. I don’t get a break, ever. I’m either in pain, in a lot of pain, or in excrutiating amounts of pain. And up until this point 12 doctors, 4 therapists, 3 chiropractors, aqua therapy, electro stimulation, steroid and ozone injections, massages, weight loss, innumerable medications and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men have not been able to put me back together again.
I can generally grin and bear it… live a somewhat normal day..I don’t think my volunteers have any clue what a true struggle it is to stay on my feet every morning in class. But I cannot run errands on my way home from work, I decline many invitations to go out with friends, I often have to leave the church service to pace back and forth outside, and most weekdays I arrive home at 1 pm and don’t leave the house again.
I’ve been asking God lately to help me to understand…sometimes all I do is shake my fist and ask why? Why not answer the thousands of people who have prayed for me? Why do I bother repeating the same thing over and over?
A few nights ago God responded: “My love is surrounding you. Isn’t my love enough?”
Oh, how I cried. I broke down, sobbing, when I heard that. It was definitely not the answer I’d been hoping for. I wanted to hear that God loved me AND was going to heal me in a special way.
The Bible says “Who then can ever keep Christ’s love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us? No! I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, whether we find ourselves high or low—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.
(Romans 8:35-39)
So, once again I forcibly turn my gaze away from myself, and onto the Only One..
There’s only One who never fails
To beckon the morning light
There’s only One who set loose the gales
And ties the trees down tight
When all around my soul gives way
He is all my hope and stay
There’s only One, only One Holy One(Caedmon’s Call)
The Life of Maestra Megan 