I awoke the other night from a deep sleep. As I made my way out of bed I must have forgotten that for the past twenty or so years I have slept in a four-post queen-sized bed. Well, at least my nose forgot as it passed by one of the post and made contact.
The pain was excruciating. Of course everything is excruciating in the dark at 2:30 a.m. Wide awake and lying with a cold, wet washrag on my now swelling nose, I wanted to cry. But I knew this wouldn’t help so I did what I always do – I prayed until the cloth was warm and the throbbing turned numb.
Pain is not a word most people want to hear. Or talk about. I’ve noticed people’s reactions to it through the years when I mention it – a shoulder shrug, a muffled reply or a wave of their hands in the air as they back away from me. Almost, like pain is contagious.
Maybe it is, but this one thing I’m sure of . . . I know pain. I did not ask for it nor am I a proud owner of it. Instead, I do believe God decided to create me with a gift, of which he gives out freely to all. My gift just happened to be a bit different.
It started at birth. I’m told I was born breech and upside down. Forty-eight years ago, a c-section was unheard of.
I’m told I cried for two years afterward. I had constant problems with my ears, nose and throat. I was too young to even know what a gift was back then, let alone know what to do with it. But others around me knew about it, although I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand it or appreciate it either. Much later in life, thirty-five years to be exact, a discovery would be made that would explain my early problems. Hindsight would not have helped me.
When I was four, my cries continued. The deluge lasted for the next eight years or so. It happened one day, I awoke and like that, resorted to crawling. I was not known to be a jokester. Overnight I had developed Rheumatoid Arthritis from a bout of Rheumatic Fever. It affected my legs. My heart had decided it didn’t want to be left out too, so it too went awry as well. This gift was becoming a burden.
After eight years of treatment, I went into remission.
The years passed and as I grew I coped by turning inward. Anger and lust became a great diversion and years of rebellion ensued.
When I turned 25 and was pregnant with my first child, the troubles escalated. I decided I didn’t want this gift anymore.
At thirty, dying in the hospital from a bacterial infection called C-Diff, I told God I had enough. He wasn’t moved. Instead He asked me, “If I was ready?” Struggling to make it another moment, I said, “Yes.” I thought he was asking me “If I was ready to die.” I was, but I didn’t.
At 35, God’s gift magnified into full-blown disability and another brush with death. At 40, lying on a cold stretcher after a 2.5 hour unsuccessful heart procedure, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God’s gift was not only for me, but meant for others too and if He allowed me the opportunity, I would give him my all, with whatever time I had left on this earth – I would finally unwrap God’s gift, accept it and use it.
What was God’s gift to me? It was and is a life of pain. I was born with it and still have it in varying degrees to this day. It comes in shapes, sizes and various forms of diseases, illnesses, infections, and genetic and immune disorders.
Yet, with all the surgeries, drugs, treatments and therapies, only one help has stood the test of time – my relationship with Jesus Christ.
He became my Hope and His word, my medicine.
If you asked me for one verse that was instrumental, I could not give it. But if you asked me what I’ve learned about God’s Word and it’s application to being sick, I would tell you two things.
First, as Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” I can say that for my life, all things have worked together for my good.
Not that all things that have happened to me are good. But the word good is not the point of this verse. Our eye wants to catch it – GOOD – and leave out all the others. But the good that is worked out from things that are not, is God’s good – HIS GOOD PURPOSE for our lives. His plan is to use all the wounds, hurts and sorrows, EVERYTHING that happens to us, good or bad, to heal us and draw us closer to him and ultimately make us shining examples of his GLORY and LOVE so others can see and want to know him.
Pain has the opportunity to make us bitter or better. When I was younger and didn’t understand God’s gift, I was bitter. I pouted. I cried. I used anger and whatever else was at my disposal to survive. I didn’t want to be different or hurt anymore. But as the pain intensified, so did my walk with the Lord. The more it hurt, the tighter I held on and I came to understand, through the whisper in my ears or his voice in the wind, or a catch in a song, or a knowing deep inside as I read His Word, God loves me and He’s with me, no matter what happens in this life. I came to know, love and trust God and His Son, Jesus Christ, through pain.
The second thing I learned was that just because I was given this gift of pain, didn’t mean I was any more special than anyone else. God expected the same thing of me as He does of all of us . . . I was to do something with what he had given me and simply opening it and putting it on the shelf to gaze at and get lost in, would not be enough. He wanted me to pour out my pain, ever last stinkin’ bit of it back to Him as an offering.
Leviticus 23:18 says, “Along with the bread you shall present seven one year old male lambs without defect, and a bull of the herd and two rams; they are to be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.”
The Israelite’s celebrated the Festival of Harvest so that the first crops harvested from their fields could be offered to God.
After years of yielding nothing but bills, surgeries, pills and pain, I saw no harvest. Then Romans 8:28 came to mind and I remembered that God’s plan was not just for pain – it was for a harvest of good from out of the pain.
About this time I began to desire a different outcome other than bitterness and my prayers went from words of anger to a heart I never thought I would ever possess – I began to pray and bend and thank God for his gift and ask Him to use the only thing I had to offer – My pain for His purpose. I offered the only thing I had, to be poured out as a drink offering, producing a harvest for Him.
It’s been forty-eight years now with this gift of pain. I never know what will arise or when, but I wouldn’t trade it for any other life, even if I could. This gift gave me Jesus and connected me to the cross where I met my Savior, who died and rose again for me – my greatest gain and His greatest pain.
I’m still alive and for as long as I have breath to breathe, I’m doing my absolute best to live – my pain for His purpose.
Join me on this journey of hope at: https://fromonewomanshearttoanother.wordpress.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/From-One-Womans-Heart-to-Another-1384098821682081/ and on twitter at https://twitter.com/Christi40592130 and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fromonewomanshearttoanother/
*All verses are from the New American Standard Bible
from one woman's heart to another 