Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts

1 Sept 2014

Getting pain for loving and living the Fight

The cat has a strange habit.

None of my other cats had it. Chats throws up. Yes, every now and then, the kitty will deposit a mess of still-being-digested contents at whatever spot she happens to be at. Our first instinct on seeing this? A chiding of course, "Chats! ....". Today however, I decide to go after her and give her a little tummy rub to soothe her. And this is what I got:


It is stinging me even now.

Talk about love being messy. Which part of "poor kitty' didn't she get? I feel utterly unappreciated, and I cannot argue with or reason with this feline. It is really painful.

All of us live with some form of pain; maybe the pain of regret or loss. Most of us learn to cope, or numb, or pretend. But there are many today who live where pain is a constant -
They are losing loved ones suddenly from blasts that shatter any solidity they may yearn for. Like in the Middle East.
They are being judged - first - simply because of their skin colour. Like in many parts of that free land called the US of A.
They are worried about being found out, exposed and rejected. Like the guys.gals who wrestle with being emotionally and physically attracted to the same gender.
There is simply no salve or solution, but there is this: Jesus enters the pain. 

I first heard this idea twenty years ago in seminary. In my youthful enthusiasm, the mere knowledge of it made it all so grand. I reached for this truth like it was a trophy and prize and may have uttered, "pain, do your worse for I am not alone!".

This cat scratch that still hurts is nothing. Over the years, Pain has thrown tornadoes and whirlwind against my soul and upset it in no small way.

Many days I wonder that I still stand.

Jesus has entered the pain ---
Is he here supporting me so I don't fall?
Is he giving me moral support, rooting for me with the "you can do it, coz I did" kind of thing?
Is he quietly working out this marvelous outcome, rigging the results while I am having this slugfest in the ring called broken humanity?

Jesus entered the pain by becoming one of us creatures-in-pain. He allowed his infinite being to be limited by time and space, subject to broken humanity and suffered all of the pains we do -

physically  from hunger to near-death physical afflictions,

emotionally from suspicion to outright betrayal,

and endured a pain none of us would ever have to: separation from God as a result of bearing the totality of sin.


In every season of pain, I have gone to this Jesus and asked him again, what does it mean that you enter our pain?
And I begin to realise that my pain is real. It is being taken seriously. I can talk to him about it. He is deflecting and absorbing some of it I am sure or I would totter and crash.
And like a dedicated medic who has rushed to the wounded solider in the trenches, he reaches over and bandages my wounds. He tells me it will heal. I look into His eyes and I believe Him even as the battle rages on.



As the bandage goes around the wound, he tells me too that I am to stay in the fight; not let the injury incapacitate me. I lean back and dreamily wish for Lucy from Narnia, coming up and applying her magic potion that would immediately restore me.

Sometimes it feels that way. It happens quick the healing. Other times, it seems the wound is going to just gape and mock me. But I arc and lift myself up; everywhere are the fallen and I must not get lost in my own pain....Even though sometimes there's the added burden of someone cussing nearby, another calls you a madman or a clown, others cry and melt down; and still a few yell back, "save yourself", the same words they said to Jesus that he may prove himself smarter and stronger; and if he did he would miss the point of love that dies for the beloved.


Lesser mortals would kick the cat that scratched. But I am no mere mortal now who contain glory am I?

"And you...he has made alive together with Him..." ~ Colossians 2v13

So I too enter into pain and deflect sometimes and absorb at other times. I too learn to bandage wounds and speak valour back into the wounded soul.

We are more than the wounded; we are the wounded healers.

And dear soul, how about just pausing for this: healer of my soul {michael talbot}





4 Jun 2014

Spiritually Destined, Desperate & Destitute - all at once!

This may seem strange, but it is possible to be destined and yet feel both desperation and even a tad destitute.

Destiny is the stuff of dreams. We are headed somewhere, there is gold dust and a rainbow (hopefully with a pot of gold at the bottom) is just round the corner. This is our idea of destiny so often. The thing is, when we have lived several decades, we invariably have said good bye to a few dreams. Some have crashed messily about us and we have been walking careful, hoping that we don't get splintered - again.

And so perhaps, the desperation begins to creep in some. Will my life count for anything in the end? What difference have I really made? I cannot even be sure my children are going to turn out right! Not another crisis?

Where is my happily-ever-after?

So the fairy tale diets we were fed haunts us for we thought we found the shoes, attended the ball, and even danced with the Prince; and now we feel like we are back to the humdrum, mundane, evil dark days of Ordinariness and we are destitute. After all, everyone else with their happy selfies seem more fulfilled.

And what happens? We hold back some. We step back, pull away.

I have been processing some decisions for many months. They are decisions that shape destiny. I notice afresh this morning that even though God has been granting me much peace, there is still that trace of desperation. I have made bold, hard decisions many times; and often it has cost me much. I would be lying to say they did not do me in some.

Disappointment can shrink wrap us.

Not only so, most of us live with an operating system that says, 'at all costs, avoid pain'. This is a dicey one. God designed us with nerves that avoid pain and detect pleasure. But we swing to extremes as usual: we run scared of all hints of pain. We forget how we have risen from the ashes, how we have stared death in the face, how the pain has sometimes kept us in safer places....

Jesus came, and taught us that pain may be a necessary friend. He helps us remember it for his chosen instrument is the Cross.

While we are never told to hurt ourselves; we must realize that being hurt is part of being human; and that Jesus not only understands and feels along with us; he has forever limited the damage it can do to those who turn to Him in simple trust.

"We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralised; 
we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; 
we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; 
we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken...w
hat we believe is tat the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly
raise us up..alive."


And perhaps, this isn't how you feel. It's okay. Let the Word wash over you until it soaks into your fibres and you are nourished to read it with resonance. For:

"Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, 
on the inside, where God is making new life, 
not a day goes by without his unfolding grace."

And why not join me over here to mark  Grace unfolding. For record keeping of the good stuff is what finally gives us shape.



And then, let's Dance to this wild promise; for that's the 'D' that can thread the Destiny, Desperation and sense of Destitution in our days. Dancing is feet that have learnt to follow Another's.


"These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, 
the lavish celebration prepared for us. 
There's far more than meets the eye...
The things we can't see now will last forever."



 ~ Today's Scripture taken from 2 Corinthians 4, The Message

18 Apr 2014

His Cross... and mine - because Resurrection is coming! {Journey #12}

lively lilies in polluted China

This is the story of Resurrection.


It began with a mis-step. An I-did-not-see-that curb moment. You may have experienced it before? That one moment you were striding confident and the next you come crashing down? My hands were on the floor, my right ankle twisted and I felt a sharp pointed pain in my left big toe. I did not know where to clutch and soothe!

That was nearly three months ago. With care and exercise, my ankle healed. But my left big toe nail region had turned all black, a sign of death. But, I thought, since my toe looked and felt like it was still very much alive, new nail will no doubt grow and it will all be well in time.

Life will push its way forward. But it can get really painful.

I decided to trim my dead black nail. Then I decided to poke around the blackened clog. Big Mistake. The very next day, I started experiencing some serious pain. I had unwttingly introduced an infection.


We began this journey because we were thirsty. We met with Jesus and heard him invite, comfort, assure, steady us. But then we enter deeper into His life as we walk with Him. This week, we see a Cross
looming ahead. He is walking towards it! We nervously follow...

It is his cross. For our sake. But if we dare to admit it, the cross is ours, rightfully. 
In fact, Jesus did not go to His cross so that we won't have to go to ours. He went so that we can. 

We must face our crosses --

Our traumas that left us hurt and seem to take forever to heal.
Our busy niggling that may have turned up more pain.
Our limping and hobbling rather than a full, steady, confident stride.

We are quick to look all around us and point to our horrid experiences (those mis-steps, mistakes), those persons and their expectations/weaknesses/sins, the harsh words...
The soil of our soul is rich food for the enemy to sow an infection. When he does, it will be painful.

It is painful to rehearse our hurts
It is painful to plan a payback
It is painful to doubt God
It is painful to feel alone, lost, unsure, to regret

(and Grace and slow to a trickle)

A course of antibiotics for the toe.
A course of antibiotics for our soul: going up for prayer, sharing with a friend, ranting in your journal...

May not do.

That dead toe nail had more in store. In death, it began to deform. It curled. So as the new nail grows, the curled old nail began to burrow into my flesh. Fresh pain. I decided it is time to get down and deal with it. The doctor had warned that removing the nail would expose the toe and remove the protective covering which is the nail's job. But the nail was malfunctioning. It was not protecting, it was hurting. It must go.

I was nervous. The doctor had said it can take weeks to heal. After two anaesthetic jabs, the doctor yanked and said, 'O, its not so bad, It's coming off like a door. Just this bit like a hinge.' Then, 'Ok, when i remove the rubber band, it will bleed some....O, it's not bleeding very much at all. I think it has healed quite a bit.'

So healing grace has been at work but it's all blocked from view because of the dead black nail!
Is God's work being blocked from your view? Are you unable to trace what the Spirit is up to? Are you unsure of Jesus' presence in your life? Are you looking for Life?

My son had asked, "why call it Good Friday? It's not good! Jesus died. [frowns]"
me: it's good.... for us.

The dying is good for us.
Because the Life is always throbbing and pushing forth. 




"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, 
but Christ lives in me; 
and the life which I now live in the flesh 
I live by faith in the Son of God, 
who loved me and gave himself up for me." 
~ Galatians 2v20 (NASB)


Dear soul, Good Friday is a day of death and death is no longer what we fear for we know the story. It is the prelude to Life. If God is bringing forth Life, renewing hope, reviving dreams, restoring faith; then you must let that which stands in the way go. You must recognise the death to receive the Life. You must trust the Life you can barely see more than the death that appears so obvious {live by faith in the Son of God...}

Yes, you worked really hard - yet
Yes, you tried so long  - yet
Yes, you cried and prayed and pounded on the doors of heaven  - yet

It is time to accept that you live in a fallen world where you will be let down, as surely as you let others down.
It is time to accept that your best shots may not rip asunder the heavy curtain hanging between you.
It is time to accept that you just may not be able, ever to, figure this one out.
It is time to see that our worst enemies are not out there; but within: pride, lust, greed, envy, unforgiveness.

It is time to die. It is time to Live.

Friends, get ready, for Resurrection is coming!

Take a moment and let this Michael Talbot song wash over you. Sing the refrain with your lips, then your heart, then your whole being.

Peace dear friend.





20 Nov 2013

Bereft. The feeling of losing something precious permanently.

Most hearts eventually have to reckon with this overpowering sensation.
This week someone got drunk. Another drags on more cigarettes than she intended to. Another walks, life around but not within her.

It's a dark night where the sun doesn't seem to rise. Negative emotions overrun while positive ones seem to have gone into hiding. Tears make their way to the surface without the least effort. There is little fire left in desires as everything feels blah.


It could be an unexpected, bad shattering news or a slow dawning sense that things are not as they seem; until a point of clarity reveals the truth of the situation.  Either way, nothing will be the same again.

It's hard to know what to say - to self, and others.  After all, it is like being forcibly sucked into a blackhole.

Young shepherd David lived and acted based on his faith in, and fervor for God. He served the King, he defeated the enemy. Despite his noble choices and right moves and the well-known praise and accolades he was receiving; the truth of the situation began to emerge: he had aroused the jealousy of King Saul. The tension turned into threat to his life, and as with all situations, things compound. When we reach Psalm 52, David was reeling from the devastating news that eighty-give priests were killed on account of him. The Psalm is a poetic way to teach truth; in this case, David asserts that through the reversals and losses, he will refuse to play the cynic. Instead, he senses God's hand on him and wrote ~


I, like a flourishing olive tree 
in the house of God,
put my trust in God's faithful love,
for ever and ever

There is much that didn't make sense. God's king has an inverted sense of what is right. David is targetted for treason. Others are implicated and killed. Everything is a mess; God it seems, has left the building. It would be easy to feel sorry, to rile, to strike back, to curl up into a ball and cry softly to death.

Sword
Goliath's sword that priest Ahimelech gave to David {1 Sam 21}  
Meanwhile, history tells us that some four hundred ragamuffins - "in distress, in debt, had a grievance" looked to David as their leader. {1 Samuel 22} Most leaders today will run a mile wide from such candidates for discipleship or leadership. But by chapter 23, the number had swollen to six hundred. A leader on the run for his life; battling darkness of guilt for causing the death of others, the pain of false accusation, the demands of broken people. He says he is a flourishing tree!

There is a core to our being that can be unshaken - for it is held, defined and kept by One who alone gives, sustains and protects life:

God did not deliver him into Saul's power {1 Sam 23v14}





Things will happen to us.
But God decides what to deliver us to. With the Cross, there is only one option for God: God will safeguard us for himself. He will deliver us up to Grace, restoration, healing, peace, truth, and power.


We may feel like we are in a blackhole, spinning helplessly. We don't know what to say or how to respond. But like David, we can resist the blackhole's power to snuff us out because Life is in us and nothing can extinguish that.
Indeed, we can afford to lose anything and everything because we will never lose what is essential: our loved selves. We are all olive trees that flourish because in the worst of days and nights, there is still God's faithful love and His goodness toward us. 








6 Nov 2013

When It's All Too Much & You Nearly Give Up

Psalm 32 begins with a powerful definition: the one who is Blessed is the one who has been made right with God. 


When we are mired in our sins and other's sins, when we are overwhelmed, tired, near-depression... we need to recollect that our most important need has been met. As the Westminster catechism* puts it, our only hope in life and death is that we already have hope because we believe in Jesus Christ and have received his gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. Everything else is add-on; and nothing can take this away if we refuse to let it go.

Out of this place of a living relationship with God restored we negotiate & navigate life - and never ever all by ourselves even if it feels so.

God's active presence in our lives is easy to overlook and can be difficult to spot because our reflex to pain and threat is self-preservation; to use our own understanding and means to protect, shield, and vindicate ourselves.

This self-reflex is named for what it is: sin.
It's been said the word sin has 'I' in the middle of it. The indications are not hard to see:

self-pity ~ I'm so poor thing

blame ~ he/she is hurting, stifling, unfair, insensitive (and it's probably true: of them, but just as true of you and me!)

comparison ~ after more than twenty-five years my pay is less than a fresh grad (this is mine)

envy ~ he's so patient with her, what co-operative children...

pride ~ you don't have any idea

When we are willing to see that wrapped in our very real pain is this persistent thread of self; we can cry out for help and be ready to receive it. this is when our hearts and eyes open to see:

God has not let the waters swept us off

There are songs, hints, intimations of deliverance

God is guiding us with his eye constantly on us!
{this one comes with a vivid picture that has 2 applications:
Firstly, don't be like an animal that must be guided by constraints. We are children of God that are guided by an intimate walk with God; making choices out of our love for our Father, wanting to please and honour Him. But at times we simply don't. When that happens, then don't be like a wild horse that runs from what is needed for guidance. When a horse subjects itself to a loving master, it will be fed, cleaned, cherished and learn to use all its prowess to demonstrate what it's truly capable of. God may have to use a bit and bridle - limits; but when we relax to trust, these limits lead us to focus, to feast, to flourish. As we grow in trust, we walk in freedom more and more as children of God, confident that our motives guide our choices aright}

freedigitalphotos.net

We are enfolded in faithful love


So lift your heart to God today my friend, like, right now.




*the Westminster catechism is a Reformed church document developed using a series of Qs to help new believers become grounded in basic and definitive faith doctrines so that they are guided in their life. Click here for one site on it

4 Nov 2013

Healing for help

Psalms 30:2 ~
O LORD my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.

 This is a Psalm of a cry for help and an experience of being saved from mortal danger. Perhaps it refers to a sickness, hence the healing. But mortal danger and the threat to life can come in many forms.

 Whatever form it takes though, our one desire is to be rid of it quickly and painlessly.

 I am wrecking my brain for a story in the bible where God airlifts the person out of his troubles. The only ones i know are the ones on their way home namely, Enoch & Elijah.

In fact, this imagery came vividly to me once when I was so sick and tired of some ongoing troubles I had: I saw a huge 'X' over a common rescue scene - a helicopter with a lifeline lowered! The message to me was,"no,not this way". It was reinforced by another impression I had perhaps a year earlier when I felt God say to me, "you need to walk though this"- and immediately I recall the famous line from Psalm  23, 'the valley of the shadow of death..'.

We want help; we get healing.

God takes us through the tunnel, the dark, the death, and makes us more well, more complete, more whole. The help God gives is not a short-term relief but an eternity-set goodness ... We know honestly that we don't have the patience for ourselves; the way we keep making those same silly mistakes and horrendous self-centred ways we inflict others and ourselves with pain. God alone has the distance of patience, goodness, forgiveness, and gentle enabling we need to unlearn, and to relearn about... life and love.


Thing is when we deny or ignore the dark, it doesn't go away. God's way is to vanquish it; to strip it of its power over us. He does this by taking us by the hand and walking with us into those dark places so that His Light may illumine and take away the dread- as we discover that these 'monsters under our bed' are really   not.so.powerful.



Cry to God for help - and get ready to be healed.

24 Aug 2011

to really live means...


Morris West

It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price. One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms open. One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.

Source: quoted at herondance.org