thorninmyside

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3

I have not been able to take any anti-inflammatory meds for the almost two months since I was hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism in September (and almost died, but that is for another post :-)and discharged home on a blood thinning medication. When you are on such meds you can’t take ibuprofen, etc. because of the risk of internal bleeding. So I have been dealing with more pain then I usually do. Ibuprofen, albeit in quantities probably made for someone four times my size, really helped to control the neuropathy in my left leg. Tylenol ain’t cutting it and I refuse to take anything stronger because I don’t want my cognition affected- I don’t find the dizzy, head in the clouds feeling conducive to driving or parenting, etc.
Then to top it all off, my wonderfully supportive hubby has been working 72+ hours a week, trying to meet a deadline for a project at his job.  He really takes the brunt of the evening parenting tasks and I am exhausted from filling his (which used to be mine before I was ill) shoes this week.  My whole body hurts, I fell in the shower which just added to the pain in my leg and added pain to my foot, and have been having excruciating headaches, probably from the stress of it all.  My flesh wants to crawl into a ball, have myself a good ole pity party and go to sleep until I feel better.
And, the chronic pain has really left me feeling negative at times. The poor me’s set in. Why do I have to hurt like this? Why won’t God cut me a break for once? Don’t worry, He has already heard me say these things to Him…and then I sat in my Thursday morning Bible study last week. I listened, cried, laughed, prayed and learned with my fellow sisters in Christ for two hours. And it wasn’t until I left that I realized I hadn’t thought about the pain in my leg the entire time.

Which leads me to this verse in Isaiah. God offers us perfect peace, from whatever is ailing our mind, hurting our bodies and troubling our souls. According to the Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, perfect is used as an adjective (as it is in this verse) 91 times and comes from the root- Tamim. This means “perfect, blameless, sincere, entire, whole, complete, full”. So, this verse promises perfect, blameless, sincere, entire, whole, complete and full peace to those of us that keep our minds steadfast (steadily focused on) God. 

He also calls us to be patient in our circumstances.  Patient in this sense is not referring to the “hurry up” syndrome that is so common in our society.  We are used to going through the drive thru and the Mickey D’s employees goal being to serve us in 90 seconds or less.  Any longer than that and we get frustrated.  We call this impatience.  But, this is not what God was referring to.  Patience in the context of Job and Paul is usually traced to the Greek word- hupomone.  This means perseverance and endurance.  Patience is having the endurance and perseverance to realize that my physical pain, this thorn in my side, is temporary and on the other side of Heaven I will not experience it.  It is only for now and if I can endure (which through the strength of Jesus Christ I most certainly can) my patience will so be worth it.  I’m getting a new, disease and chronic pain free, body in Heaven someday!  That is worth enduring this life and it’s trials for-don’t you think?

Now, I don’t know about you, friends, but that is exactly the type of medicine I need, peace and patience for my pain. I, in no way, mean to trivialize or downplay the effects of living with chronic pain. I am there with you and there are days that it can literally suck the energy and desire to function right out of my day- if I let it. We do have a choice. And I want to choose peace over pain.  Patience in my circumstances.   It is my prayer that God gives me the strength to do that and provides the same perfect peace to you!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS