Pain is bull%$*#, but pain is also medicine.
I am learning this as I have been enduring the worst physical pain of my life. Ankle broken. A surgery with 11 screws. Only 4 days of pain meds because of the laws against opioid use. Level 7-10 level pain every moment day and night for almost 3 weeks. Very little sleep. Four trips to the hospital, including two to the ER. Work lost. Feeling like I have a knife stuck in my foot that no one is taking out. Hospital bills. Fear that this will effect the way I walk forever, especially because the doctor said this much pain is not normal. Not being able to drive for possibly a long time. Weeks away from my husband and daughters because Justin needs to work on our cabin so my amazing sister in law is taking care of me.
It has been almost impossibly difficult. Such bull%$&*
And yet, that infuriating pain that I want so badly to disappear is also medicine.
Without this surgery, I may have never been able to walk again. That pain is my body finding those foreign screws and figuring out what to do about them. Calcifying so I can walk again soon.
I keep thinking of a book I read so long ago, The Gift of Pain, about a doctor who works with modern day lepers. He explains that lepers’ bodies become distorted because they feel no physical pain. Lepers don’t pull their hand away from the burner when it is burning. They don’t shift their bodies with the small pangs most of us have, shifts that we don’t even realize are protecting us from detriment. This doctor argues that without pain our bodies would be in great danger. Pain, he says, is a gift.
A horribly difficult gift, but a gift nonetheless.
I have also been thinking about Ecclesiasties 3:11 . He makes all things beautiful in his time.
Did God cause this pain? Allow this pain?
I don’t have an answer for those questions. But I do believe that these words are true.
He makes all things beautiful.
Does it feel beautiful now? Not really. It is more teetering on the side of torturous. But will it be made beautiful in time, even if it’s not in this life?
Yes, a thousand times yes.
And even now, in the midst of the worst physical pain of my life, there is so much beauty that is coming from it.
Spending so much time with my brother and sister in law and their kids, my sweet family that I had missed so much for the last few seasons since we all got quite busy and didn’t see each other very much.
He makes all things beautiful.
Overcoming my lifelong fear of bothering people by being so helpless that I have to learn to let people take care me.
He makes all things beautiful.
My sister in law cooking for me, being my chamber maid, advocating for me when the doctors weren’t talking to me, thinking of every healthy treat possible to make me feel better, watching movies with me, pretending she is a Spanish lady shaking my medicine like maracas and dancing to make me laugh.
He makes all things beautiful.
Friends coming by with flowers, cards, homemade pain remedies, knee scooters, promises of meals made once I am with Justin again, teams of people to help him move into our new apartment since I can’t be there, fundraisers, just so very much love.
He makes all things beautiful.
Being wheeled out to the deck without my phone so that I am looking at the sky instead of a screen, watching the clouds swiftly swim through the air. I am reminded of my favorite author saying “I have never seen a boring sky.”
He makes all things beautiful.
Being “wheel chair buddies” with my amazing nephew John Mark, who has Cerebral Palsy. Having more compassion on him than ever before for what he faces every day and what an incredibly strong person he is. Him throwing his arms around me and praying for me.
He makes all things beautiful
The homemade yellow construction paper mailbox my 6 year old niece made me for me, that I wake up most days to with the flag up, little letters from each of my sweet nephews and nieces to brighten my day. Feeling so touched that she thought to make such a loving gift for me.
He makes all things beautiful
So yes, pain is bull$&*#.
And yes, the remedy for the pain is in the pain itself.
Both are true at the same time.
What about you, dear ones?
What has been a horribly difficult gift for you, but a gift nonetheless?
What has God made beautiful in time for you?
What difficult pain are you facing now that you can trust will be made beautiful one day, even if it is after this life?