A Blessing

From A Place of Healing by J.E. Tada

For pain is a bruising of a blessing; but it is a blessing nevertheless. It's a strange, dark companion, but a companion--if only because it passed through God's inspecting hand. 
In the meantime, these afflictions of mine---this very season of multiplied pain---is the background against which God has commanded me to show forth His praise. God bids me that I not only seek to accept it, but to embrace it, knowing full well that somewhere way down deep--in a secret place I have yet to see--lies my highest good. I pray that my pain might be removed, that it might cease; but more so, I pray for the strength to bear it, the grace to benefit from it, and the devotion to offer it up to God as a sacrifice of praise. Such prayers are a way for me to know Him deeper, higher, richer, wider and fuller--much fuller.
[Thus far] He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.

My own walk with pain has changed me in so many ways that I am not sure I even fully understand them. I feel that the compassion I had before for others was a pale imitation of what I feel now, such as my earlier post about cancer patients. My mind has changed, my thoughts have changed. I feel like such a stranger to the person I was seven months ago when walking, driving and working as a nurse. The person I am now would barely recognize the person then, and not just by physical views. 
Have I embraced pain? Likely not---that would be a very difficult thing to do, although I have maybe accepted it as something to carry daily (and nightly, let us not forget that surprise!). I can certainly say I feel God has blessed me by being ever closer to me, holding me closer on my worst days, and celebrating on my better days. He has brought forth a positive flood of people who have touched my heart to tears by seeking to visit me, bringing food, DVDs, hugs and kind words, sending emails, texts and other forms of contact. Those little things are so meaningful to me...and make me think of how Jesus said how we did things for Him when He was hungry etc., to the confusion of the listeners. I think because we house the Spirit...when one does something kind for someone you do indeed do it for and to God, even (and especially) when you do not realize it. I can never ever thank those who have helped me enough. It is a hard battle to walk, but I feel that I have God carrying me, and my dearest friends and family and carrying banners and chanting battle cries behind and we all walk along. I am never alone, because God is with me. But I am also never alone because God has brought me to the attention of others. There are many who do not have that blessing.

In the first and second decade of my paralysis, there were seasons during which my yearning for complete healing and a return to life-as-it-was gripped my heart. My desires have [since] settles on Heaven and on the immediate presence of my Lord Jesus.

I have periods throughout the week, especially on upswings of increased mobility, when I crave for the what-I-had. The upswings are the hardest, because you know in your heart, no matter how you stuff the thought....that it is only a matter of time. I do not have medical remission of RA, so a flare will come. Days, hours, I do not know...but I will likely face terrible nausea and aching, stabbing pain once again. That is why those upswings create such a longing...when I am sick I am too miserable to notice. 
However, life-as-it-was would be impossible to obtain. I am different, and am made more different each day. I think if I faced life as it was...I would be disappointed. Not by the better mobility, surely, but by my very thought processes. 
There have been many thoughts I have finally given to God, old sins of anger that I thought were long gone, but after being forced to examine my heart and soul day in and day out, night in and night out---I found those sins were still alive. A pulsating tumor of sin, waiting for just the right moment to metastasize. They are gone now. So I wonder what life out there would be like now, with so much of what I thought was gone now actually being gone. How pitiful the way we cling to disgusting sin-tumors. Worse yet, I found we cling to sin-tumors without even knowing we were...until you have the time to sit for hours and examine yourself. I feel such relief to have those sin-tumors taken out by the Great Physician, that the chemo and radiation of the Word and Spirit have stopped all growth of those particular tumors. Thank the Lord! 

Does God heal today in the 21st century? Absolutely, He doe! Every time you bounce back from the flu or heal from surgery, that's God performing His Psalm 103:3 thing.

People will scoff, stating that the body healed itself. But I know of too many cases where there was no reason for a person to not get over the flu, or not heal from a surgery...yet they didn't and they died. There was no physical, scientific reason for the death. It really is a blessing that anyone ever gets over anything, or that people are ever born "normal". And I have heard of miraculous healings....people who were so startled by what they saw they would literally blanch when they told the tale. I have no doubt God can heal. But:

God reserves the right to heal or not...as He sees fit....The Lord came to Paul. Spoke to Paul. Encouraged Paul. Isn't that proof that He cared? 
But the fact is I only know so much, I only understand so much, I only see so much and I only grasp so much of what I see. Christ and the manner in which He approached suffering is to be our focus, especially when the weight of out cross seems overwhelming.
 
Note that God did not remove the thorn from Paul...Paul was told that His grace was sufficient for him (Paul)--It is a hard lesson to take. Everyone would rather have the "easier" answer of healing than having to rely on God's grace as being sufficient. But...even if we were healed, would life really be "easier"? How else would I have discovered my hidden sin-tumors? Or discovered a new passion for cancer sufferers? I will likely never know, and nor would anyone else. C.S. Lewis' Aslan replied to Lucy in regards to knowing what would have happened: "To know what would have happened? No, child, no one is permitted to know that." 
Weighty crosses are hard to take. Ask for help. If you think about it, someone carried Jesus' cross part of the way to the hill. So I think it is ok to ask for help from God first and foremost with the cross I carry...but also to ask for help from others.