Ten years is a long stretch in a man's life. Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon time we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment and suffering. Time lost is time we have not filled, time left empty. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Letters and Papers From Prison", page 1, 1953 by The Macmillian Company, New York.
I feel often a prisoner of time. Thankfully, as I have said countless times, overall my RA/PsA/Fibro has lessened its death-grip on my life. I am able to do something for a couple of hours a day before my body fails me into sleep, wraith-like staring at the wall, or miserable nausea.
Time remains a prison. I watch time slip away from me, opportunities and chances of adventure fly by me like so many hummingbirds zipping past feeders chasing one another.
What, pray tell, is one to do with one's life? How are we best productive? Even looking back on my life BEFORE my disease sunk its teeth into me, I find gaping holes of uselessness. Our days are filled, mainly, with uselessness...possibly more so with the advent of so many electronics and other things to entertain.
Entertainment is good (or can be). I am grateful every day for the electricity that flows into the house and runs my TV and DVD player. Being horribly nauseated is not enjoyable but let me assure you that the droning on of some innocent, well-loved TV show is very soothing to those of us with RA or other AI diseases.
But useless. How useless I often feel at home. The miniscule housework I do now in comparison to pre-RA days is laughable. My RN work is even more laughable. I must have a purpose!
Thus, this dear blog, and you, my dear reader, follow along in the only thing that I find has meaning. It has meaning enough to stamp out the heart-wrenching disappointment of not being an RN at this time; it smothers the self-rage at being physically limited beyond what I ever expected in my 20s.
My journey into the Word, the good authors that have written on the Word and their experiences with God is my purpose. I cannot do what I once did, what I now (although nursing still haunts me) see as useless work, work with no real point. God is my purpose. God is your purpose. The world distracts us, time pulls at us, leading us on quests for which we do not need to wander. We were created for one purpose: serving God.
I considered myself serving God when working as a nurse. Surely, of all things, being a nurse would serve God! Do not think me doubting that such a thing is indeed true---I consider many people who are working at whatever job they are to be serving God. We are, after all, to work as if we are working for God.
Now, consider that all your physical capabilities are stripped from you. Or, as in my case, 70% function lost due to pain (I can "work" through that; movement lessens it) and nausea (forget it. Worst nausea in the world. Ughrhgh). What do you do? There is little service you can do outside your home. Little service you can do at your home. You cannot even necessarily stand social media due to Pride. (Let us say that RA is one of the best methods of crushing Pride).
You turn to God. Or you go completely mental. There is no half way. You turn to God. You delve into study of God, and see how overwhelming the chance to study God is. The more I learn, the more I see I have to learn.
I love learning. I love science. Studying God is more intoxicating that anything else I have studied---and I went to college for 7 years. God is our purpose. Everything we do here is for God. If it is not, we are vastly fooling ourselves in the importance of what it is we are doing.
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