"Pain is a universal and yet intensely personal experience. It is the invisible scourge that cannot be adequately explained to those around us; it is the constant companion that accompanies us in a thronging crowd or in the quietness of a cloistered bedroom. As pain becomes prolonged and persistent, our ability to cope with it seems to break down. We come to feel helpless, lonely, anxious, depressed and even angry. We get frustrated when others cannot understand our pain and we become annoyed when they tell us that they empathize with us. How can I deal with this pain? How do I make it stop? The poignant words of patient Job of old come to mind, "Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away." (Book of Job 16:6)" - author unknown

Hello to my wife, family members who may read this, friends who may read this, fellow God Chasers, and anyone else.  I haven't written a new post since last Saturday.  Thankfully I had 111 others to choose from to re-post on my Chasing God facebook page.  Two things have gotten in the way of writing: going back to work (for myself again), and dealing with physical pain ... again.  I honestly thought those days were over.

I'm going to do my best to explain a few things.  Not just so those closest to me can have a better understanding of what I'm dealing with, or to make excuses, or to foster pity, or to get attention.  In the last two days I've had two very close friends lose their mothers ... and right before Mothers Day.  The last thing on my mind right now is self pity.  Like almost every other blog I've written though, I'm writing this as an emotional release for myself, and God willing, to possibly help someone else.  Not for attention or to be self-indulgent.  Please know that ... or just leave the page now and go back to surfing facebook or something.

I don't do well bottling emotions up.  I've read some comments on past blogs where people have called me 'real', or 'transparent', or 'honest'.  I won't judge myself regarding any of that.  It's not so much about me as it is those around me.  You see, if you're one of the people in my life who I interact with on a regular basis, you've been affected by my condition, and not in a positive way.  You've possibly had to put up with things you shouldn't have to put up with.  Or you've had to pick up the slack in areas you shouldn't have had to.  I'm sure there's more things you've had to deal with, I just can't remember them right now.

If you want 'real', and if you want 'transparent', keep reading.  You see, I'm angry, and I need to get it out.  I'm angry with the pain, and with myself.  Actually, it's more than anger.  I'm just really pissed off.

Here's an excerpt from an online article I was reading earlier today:

The first step in dealing with chronic back pain is to accept the fact that the pain will be persistent and to find ways to cope with it. In other words, it's an attitude adjustment where one stops trying to eliminate all pain but instead decides to make the best of it. It may sound surprising, but this acceptance of pain goes a long way toward dealing with it, and eventually reducing, chronic pain. Here are some steps toward dealing with chronic back pain.

 Stop trying to eliminate it, and make the best of it.  Accept it.  Really?

So I should abandon all hope of eliminating the pain, and just accept that each morning when I wake up I'll have to continue to grab the window sill next to my side of the bed to lift myself up.  I'll have stand there for a few seconds to get my balance before I make another move.  I'll have to continue at times to ask my wife to put my socks on for me.  I'll have to continue to be in pain sitting in a car, or at my desk.  I'll have the privilege of walking around daily feeling like I have knives sticking in my lower back, and in the backs of both legs.  I'll continue to suffer every time I step on one of Cooper's toys, or trip on the threshold leading into my kitchen, or do the dishes, or rake the lawn, or just about anything else most people take for granted.  I'm supposed to accept the fact that my wife has had to start doing things I used to do.  I have to accept the fact that each morning I wake up I don't feel any better than when I went to bed the night before.  I'm supposed to accept the fact that I'm just not good at dealing with constant pain, though after this long I should be a master at it.  I have to accept that there are things I'll never, ever get to do again ... things that I loved doing.  Those are the relatively easy things to deal with though ... should I keep going?  I'll also have to accept that for some reason, the same God who created me and who can heal me has chosen, for now, to leave me in this condition.  I'll have to accept the tears that my wife and I have shared when together we've sat and asked God "why?"  I'll have to accept that at times I just don't think straight, or think at all.  I'll have to accept the consequences of acting before thinking.  I guess I'm supposed to accept it when, as a result of not thinking (which is a 'by product' of many things ... medications, the pain, the associated depression, and just an overall change of being), I say or do things that hurt or upset others, or compromise relationships.  Again I ask ... really?

I guess the answer is yes.  Here's why: according to two doctors I see, I have two choices.  The first is to get an MRI, and a CT scan to see what's going on.  At that point we'd have to determine which type of surgery I'd need to 'remedy' the problem.  Surgery number six.  I don't know about you, but I don't like playing the numbers game with my body.  The second choice is to manage the pain with a prescribed narcotic.  I won't tell you what my options are as far as what narcotic I'd get to use, but none of them were very exciting.  Regardless of which I choose, I will still have pain daily for the rest of my life.  So, at some point I have to learn to accept it, almost embrace it, and learn to live with it.  If I don't, I'm afraid to see what kind of person I might become.

The toughest part of the last two years of being home healing for six months, and unemployed for 12 was the being alone.  Before you tell me to get over it, I realize I wasn't completely alone.  After all, I'm married.  I'd get to see friends from time to time.  I had facebook open all the time to stay in touch, but as far as physically being around people, and associating with them on a daily basis, and talking and interacting, and so on, I haven't had much of that.  I'm a very social person, and I need that person to person interaction.  I believe that moderate isolation affected me in more ways than I can count.  It's caused me to be even more insecure than I was before.  It caused me to feel more dependent on others than I did before.  It's a two edged sword though ... because I only trust so many people, and I tend to lean on the same ones over and over.  

When the dust settles at the end of the day, and I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep while the pain shooting down my legs is doing it's best to keep me awake, I think about the day.  Things I've said, or done.  It's at that time I realize the effects of the things I may have said or done that day.  Not every day ... I'm not a jerk or idiot all the time, but when I am, I usually start thinking about it as I'm trying to fall asleep.  Then of course I typically wake up with the same thoughts.  So I start my day off dwelling on my faults and the mistakes I made the day before, and I end my day thinking about my faults and the mistakes I made that day, and the 18 hours in between are spent battling with myself and the 'enemy' to overcome the low self image and low self esteem I've had since I was six or seven years old.  What goes on in my head isn't an excuse to act like a jerk at times.  I know that, and I hope I'm not coming across that way.  Like I said, I'm writing this down to walk myself through my own mind set, and to get past it ... and to maybe help someone else along the way.

I spent many years working physical labor type jobs.  I used to load hundreds and hundreds of cases of beer (cans, quarts, and 40 oz bottles) into package trucks five nights a week.  I used to install plants and trees all day, and build decks and retaining walls and pole barns.  I used to pour concrete sidewalks and curb and gutter and driveways and patios.  I was one lean, mean bad dude back then.  All of that was physically stressful, and at times, nerve racking, especially if the concrete was setting up too fast.  But the physical stress was always temporary, and at the end of the day I always felt a sense of accomplishment.  Emotional or mental stress can hang on for hours, or days, or weeks.  And when it goes away, there's no sense of accomplishment, only emptiness ... and wonder ... wondering when it's going to return.  Much of that work I used to do may be why I'm in the physical condition I'm in now.  I'd trade that physical stress for this emotional stress in a minute.  Life was so much better back then, at least in some ways.

So how can I put a book end on paragraphs of random thoughts?  How do I tie this in to Chasing God, and developing a deeper relationship with him ... which is what this blog is all about?  I can start with this ... God created me.  He knows all of my faults, weaknesses, hurts, habits, and hangups, and yet he still sent Jesus to the cross to provide a plan of salvation for an idiot like me.  He's also developed in me a sincere appreciation for every day I wake up breathing, in spite of the pain, because I know there are others who are much worse off than I am.  He's given me countless opportunities to put others before myself, because I've learned that when I focus on doing things for others, it takes my mind off the pain.  He's taught me how to love people with the most sincere, servant hearted kind of love ... something I didn't know how to do a few years ago.  Sometimes I may go too far, or try to love or serve or fix too much, but it's only because God has given me some incredible opportunities to know some wonderful people and I just don't want to miss out on any of them.  I love to serve others; I love to "do" for others; it's hard to let people do for me ... that's something else I need to work on.  So the bookend is what?  I believe it's that God loves me.  He may think I'm a doh doh brain, ding dong head at times, but God loves me, just the way I am.  And if God loves me ... loves me enough to send Jesus to die for me ... it's a slap in His face for me not to love myself.  The Bible says that we are to love others as we love ourselves.  Without being blasphemous, I think it's time I start to love myself the way I love others.  To anyone this may hit home with ... if any of what I've talked about sounds familiar, thank you for your patience, and for caring about me and loving me.  And remember ... I'm not where I want to be, I'm not where I'm going to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be.

In my out of the box way, I'm going to end with asking you to listen to a country song.  It's by one of my favorite artists, Jason Aldean.  The lyrics should be self explanatory.  God bless, and much love you to all.

Joe