A friend e-mailed me and hinted strongly that she missed seeing recent posts in this blog. So, here I am. Again. But there is no opening attempt at a more colorful introduction. This is not because there is naught from which to be inspired.
Today is one of those days of mental confusion or fatigue or both. It is difficult at times to accept pain -- physical and mental -- with the sense of "rejoicing" to which the Scriptures affirm as appropriate. I have found that it can lead to questions or comments from others implying something pejorative about my authenticity or my sanity when I finally achieve anything close to that goal.
I will admit to not having recognized until re-visiting this blog that it has been a tougher year on me than I realized. It does not seem as long ago as the time conveyed by the date shown on the screen since my last blog.
Despite the medications (two handfuls each day) and conscious efforts to follow the regimen ordered by the doctors, the neurapathy is winning. If it were not for the blessing of voice recognition software, my ability to "write" would be severely limited by the pain in my fingers from just touching keys on a keyboard. Feeling of anything other than pain is gone from my feet as well. The creep of the neurapathy up my legs and up my arms is both sinister and mentally intriguing to sense occurring.
In addition, the essential tremor which used to only come in occasional fits now seems to be a permanent invader taking possession of arm and hand any time I try to concentrate on using my right hand. No. Really. The recent experiences of trying to get a spoonful of soup from bowl to my mouth has resulted in soup showers for me and my table companions -- not at all among my personal recommendations for ways to share a shower with someone loved.
I just recently received a diagnosis that these conditions seemed due to more than just the creep of neurapathy from conditions originally stemming from diabetes. I was told that I now have arthritis in the area in my neck which was broken in my youth.
We flew back to Ohio and Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks, and came back with cold/flu thing which turned into pneumonia.
Yet, it was as much the psychic pain as it was the physical pain which kept hammering at me. I know that most of us who have not altered significantly the traditional wedding vows have said those words referring to "sickness and health" and "better or worse." But, at such a time as one's wedding and absent the presence of obvious circumstances which force some attention to those words, none of us really consider very much having to take care of one's spouse let alone the sense of being a burden to one's spouse as such conditions arise.
I have a friend whom I love dearly. I would sacrifice a limb, an organ, or even my life for her or her family. She is that unique kind of friend for whom there should be an eternal life because she evidences the character that must arise from the existence of a God that cares. In my own quest through seminary, she was one of those who willingly acted as a sounding board for me as I was wrestling with things I needed to wrap my mind around before sharing my thoughts more generally. As we discussed the nature of love -- human and Godly -- she asked me one of those questions about my love for my wife and whether it fit the standards with which I was engaging in intellectual abstract.
My immediate answer to her was a joke in deflecting the significance with which that question struck me as vitally important. I do get accused of over-analyzing such things, so I am not surprised in retrospect that I gnawed at that question for some time before I considered my answer satisfactory to myself. While convinced of where the line really was for me between loving my wife and the quite different concept of loving the fact that she loved me, this recent foray in the slow entombing of my mind in a body defying feeling or control by me has given me cause to appreciate just how blessed I am by God. There was in these weeks in my blog hiatus an epiphany of indescribable wonderment at the realization that, despite what has happened so far to my body and my mind, she still looks at me with that same sense of personal delight and amusement which I first saw in her eyes as the reason for marrying her.
More than than this personal awareness of her in my life, I was convicted of just how much I should be loving not just her but even those people who annoyed me or hated me. Despite a sense of joy that came with wrestling with the idea and knowing that through an awareness of and a surrender to God that the latter was possible, I have felt physically and mentally exhausted during this period in trying to redirect my life's direction in a manner that this awareness was translated into practice in my life.
So, I am back. Co-opting the title of Brandon Heath's song, let me say that, despite the brevity in my time away from here, I'm not who I was.
Wishing you rest that can only be found in the peace that is God's shalom,
Ray.
