So that basically is IT: Pain is the NORM...I never experience a pain free moment, not for one single, solitary second...jeez, I wouldn't know what to do! I would guess it has been 25 years at least, since I've felt reasonably fit and pain free, perhaps a bit longer. So I really don't expect anything different...that is why I don't get down about pain...if I can live my life reasonably, on a day to day basis like this well I'll take it. I'm good to go...
Life itself is like that...expectations have a lot to do with how we feel about ourselves and the kind of lives we lead. I could sit around and pout & whine about how I hurt all the time...I could fall into that trap of feeling sorry for myself...I could do that but what would I achieve? Would it make my life any better? Would the pain disappear? NOPE...it certainly would not and I'd never be able to get it out of my mind..it would dictate my mood and my behavior. I'd be a miserable, whiny mess and I want no part of that at all. Today I hurt but I have a life....a productive and mostly fulfilling daily life....
Honestly it is easier and yea, way more rewarding to look at it more in a positive light. Trust me, there are much worse things a person can be trying to live with then (treatable) chronic pain. I've see it and experienced it...anyway the perspective I get from living with my disability makes me much more understanding and compassionate toward other people. I am more willing to accept them the way they ARE instead of wishing they were something or somebody else. I appreciate life a whole lot more this way.
Now I don't pretend to always handle pain so positively...no, I have my moments where I feel so close to being overwhelmed...like I am going to succumb to it and quit on life..but thankfully, I never seem to reach that point. I feel like I have this disability for a reason...it allows me to be more understanding/compassionate, I can relate to the difficulties other people are having with pain. I can demonstrate through my own experience that you can indeed deal with pain and have a rewarding and very positive, active daily life. That you do not need to give in to addiction or quit on life, you can find solace, comfort and Grace in God. I say without hesitation that the relationship that I have today with God is the greatest, single outcome of my dealing with pain, hardship and addiction.
I am not convinced that I would have gotten to a place in my life where I surrendered to the Lord and his will if I hadn't been beaten into submission by my alcoholism & addiction. Today I can surely witness to the fact that I truly thought and believed that I was a hopeless case, that there was NO answer for my trouble, for my pain and self-hatred except for suicide..and that I actually gave in to that impulse and expected to die..yet it didn't happen. I survived...and without hesitation I attribute that survival to God. Really!? Oh Yea, who else could be responsible....He had a different idea then I about what what I could become and how I would get there. And because of that I choose to die in HIM daily, renounce the old life and FOLLOW HIS example and his way each of life each and every day.
I admit, talking about my failures: addiction, being raped, my anger, my selfishness, my controlling nature, my dishonesty, etc., etc. is quite unpleasant and I really would rather not EVER talk about such things again. But that is my story and my GIFT to others, yea I said GIFT...my experience and the ability to share it is a GIFT. Of that, I have NO DOUBT today....WHY do I believe that? Because I can now show anyone who is interested, what a life lived only for selfish purposes can look and feel like. The story of my life and my addiction isn't a tall tale or a movie...it is the story of one man who thought HE could run the show. Who truly thought he knew better then God and anyone else what was best for himself and his family. The end result certainly speaks for it self: Pain, heartache and despair...no way out except death by suicide, alone and afraid. The bottom line of all of this is: My way of running my life made suicide look like the only alternative I had left...
I can now attest to the simple fact that it does NOT ever have to end that way again. God wants ALL of us, regardless of gender, race, creed, upbringing...he takes all of us in, he loves us and never forgets us. It really seems to me that the more hurt or troubled we are the more he loves us...He sacrificed his SON so that we could be saved, so I could be saved..and I most certainly FEEL saved today. I feel whole again...for the first time in my life.
