Where can I go from your spirit?

    Or where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning

    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me,

    and your right hand shall hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

    and night wraps itself around me,”

12 even the darkness is not dark to you;

    the night is as bright as the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.  (Psalm 139:7-12)

 

“I once was lost, but now I’m found” (from “Amazing Grace” by John Newton)

 

This is my first blog post after my knee replacement surgery.  As with most of my plans, things did not go like I wanted things to; in fact all of my good intentions were dashed pretty much as Hugh got me in the house after my surgery. 

 

I had intended to rock my knee surgery recovery.  I had a whole house of carefully assembled mobility aids.  I had meals and support lined up.  I had started the exercises given to me at the “Joint Replacement Surgery Class”.  I even had my grab bag of pain management techniques at the ready – you know – distraction, meditation, deep breathing;  All of the stuff we are told is ‘good and necessary’ self care following surgery.  I knew I would experience pain.  I wasn’t really afraid of the pain because I live with chronic pain.  I knew I needed to be compliant with the treatment prescribed.  I intended to use all of the tools I was given and to be compliant with all of the things I was told I needed to do to get better.

 

I like ‘knowing’ things.  That makes me feel secure.  I also like being compliant with choices that people who have more information than me make.  That also makes me feel secure. 

 

But all my intentions and all of my ‘knowing’ was thrown out the window because of a tiny little virus that wormed its way into my intestinal track, violently attacked my body, and continued to limit my ability to manage three weeks later.  An unpredictable and horrible coincidence that meant that all of my ‘knowing’ and all of my ‘intending’ was thrown out of the window.  I couldn’t comply with treatment; I could barely lift my head of the pillow.  I couldn’t ‘rock’ my recovery – there was no ‘recovering’ in sight.  I couldn’t ‘manage’ my pain because there was no ‘management’ to be found.  I have never felt so stripped of everything that I knew was good and helpful, everything that allowed me to have control and autonomy, everything that allowed me to feel that I was still ‘me’ and that I could manage. 

 

Even describing this in writing gets me anxious and teary. 

 

Right before my surgery, I was talking with a friend of mine who casually said “you’ll be fine.  You’ve already had the Big Guy give you pain and disability; you experienced the worst already”.  You have to know that my friend is an Atheist.  He also is incredibly supportive and respectful, and I really enjoy the way he thinks.  But it really threw me for a loop for a moment because it forced me to really think about the whole issue of suffering, and the role of suffering in our lives.  Is suffering caused by God?  If so, why?  What purpose does it serve?  I have had other people comment that suffering is meant to ‘teach’ us something; or its meant to be something that we ‘overcome’ so that we become better people as a result. 

 

I can’t for a moment believe that.  I can’t for a moment believe that the God who loves me would deliberately inflict me with pain and suffering to ‘make’ me into something.  I can’t for a moment believe that my pain, my genetic disorder, and even the Noro virus are things that were deliberately doled out to me because I needed a ‘lesson’ or I needed to change, or even that I needed to become some kind of inspirational disability warrior. 

 

So what do I believe about the suffering that I went through?  Well, in short….

That it was awful. 

It doesn’t have meaning.  It doesn’t have purpose.  It was just awful.

And even in the middle of the awfulness, I believe that God was with me.

“….if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there….”

I can’t say that I had some kind of supernatural spiritual awakening as a result of my suffering.  I can’t say that I’ve found deeper meaning and purpose in all of this.  I can’t even tell you that as I was lying in bed unable to see beyond what my body was feeling that I had any sense at all of God’s presence with me.  But I can tell you, today, almost four weeks later

 

….That despite my lack of awareness, my dashed intention and my useless knowledge, that God was there, continues to be there, and continues to draw me into God’s presence.  Not for any reason than because God is God, and I am me. 

 

I may have lost myself for a few days, but God never lost me. 

And today that’s Good News.

 

Blessing today, and Remember you are Loved.

~Rev. Lynne