I haven't felt terrifically creative of late.  I haven't felt like pondering ideas, sharing thoughts or waxing sentimental.  The smallest tasks seem insurmountable.  Thinking has been challenging.  And it is only a very small tooth that is the cause of this all consuming pain.

A few days have gone by pain free.  AH!  How happy life seems when some cloud has been lifted.  And yesterday, the pain soared again.  I was ungrateful.

The first leg of this goofy little journey, I felt up to the task of offering my pain for others, of uniting it with Christ, or embracing in it some small way.  It had value.

But yesterday, after a few days of thinking that I was through this thing, I was only angry and discouraged.

Why?  Well, there are lots of pragmatic reasons why.
Three weeks of not getting anything done around the house takes its toll on the family.
I don't like pain because it hurts.
I'm tired of people having to do things for me.  I'm the caretaker.
It's not fair.
I have a couple of presentations this weekend that I'm looking forward to and I want to have fun, not pain.
I feel sorry for myself.
And, above all, it's not fair and I feel sorry for myself.

Why the change?  Why could I handle it a few days ago with some grace, but not now?


Physical suffering is bad, I'll grant you that.  But emotional, spiritual, psychological suffering is SO MUCH WORSE.  I've turned my physical pain, which is tangible and contained, which I can even control to some degree with pain medication INTO emotional suffering.

I've chosen to make it about fair.  About what I deserve.  About my rights.  Then my suffering becomes uncontrolled, unmanageable.  It becomes a spiritual battle.  It's just pain.  And pales in comparison to all the anguish and the loss in my own tiny little sphere, experienced by the people I love.  And in the magnitude of a world rife with suffering.  It's just pain.

When will I learn?  "A fool gives vent to anger, but the wise quietly hold it back." 
Proverbs 29:11