Choosing Pain

I make it a concerted effort to ensure that my son has the pain medicine that he needs. And I mean almost neurotic just to keep him in a non-pain or minimal pain state. Having sickle cell, I know the pain is not just excruciating, but it’s damaging. But lately, I’m finding medicine doses in his bedroom and amongst his things. And when I ask him why, he doesn’t know and swears he’s taking everything but doesn’t understand why it’s not working. 

This weekend, we did MegaCon. I knew it was going to be a lot of walking, so pain potential. I gave him medicine before we left, medicine during, after and that night. We got home last nights and while helping him unpack this morning to get ready for school (as he’s crying in pain) I find 4 doses of pain medication on the floor next to him. He’s telling me that he’s taking everything I give him and he doesn’t know where the medicine came from. And when I say crying in pain, I mean I physically got on my knees to put his socks on him because he couldn’t pain. Im 23 weeks pregnant and swollen on my own, but my baby needed help to get dressed, so I’m doing my duties as his parent to help him. And happy to do it because I know he couldn’t. But finding that medicine on the floor feels like he’s sabotaging his own efforts to feel better. That all of the effort that I’m putting in to make sure he’s ok is going to waste because he won’t follow up and do his part. And I know he’s not intentionally taking it (at least I hope not). But the end result is still the same. Excruciating pain, another day of missed school and more potential for complications and damaged organs.

I’m sitting here in bed writing this and I’m like God is this what You feel like when You give us all of the tools and plans, but don’t do them and suffer because of our own disobedience? I’m frustrated and hurt to my core. His remedy is sitting next to him. God I’m sorry for every disobedient thing I’ve ever done. I understand the feeling of watching your children suffer when they didn’t have to. I understand watching how it could be just a small ache, if the work had been followed through, but it’s doubling over pain. God help me to remember this feeling the next time I directly or indirectly decide to not follow the plans you have set for my life. That even though I may be “inconvenienced” for the moment, it’s for my ultimate good soon after. That my relief is in my obedience. 

Today I’m frustrated and I’m hurt. Hurt for my son because I have to watch him hurt until the medicine starts to work and frustrated because he’s not doing his part. I want my son to have a long, full and healthy life…but he has to do his part. 😔😔

Pain Free

When I first started growing in this pregnancy, I was hurting and sick everyday.  My back hurt, my stomach hurt, my hips hurt. Everyday for weeks on end.  I had been sick from conception to delivery with every other pregnancy that I’ve had, so in my mind it just comes with the territory of me being pregnant. That’s just something that I’m gonna have to deal with.  And I was willing to just deal with it cause that’s just what pregnancy does to me.  I’m less than 3 years from a C-section, so my body is trying to adjust to stretching back out, so I’m going to feel those adjustments because that’s just what I’m gonna have to do. So I would move in a way that would prevent pain as much as possible. I would roll over in bed slow, sit down slow, stand up slow, whatever I could do to minimize.  And I felt so debilitated. Cause in my mind, I’m just pregnant, that’s all. I can still do what I need to do for my family and my body wasn’t keeping up with my mind. So on top of pain and sick, I was frustrated.  I couldn’t even be intimate with my husband like I wanted to because of the pain and the sick.  And I know he’s being understanding, but we’re used to being able to move a certain way with each other. So to not be able to, made me feel a way.  

Being 37 years old and 5 pregnancy losses (which is another conversation for another day), I have to go to a high risk specialist for this pregnancy.  My husband and I are talking to the lady in the office and I’m still thinking that my symptoms are just what they are. But my husband, being the advocate for me that he is, asked about my headaches and what I can take.  The lady recommended magnesium, so I asked about the rest of my pain and she said it would work for that too.  Of course, he picks some up the same day.  I looked it up and the perks seemed to be really dope. So I took it that night and woke up to no pain at all.  I mean NONE.  I spent the whole first day still trying to be careful how I moved.  Even though there was no pain, I was moving like I was still in pain.  I had to retrain my brain to move regularly and to be mindful should more pain come. 

We have no idea how much we go about our lives with the addition/crutch of pain.  Whether that’s physical or emotional pain, we cater the way that we move, speak, and live according to that pain. And God wants to heal us and will heal us, but we’re so used to functioning in pain that we don’t even know how to move without it.  Our pain becomes a part of our identity, and when God fixes that thing, we don’t even know who we are. 

The Mind Forgets What The Body Remembers

 I’m 11 weeks pregnant as of a couple days ago and my body is slowly starting to show.  My mind constantly forgets that my body is changing and I’m being constantly reminded that I need to slow down and not try to move so quickly.  The things that I used to be able to do fluidly take a little more time, and I’m reminded of that daily.  Until I can actually see the belly, I constantly forget that it’s there.  Can’t get comfortable enough to sleep well, can’t eat the things that once satisfied me and now I have a craving for things that I wouldn’t normally eat.  My clothes don’t fit, I’m tired and my emotions are beyond my control.  Everyday I’m reminded that everything in me is changing, whether I see it or not.  I’m evolving everyday, even though my body looks the same.  And because I don’t see it, I forget that it’s happening.  That is, until my body reminds me.  

And it reminds me of how it is when the Lord gives you something. Your flesh (mind) pays attention but kinda doesn’t. Especially when you can’t see what the Lord is saying. So your flesh forgets and has to be reminded, and your spirit is there to remind you every time.  It makes you uncomfortable with the things that used to be comforting and make you crave different and more.  But as time goes on and you start to see what God is saying and you see yourself evolving and changing to prepare for what’s to come.   

This Time Last Year

This time last year, I thought my life was over.  I had no job, we were living in a hotel, and my marriage obliterated before my eyes.  I had heard what the Lord said (that the separation was temporary, the housing would come back together, that I would never see those days again), but in that moment, all I could see that I was broke, alone, broken, and lonely. I had 3 children looking at me trying to figure out if I was ok while I tried to hide and cry in the shower, not realizing that they could hear me.  I didn’t know how I was going to pay for the hotel stay, let alone get the money to get out of there.  Was my marriage just over or would this just be a fight? I mean I packed up everything my husband owned and left it at the door. And he actually took it and left.  And then came back and we had the biggest fight that we had in our lives. A fight that triggered almost my entire childhood worth of trauma.  But this time I wasn’t the kid sitting in the corner terrified, I was the adult. I was the parent. I was the spouse.  And I had to play it cool while my insides were just as scared as they were.  I didn’t realize how that 48 hours that transpired in that time of my life would be the running start to get me where I am today.  You know how the old folks say “God kept me, even when I didn’t want to be kept”...I can say that I understand that so much more now. I didn’t want to be kept because I wanted to crawl into a hole and just never come out.  I wanted to let the depression overtake me so that I didn’t have to feel the feelings that God was trying to uncover in me. All I knew was I had to tend to my kids.  I couldn’t let them suffer because of my decisions.  But I didn’t even think I had it in me to really do it.  We stayed in that hotel for 4 more months.  4 months of uncertainty, 4 months of isolation, 4 months of depression, 4 months of money that just never seemed like enough, but somehow was just enough.  Now I’m sitting here, in an apartment that’s bigger than the house we moved out of, my entire family is under one room (that same husband included) and now our family is expanding because now I’m carrying a new life.  A life that was created in love. It wasn’t an oops or an oh well. We intentionally created it.  I went from making just enough to keep me treading water to a being able to have excess and money to save.  I heard what God told me, but I didn’t see it. I heard it, but all I could see was what I felt and what I tried to numb.  I’m so grateful that even though I couldn’t see, He wouldn’t let me forget. And He did everything that He said He was going to do.  I’m a living witness. 

The Re-Introduction

I’m to write a book. An opportunity to write something that will heal me in ways that I haven’t allowed myself to be healed as of yet. I’m terrified because in my mind that means having to pull out the things that I put back (again).  It’s time to let them go and fully be free and not be bound by my memories or the thoughts that the linger in the back recesses of my mind.  I’m afraid that if I bring voice to these things that I bring them to life and prove that they aren’t the monsters that are in the back of my closet or under my bed.  That they’re actually real and authentic and tried to take me out and make me doubt everything that I am.  Made me question my worth and cower in the corner to just sit and watch because my voice wasn’t bold enough to say “that’s enough”.  But I’ve been commissioned to bring light to the dark areas of my life and show me that while they were real, they don’t have a hold on me anymore.  They don’t control me anymore and that I’m bigger and better than anything I ever thought I could be. So I’m going to write, write fearful, write through tears, write with the boldness that’s been put in me because it hasn’t been quieted. If anything it’s grown, the lioness has discovered her power and we’re not going to let it go back in hiding anymore.  It’s time to write.