Trudging with Despair

I have been quiet for months. My neck problems have still threatened to kill my spirituality. Church is painful, Bible reading is painful, spiritual journaling is painful and posting on my spiritual blog is painful. I may never get better.

Last night a priest (who I believe is a living saint), came to our home to bless our St. Benedict medals, bless our home and do the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick for my neck and for my husband's emotional problems. I offered my resentments to the Lord and tried to open myself to the love and healing that was brought to me by a faithful servant of God. This priest is going to Italy in a few months to study mystical spirituality - the kind that I have been privileged enough to experience a few times. His coming to our house last night was an unbelievable spiritual gift.

Yet I woke up today angry, hurting and wanting to give up on life. I am tired of being in chronic pain, tired of fighting with my husband, trying to summon up more strength than I really have. I feel like if I fought harder for spirituality in my life that it would help see me through these trials, but I don't feel well enough to pursue more spirituality. My daughter and I walked to Mass last night, and I cannot tell you what a huge step that was for me. Receiving the Eucharist for the third time in six months...a huge act of longing for the closeness of God. And I had gone to confession the weekend before. I received it with no guilt.

Somewhere in this hazy mess of my life with my failing marriage and the money I'm losing and the deteriorating health is the love I have for Jesus, the saints and angels. But will I ever see it again? Will it ever be more real to me again than the physical pain and emotional suffering?

I stopped posting on my blog for two reasons.

1. It has hurt to use the computer recreationally.
2. My spiritual outlook plummeted in November, and I've felt like I had nothing positive to offer the world through prayerful writing.

But something said to me this morning to post again, not to give up, not to let the Evil One convince me that my growth as a believer is finished. It feels like it's finished...it feels like everything good in my life is over. But today I am here. I can't get any lower, so take this useless, weepy, mess of a wife, mother and Christian and do something if you want to Lord. It can't be clearer to me that I don't have the power. Do what you will with me.

I can't believe that I felt like I was pilgrim on a spiritual mission a year ago. I can't believe that I thought God was taking my life and showing fruits and works to inspire agnostics and struggling Christians to dare to believe. I can hardly dare to believe. I don't have the strength to believe.

Jesus, you have allowed me to be in this position. I say again, do what you will with me.

Today is Day Four of my novena to the Blessed Mother. Mary, I say to you also, I ask for your intercession for the healing of my neck, but I ask for God's will, whatever it is.

Things I'll Do If I Get My Old Body Back

1. Write a book. I won't be such a perfectionist, and I won't write it for anyone but me. But I'll finally write it - something I've been planning on doing for 25 years.

2. Throw away clutter with glee. 3 months ago this would have been a chore. Now it's something that aggravates my neck. I long to do it, but I either can't or know that I will have rebound pain. An odious task has become a privilege.

3. Journal even more than I had been doing. The pen in my hand was like an ignition that took me to God. I will journal every 30 minutes if I want to and won't feel guilty.

4. Put a sound system in my car and take joy rides.

5. Invite more of my children's friends over and not obsess so much about whether the house is clean enough. I can truly understand "good enough" now.

6. Use the public library more and read all of the time. There is so much good writing out there that I can't take advantage of now.

7. Go to 4-5 Twelve Step meetings a week. I already knew I loved them. The hole I've been feeling is painful.

8. Go to church. I love my relgion but have never really enjoyed hour-long services. Still, that's another piece of me that's gone right now.

9. Write freelance articles. It never hurts to try.

10. Buy healthier groceries. My dear husband is buying me groceries that cause me to gain weight. I never thought I would miss going to the grocery store.

11. Fold laundry lickety-split and get it out of my hair. Why did I procrastinate about this? Why did I let it pile up when I wasn't in pain? I don't understand this. I would love to tackle laundry right now if it didn't hurt.

12. Be grateful every day if I don't hurt.

13. Enjoy my children more. I loved them, but was I enjoying them? I didn't realize how many options a healthy body gave me. If I hear, "Mommy's hurting today," one more time I feel like I'll scream.

14. Be a better listener. Talking so much about myself has helped me to realize how much I was already talking about myself. The small stuff really isn't worth talking about. I know that now.

15. Care about my husband's day. Right now I have to pretend I care. There was a time when I really could have cared because I wasn't disabled by pain. I don't know how much I can work on overcoming my self-absorption as I face a life-changing set of physical problems. But when things are returned to a state of normalcy, I am going to take a huge interest in his day-in and day-out experiences. I can't wait.

16. Laugh at myself more.

I write this knowing full well that if I'm healed, I won't do all of this. But this experience has changed my life forever. As a thirtysomething, I had been taking "feeling decent" for granted. I've done a 180 degree turn. I also write this knowing that some of it (such as getting out of my self-centeredness) can be tackled now. Baby steps.

Take away my pain and stiffness, Jesus. As you like, when you like, if you like. I've learned a lot; I know you can see that.

Still Here

I am still here, but my computer time is very limited to due to my neck and upper back pain.

I don't know why God has let me be afflicted with an ailment that affects my spirituality and my attempts be a written expression of his glory. Maybe I'll know someday.

I am still here. I hurt, I stiffen to the point of worthlessness, and I wait. I had a nerve block with trigger point injections on Friday. Please pray that the procedure accomplishes the Father's will for me. Prayers for all of my loved ones and readers.

Leave Now

Yesterday as I was leaving the office I had a feeling that some sort of unspeakable violence was looming. I saw images of blood. In my stomach I felt that there was deep, dangerous anger threatening people I loved.

I wanted to call my husband to check on him and my daughters, but I had a very urgent need to put gas in the car. It was 20 degrees, and for several miles my car had gone past being empty. I put aside my hazy feeling of danger and pulled into the gas station around the corner from my job.

As I was backing my car into the right position for a fuel pump, a man came out of nowhere and sped right behind me, stealing my place. I could not back up anymore, and my car was too far away from the hose. There were plenty of other vacant fuel pumps. There was no reason for him to have sped up to the one I was getting ready to use and take it. But that's what he had done.

I was startled and waited for a moment. There were a lot of vacant fuel pumps, but there were also a lot of customers around, emboldening me. Neither the man nor I got out of our cars. I thought about getting out of the car and trying to stretch the hose as far as it would go. I thought about getting out of the car and glaring at him. I was in a public place. I opened my door, craned my head to look at the man whom I was possibly going to confront, and I saw something in his eyes: he hated me.

Every now and then you encounter a stranger who hates you. You don't understand it, but deep inside of yourself, in your blood and in your bones, you know it. You make a choice whether to enter their insanity and have an altercation with them, or you leave the situation as quickly as you can.

When I saw the man's eyes, a voice inside said, "People can get hurt or get killed in seconds. Get away from him NOW."

I went to another fuel pump, not knowing whether I was scared he would shoot me or stab me or force me into his car. I didn't know if I thought he was on drugs or if he was acting on road rage for something I'd unintentionally done a half mile away. I simply went through the motions of pumping gas on a brutally cold day.

For a moment or so, my pride was in control. I held my credit card in my teeth and brushed my hair out of my eyes, trying to look nonchalant about the act of aggression I'd encountered and the fact that I had walked away from a confrontation. But the more I thought about the look in his eyes, the more disturbed I became. I was aware of the four or five other people pumping gas, but I was also aware that they weren't paying attention to me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the man looking at me as I waited on the fuel pump. The voice came back. "Do not fill your tank up. You already have enough gas to make it. Leave NOW."

As calmly as I could, I pulled out the hose, refastened the cap and got into my car. I didn't wait to be asked if I wanted a car wash or a receipt. I left, and the man left at the same time, driving in a different direction.

Once I was on the road, I called my husband to check on him and the children. Before I told him about my experience, he said he had something he wanted to say to me. An hour before, he had suddenly been struck by so much love for me that he felt he needed to thank God for me. So that's what he did.

Consciousness of God and his love consumed me. Suddenly I realized that I may have been the one who was in danger, and it may have been my husband's prayer of thanks for my existence that protected me. I won't know in this lifetime, but I am almost sure. Prayer is powerful, unselfish prayer for others is powerful and prayer of thanks is more powerful than we can begin to comprehend.

God, I don't really understand what happened yesterday or what it meant, but thank you for giving me people who pray for me, and thank you for this life.

Silenced

I am not still not able to write on paper without triggering or aggravating pain in my neck, and although I can easily type, I try to save my computer-posture strength for my job. I have only been to one 12 step meeting in the past several weeks because of how hard it is to sit in chairs in a group for an hour.

So the ways in which I expressed my spiritual thoughts - journaling, blogging, talking at meetings - are missing from my life most of the time now.

I talk to God, to the saints. I feel like my echo bounces back to me. It always did, but hearing my own voice at meetings and writing about God helped to make our relationship real to me.

This part of the journey seems to be a place where I depend on God more heavily than I ever have but without the spiritual helps I've relied on for years. I hate it even though I believe that I'll learn something that will be valuable to someone else eventually. Even writing that hurt. I vacillate between feeling shock, anger and self-pity over my condition and feeling embarrassment that I think about myself like I have a "serious" ailment.

My neck stiffened up like an iron plate as I typed, as if to back up everything I've been trying to express. I have no voice right now, not without pain.

Not without pain.

Exposure

Yesterday I had one episode of intense pain and took a painkiller, but otherwise I felt free of them. I had volunteered to read part of my 2006 spiritual journal at my charity's staff Christmas party, and I was nervous all day long. There were two problems: one was that I had written sincerely, so it seemed like I would be letting my coworkers see into my soul. The other problem was that part of me knew that it would touch some people and strike them, and I worried that I wanted to read at the podium for myself and not for God.

Despite my anxiety, I did it. As a preamble to our lighting of the Peace Candle on our Advent Wreath, I read two 2006 journal entries in front of everyone I work with. These will be posted as a separate blog entry right above this one. I told the staff that Christmas Day 2006 was a day filled with tranquility and gratitude, but that as late as December 23rd 2006, I was stuck in self-centeredness and shallow thinking and thought it was my worst Christmas ever. The journal entries showed how God was able to lift me out of my gloom and tell me what a gift my Christmas really was.

People came up to me afterward and told me that they had been moved by what I read. I felt exposed and felt that I had to brush their comments away lest I be making myself too huge. As a few moments passed I started to become able to look people in the eye and thank them when they told me my words had struck to them. One of my friends said, "What you read to me meant so much to me, more than you can ever know - really."

I wondered if my boss would say anything about what I read, and late that afternoon she came into the office to give me my organization Christmas present in it's uniform gift bag. Then she whispered to me, "I loved your story."

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"Will you do some writing for us...please?"

I nodded. "Yes." (Right now I'm a secretary).

"We need anyone who can write as beautifully as you do to be writing for us."

I nodded and said yes again. How peculiar it is to me that in this job that I never wanted to go out and get that God has given me a voice to talk about his glory. How peculiar and marvelous. I love it when I can see God working like that.

Damage

A couple of years ago, I found my spiritual niche. I experimented in concentrated intercessory prayer for other people, and I nearly always saw beautiful things happen. When the outcome was good, I knew the gift had come from God. In the handful of times that I didn't see healing, rescue or deliverance, I began to understand that sometimes life on earth is so difficult that only a higher power could see a plan for ultimate good.

I have been so wrapped up in my neck problems that I've frequently forgotten to pray for others. Intercessory prayer has been so important to me that I couldn't believe I had let it slip out of my life. But last week, I was startled to receive a prayer shawl that had been prayed over and given to me so that I could wrap myself in God's loving care and then a letter in the mail that told me I had been chosen as a person that a prayer group would pray for throughout Advent. That's when I realized that intercessory prayer was still active in my life; I was just on the other side.

I have missed a lot of my normal life since these physical problems started after Halloween. I've missed being able to fold laundry, wash dishes or pick up toys as I saw the need. I've missed being able to read spiritual books and write in my spiritual notebooks by hand. I've missed being able to sort through papers without stopping after a few minutes due to neck pain. I've missed driving my car without pain. I've missed doing my own grocery shopping so that I can buy food that doesn't pack weight on me. I've missed sitting in church pews and the metal chairs in AA meetings without feeling my neck stiffen after a few minutes.

What I miss most about my normal life is knowing that I was on a spiritual journey and feeling like I was constantly growing. On an intellectual level I know that I'm still on my spiritual journey right now as I accept my powerlessness over my pain and my limitations. But do I feel it? No. Not really. I certainly didn't feel it all the time before my neck problems started, but I must have felt it a lot, because I miss it so much.

In October I felt like I was about to start working on something important. I was going to go to graduate school or start seriously writing a novel or begin some other challenging undertaking. Now I am flailing around just to make sure my children are clean and fed and that I show up to work no more than 20 minutes late.

I want my life back, I want my hopes back, I want my spirituality back. In several weeks, with a minor but debilitating physical problem, I've started to think of myself as an ailing person instead of a spiritual person. It embarrasses me to admit how much my neck condition has damaged me, but it's true.

I pray and wait for the day that I include these weeks in my spiritual history but that I have left the self-pity, the self-centeredness and sense of loss far behind me.

Reaching Into the Richness

I'm conscious of having a relationship with God again. This was helped by reading blog's like http://ragamuffindiva.blogspot.com/ and going to 12 step meetings 5 nights in a row. I also rebelled against my stiff neck and read recovery literature even though for weeks it's hurt to read. I left my (unwanted but necessary) universe of isolation and pain medicine and went back into Recovery Galaxy, where the more you want God, the more peaceful you seem to be. At least to others.

Unfortunately, I am not doing well physically at all. This week I had 4 days of widespread fiery pain across my upper back, shoulders and neck. This is the pain that forces tears from my eyes. For the past couple of days I've been having such strong muscle spasms at the base of my neck that I feel almost nauseated. I'm a mess. Reflecting back on times in the past month when I thought I was cured and started to grieve my pain pills makes me roll my eyes. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

It's a quiet Sunday morning, and I've woken up in the Unknown. My daughter needs to be taken to church since she has her First Penance soon, but my muscle spasms are so strong (not painful, but disturbing and uncomfortable) that I can't imagine getting ready, driving and going. I need a haircut badly and have one scheduled but feel like I can barely drive there or move my head for my stylist as she cuts it. There's cleaning to do, but I feel like I need to lie down as much possible. There's the week of work ahead of me, which I don't know how I can survive since working a full week last week did me in. And then there are meetings, which come last after church and cleaning and work. How will I go to meetings again?

I'm powerless over my neck, and the world is full of obligations that I need a functioning neck to fulfill and helps that I need a functioning neck to take advantage of.

Help me, God. Your will be done, not mine. As I type this post I realize that in all of this time, I haven't prayed the rosary to ask for help with this. Once I started taking pain medicine, I felt so guilty that it was hard to pray at all. But as I said above, I know I have a relationship with God right now. He knows better than I do how hard it is for me to be in AA, have a pain pill prescription and try to decide day after day if my pain is at a 4 out of 10 or a 7 out of 10. He's the source of understanding and compassion that I can't reach the bottom of.

I see this morning that my alcoholic shame has kept me from turning to many spiritual aids that God has given me. I have the rosary, novenas, meditation, prayers to St. Ursicinus of Saint-Ursanne, the patron saint of neck stiffness (I just looked this up, of course). They call out to me now like a mother calling out for her lost child in the grocery store.

I woke up facing the unknown, but one thing I do know is that my shame is not going to prevent me from reaching into the richness of my faith to find grace.