DAIRY OF PAIN

DIARY OF PAIN

PRACTICE: What life lessons do you keep repeating?

My diary of pain is filled with a ton of entries, most of which were preventable and not chronic. That is not to say the condition that produced the pain is not chronic, but the pain is not. One my latest bouts of pain recalled other painful episodes and as I thought about them, I concluded that we all keep a diary of pain. The diary can be mental (memory) and or physically (journal). I do both.

Until I was seventeen, I suffered with frequent and severe bouts of tonsillitis. This only stopped when my mother demanded the removal of the organ. She didn’t want me to go away to college and suffer alone. The only day I missed in 12 years of school was because of this malady. Then there were the many years that migraine headaches destroyed an afternoon/evening. I learned to recognize the signs of an impending episode. I could not prevent them, but I could minimize the pain and nausea if I went to bed in a dark quiet room. Migraines taught me to read the signs of my body.

My mental and physical diaries tell me that I didn’t retain the lesson of listening to my body or heeding the advice of loved ones. I seem to need a periodic refresher course. A torn meniscus bought me to my knees. The pain begun slowly. My right knee announced repeatedly for more than a year that it was not okay with the intense training I was doing to participate in two half marathons in a year. I didn’t listen to the knee. I pushed through. I didn’t listen to my BFF (husband) who repeatedly told me to seek medical attention and to back off the training. I subsequently needed pain medication and surgery.

Earlier this year, I decided to set a goal and a stretch goal for physical activity. By the end of each week, the pains and aches of my body said, “back off, you are over doing it.” My mind said, “yes you can.” My body rebelled. Pain spoke a clear and almost audible message. It took weeks to recover from an aching left knee and strained lower back. I hope I have finally learned the lesson.

I have chosen to use examples of my physical pain to illustrate my point, but you know my emotional pains are no different. My physician has an easy remedy for the causes of most of my physical pains, “stop doing that.” This advice is not always a viable option when relationships and the heart are involved. My mental and physical diary does show my patterns of handling emotional pain and I can change those.

Proverbs 21:11

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---Aristotle said, “We cannot learn without pain.”