Several people I highly respect have encouraged me to document some of my spiritual growth journey in writing and to share it with others. Pain, be it emotional or physical, can feel very lonely. If I can help someone to not feel so lonely in their journey, by sharing mine, then my life will have served some purpose. 2 Corinthian 12:9 – "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."
The last few days have been tough. I know I have to keep going to train my body and to manage my headaches, but will I always have headaches every day?
This morning I did NOT want to get on the treadmill. Okay, so yesterday I didn’t either, or the day before, and I probably won’t want to tomorrow either. I keep thinking back to that Recipe for Hope. I thought I was doing pretty well with perseverance because I was persevering with my Bible study, but now that I’m having to do all of this physical therapy, this is my current daily struggle.
My head hurts. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to walk on the treadmill for my assigned 18 minutes. From there, I really don’t want to go into the clinic and do 2 hours of physical therapy and listen to two hours of people talking, even if I’m one
of the people
talking. I just want to curl up on the sofa, watch Pollyanna, and maybe crochet a baby blanket.
At the time of this writing, I’ve gone almost three weeks without a migraine, but I still have a headache every day. Some days are worse than others. The last few days have been tough. I know I have to keep going to train my body and to manage my headaches, but will I always have headaches every day?
They tell all of us at the pain clinic that they won’t be able to fix our pain. They will only be able to help us manage our pain. I think when I started, I believed I would be the acceptation. I thought that if I could just break the migraine cycle, management for me would be living with fewer migraines. I hadn’t considered that I might end up with daily headaches. I’ve never really had headaches. I’ve always either had migraines, or nothing.
I don’t want to accept this as my life, but maybe if I can get through the acceptance stage, the rest will start to get easier.
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I was afraid. The neurologist, the person who I trusted most in this world to help me fix this problem, the woman who another neurologist had referred me to because he had run out of ideas, had just told she couldn’t do anything more for me.
After a visit to the nerve specialist who stated the obvious, that the Botox wasn’t working any better in 2016 than it had when we tried it in 2012, and then he suggested that I should take a leave from my work so that I could go to a pain clinic for behavioral management of pain, I blew him off and went to my neurologist. Surely this wasn’t it. There had to be something else we could try. My neurologist had talked about me taking a leave from work previously, but I didn’t think it wasn’t really a serious consideration. Of course, that was just at the one month mark of daily migraines. I was now almost to the 4 month mark of daily migraines.
I went into my neurologist appointment with confidence that we would try a different medication, or that she would have some other plan for me. She started right out with the bad news. There was nothing else she could think of to try. We were out of medical options. I was going to have to learn to live with daily pain. I needed to take a leave from work so that I could attend a clinic that would give me tools for how to deal with daily pain. This clinic had a reputation for helping people with migraines lower their frequency and intensity, but the idea of just accepting that I was going to be stuck with daily pain was not okay.
I went to my car and sobbed. I was afraid. The neurologist, the person who I trusted most in this world to help me fix this problem, the woman who another neurologist had referred me to because he had run out of ideas, had just told me she couldn’t do anything more for me. The questions that rushed through my head were limitless.
Usually my husband describes my brain as being filled with hamsters that never stop running on their wheels. Those hamsters get running and they just love their wheels! But this day was different. The wheels fell right off the axles from spinning so fast it for a little while it was like my brain quit working. I even got a little lost on my way to work, and all I had to do was drive north from where I was and take a right on 95th street. I took not one, but several wrong turns.
By the time I finished telling my principal and my husband, I managed to put some blinders on one of my hamsters and got my brain moving again. I stopped thinking about all of my questions and focused on my to-do list. I made my appointment to start at the clinic, got my paperwork started, and informed my coworkers that would be directly affected by my leave. My original thought was that I wanted my last week to be as normal as possible, so I didn’t want anyone to know I was leaving, but I quickly discovered that there couldn’t be normal, even if no one knew, because I knew.
The whole week felt like an out of body experience, like I was watching myself instead of living. It was very surreal.
One thing was good though, as time passed from that dreadful conversation with my neurologist, a bud of hope started to grow. Maybe this clinic really could help me. I could only wait and see and hope.
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When I came across Romans 5:3-5, part of it read like a for a recipe for hope. “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope.”
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5 NIV
In the first few weeks of studying the word hope, I was frustrated. It seemed like one message I kept getting was that the reason I could have hope was because this life would be short. I would soon be in heaven with God. I was really scared by the fact that I actually took some comfort in that idea, but couldn’t accept that as the final answer. What was I supposed to do, look forward to death? Those verses are in the Bible because God wants us to not fear death and to rejoice that we will have eternity with him after death, but I needed hope for this life, not the next. I already had that. I know, and I have known for years where I’m going when this life is done. My fear was/is (depending on the day) that I would live out the rest of this life in pain.
When I came across Romans 5:3-5, part of it read like a for a recipe for hope. “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope.”
Recipe for Hope
I knew I had the suffering part figured out. I wanted to make sure I understood the steps between suffering and hope.
I was pretty sure I was working through perseverance, but I had to think about what perseverance meant in a scriptural sense.
Ever notice that when Bible verses talk about hoping in God, that the word trust works just as well in those verses as hope? In one of my favorite verses about hope, depending on which translation you look up, hope and trust are interchangeable:
Isaiah 40:31
NIV “But those who HOPE in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
NLT “But those who TRUST in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”
God has our best interests at heart. He made the greatest sacrifice by sending his son to die for us. He is also all knowing, knowing things that we couldn’t begin to comprehend. He has the ultimate wisdom. He will always choose not what is just good but what is best.
It took three chapters (70 large pages of type) for Wayne Grudem to describe all of the amazing attributes of God in his book, Systematic Theology. I don’t think it was an accident that God put the desire in my heart to start reading this book several months before a difficult round of migraines a couple of years ago. I grew up in church. I already knew that God had all of those attributes, but it was so reassuring to have just finished reading and studying them right before the pain struck me down.
When I start adding all of those qualities together, it really blows my mind how great our God really is. He is the biggest, strongest, smartest, most loving daddy anyone could ever want. He will take care of us.
I think perseverance means trusting in God and continuing to seek him out even when life is miserable. In order to trust in God fully I had to first believe in his power, wisdom, knowledge and love.
Finally I started thinking about the last step before reaching hope: character. I felt like I had a good idea of what it means to be a good character or to have good character, but like a good English teacher I pulled out my dictionary to see if I was missing anything.
Character: (selected definitions from dictionary.com)
the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.
the moral or ethical quality
qualities of honesty
reputation
good repute
an account of the qualities peculiarities of a person or thing
The question then, was what kind of “character” do I want to be, and then more importantly, what kind of “character” did God design me to be, and how do I become that?
I need to be a person who seeks to be the person God designed me to be, and in order to do that, I must get to know God better and learn about his will in my life. I kept on studying and I will keep studying, and praying and learning. I think that’s why perseverance leads to building good character, and I don’t think we ever “finish” building our character, but I do think that seeking out God and his will for my life, does lead me to hope.
My personal recipe for hope after suffering:
God’s amazing strength, wisdom, knowledge and love for me
Trust in God
Seek out God’ will for my life
Find hope in God
As I write this today, I can say God has filled me with hope.
Psalm 147:11 The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.
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It takes hope to seek hope. Why would anyone seek hope if they didn’t believe they would find it eventually?
“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?” Job 6:11 NIV
I’ve been through multiple long rounds of daily migraines, and for years have lived with migraines for about 50% of my days. During my most recent round of daily migraines I started reading every Bible verse I could find with the word hope in it. I studied the verses and the background stories behind the verses. I found story after story and psalm after psalm about people who had lost hope. It was good to know I was not alone.
As I refreshed myself on the story of Job, I tried to remind myself that even though my situation was bad, it could be a whole lot worse, but I didn’t really find that much comfort in that even though it seemed like I should. Have you ever had someone tell you to “stop shoulding all over yourself”? That’s what I was doing.
My medications got me to work most days. I was functioning as far as most of the world was concerned, but on the inside, I wondered, “What strength do I have, that I should still hope?” On bad days I wondered how there could be possible that there was such pain in my head and that I could continue to live, especially if I was at a level 10 pain for days in a row. There were days where I wanted God to just put an end to it and bring me home to him. I never got so low that I considered suicide, but I knew that if God let me die, then it would be okay because God would be in control and he would have a plan. I couldn’t keep from wishing that he would put any plan into place that wouldn’t include me living in daily pain.
I know now that doctors think all people who suffer from severe chronic pain have thoughts about death, and it’s even estimated that 90% of chronic pain sufferers make plans for suicide. I didn’t know that when I was at my lowest, and I piled guilt on top of my depression, because what good mom would think things like that? I knew I didn’t really want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop, but no one seemed to have any answers and everyone was out of ideas. (Unless you count an internet search, then you can find some really creative and entertaining ideas on how to cure headaches, but I meant legitimate ideas.)
There was also shame. There are so many labels and preconceived ideas out there about depression, because so few people talk about it. I thought I was weak, a bad mom, a bad wife, a bad teacher. I shared the depth of my struggles with almost no one. I told my husband, but because I didn’t want to scare him, I don’t think I really shared the full scope of my misery.
The one thing I knew I was doing right, was that I was clinging to Jesus. As I look through my journal today, it’s clear I was depressed, but also that I had more hope than I realized. It takes hope to seek hope. Why would anyone seek hope if they didn’t believe they would find it eventually? That was the Holy Spirit working within me. Day after day, I sought for answers and comfort from God. Where did my hope come from? My hope came from the Lord. I had hope because I had a Bible and I knew I had the Lord on my side. I knew I felt hopeless in that moment, but I also knew that some day, I would once again feel hope.
I think I may finally be getting the answers that I have asked for. I know I will have ups and downs. My doctors have told me they can’t fix me, they can only help me learn to manage the pain, but I have hope that my future will be better than my past. I don’t need perfection, just improvement. I don’t know if the better days I’m having right now are the beginning of that, or just a blip on my graph, but I have hope.
PS: Please like and share on social media if you think someone else should read this. It won’t stay in the feed for long if people don’t like it, share it, or comment on it.
My head hurts. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to walk on the treadmill for my assigned 18 minutes. From there, I really don’t want to go into the clinic and do 2 hours of physical therapy and listen to two hours of people talking, even if I’m one
By the time I finished telling my principal and my husband, I managed to put some blinders on one of my hamsters and got my brain moving again. I stopped thinking about all of my questions and focused on my to-do list. I made my appointment to start at the clinic, got my paperwork started, and informed my coworkers that would be directly affected by my leave. My original thought was that I wanted my last week to be as normal as possible, so I didn’t want anyone to know I was leaving, but I quickly discovered that there couldn’t be normal, even if no one knew, because I knew.
myheadwars 