Suffering With Joy

A Little of My Story

March 5, 2010

Holy Trinity, 1430, Master of the Votive Picture of Sankt Lambrecht, Museum mittelalterlicher österreichischer Kunst, Vienna

“O Lord,” I prayed, “Help me to grow more patient and trust You more.”

“Are you sure?” He asked.

“Yes, Lord.”

“Okay, I’ll give you fibromyalgia and everything that goes with it,” He said.

“Whoa!  What is that, Lord?” I asked.

“You’ll find out, and I’ll be with you every step of the way,” He replied.

Six years or so ago when I was diagnosed my body was burning from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head.  I couldn’t stand to wear my glasses and couldn’t see without them.  Every morning I got up, dressed, had breakfast and promptly collapsed into bed again.  After awhile I gave up on dressing and stayed in my nightgown.  My mind was in a stupor such that I could hardly pray and I lay there simply clutching my rosary.  When I had a conversation with my husband I forgot what I wanted to say after three words were out of my mouth.  I gave up driving and stopped going anywhere except to church, which finished me off for the rest of the day.

A couple of years went by and I found myself completely discouraged and wanting to go to bed never to wake again.  It seemed that everything the doctor told me to do and prescribed for me only helped marginally.  Yet as sick as I was, I never lost the feeling that this condition was God’s will for me, although I did think for awhile that maybe He might have picked a less unpleasant way to get His point across.

One day I said, “Well, Lord, I don’t get it.  Here You have smacked me over the head with a 2×4 and I still don’t get it.  What is it you want of me?”

“I want all of your pain and suffering.  Give it to Me with joy for the restoration of the Traditional Catholic Mass.  Give it to Me for the priest I have chosen to be your next bishop.  Give it to Me for the redemption of others and to expiate your sins.  Give it to me for My priests who are troubled,” He said.

“OK, Lord.  Whatever you say.  I want to do Your will.  But Lord, why did You have to teach me patience and trust this way?” I asked.

“Because  you were too full of yourself and your talents and ambitions were misplaced. I could not work through you the way you were.  I want you with me for all eternity.  I want you to know and understand Me better, to trust Me more through your helplessness and pain and to share what you are learning on this journey with My other children who are suffering even worse than you,” He said.  “I want you up here on the cross with Me.  I want you to witness to My message of hope and love, and the joy that comes from doing My will.  I want you to understand the fullness of My love for you.”

Morning sun over the ocean, Shizuoka Prefecture, (c)Tomo.Yun (www.yunphoto.net/en/)

And so I didn’t give up, and after accepting two new hips from Him through a good surgeon, and after slowly regaining some physical and mental equilibrium from remedies He showed me through knowledgeable holistic practitioners, I started this blog and put it in His hands.  I blessed Him for giving me this miserable disease and for putting me through the added great pain of hip degeneration; for making me aware that I have to depend on Him for every breath, every blink, and every beat of my heart.  I blessed him for giving me a high maintenance body because I know He wants me to learn how to care for it properly and share what I learn with others. I blessed Him for showing Himself to me both through pain and through the many forms of beauty that reflect His being.  Most of all, I bless Him for loving me enough to have created me and for having put all the wonderful people in my life whom I would never have met had I not become disabled.

Tags: fibromyalgia, joy, wellness

4 Comments to A Little of My Story

1. 

   Thank you for sharing this deep part of your experience.
   I was beginning to learn about joy in suffering, last year. Also, how to stop dreading the uncertain future, and anticipate it instead, in the way Our Lady did, all throughout Her Son’s life.
   Then I let go of that trust.
   Now, I must try and regain it, with God’s help.
shadowlands on March 5th, 2010
2. 

   Trust has been difficult for me to learn, too, Ros. I always had energy to do things, but tired quickly. Before I became ill, I mistakenly thought I was doing things all under my own power. It took God sweeping the rug out from under me in a very big way to learn that He is the one with the power and I have to let Him be the one to lead. I think it is no accident that Jesus gave us the Divine Mercy Chaplet ending in “Jesus, I trust in You” in the mid-twentieth century – a time when man has become so impressed with his imagined power he no longer sees that all power comes from God. My prayers are with you.
barb on March 5th, 2010
3. 

   I too have had to struggle with my own forms of suffering–suffering I certainly never asked for and have often been perplexed and frustrated by. All my adult life I’ve been beset by chronic anxiety and depression, and I even seriously contemplated suicide a couple of times. For several years I was an “angry agnostic,” thinking that there must not be a God, or at least not one that would care about us. But the Holy Spirit gradually tenderized my hard heart and brought me into the Church. This Easter marks my third year as a Catholic.

   So yes, suffering can teach us a lot of lessons, usually painful ones. But those lessons can help us grow, if we will let them.

   Be blessed!
Evan on March 15th, 2010
4. 

   Evan, a belated welcome to the Church. Depression is a truly awful imbalance in the body and brain. What is so bad about it is, as with fibromyalgia and other diseases, that the person suffering does not look sick. I am glad you are better and glad that I’m better, too.
barb on March 15th, 2010