It’s difficult for me to admit that I’m not being honest with people. I really don’t like talking about my ailments. Indeed, my primary reason is that rather give glory to God for his many blessings. Sometimes I’ll drop hints about how I feel but try to close the subject off. “God is good even when I don’t feel good.” My other reasons include: I don’t think most people are interested in the details even though they do care about me; I think it would be boring to most people; some of my ailments are difficult to explain; I don’t think people would understand; some are too difficult to even believe. (I have trouble understanding and believing them.) I’ll give you a taste, just one example.

Sometimes things will abruptly change for me, usually for the worse. Two months ago I started a whole new set of symptoms. This list includes fever, petechial rash, strange headaches, sensitivity to light and noise, muscle pain and weakness. Additionally my appetite has decreased further still and my fatigue has increased further still. All these symptoms persist in addition to the numerous problems which left me disable and feeling very much like a freak over six years ago. The entire list of symptoms is much longer.

I wonder if people are being honest with me. Do they really have time, are they really interested in hearing the details about how I feel? I have some friends and acquaintances who have their own list of ailments. Perhaps I’m better prepared because of my illness and in a better position to patiently listen to them. And, although I will listen to them and show them compassion, I can only take so much before I’m worn out.

There are a few people with whom I do share how I feel. I talked to God about my ailments although not as much as I should. I don’t want God to think I’m complaining about His will or that I don’t trust Him. Of course I talked to my doctors but sometimes I think this doesn’t do any good. Not that my doctors aren’t good, but there are no cures for some of my diseases such as my nerve damage. Then there is my family who are my personal caregivers. My wife has been with me during procedures where I screamed with pain, my face in a pillow, tears rolling down my face. My children have seen me at times when I was so fatigued due to dehydration or low RBCs that I couldn’t even lift my head off my pillow. I have many more and much worse examples of things that my wife and children have dealt with because of my illnesses.

My wife and children are heroes. My wife is so gentle, tender, compassionate, and patient. She listens as I complain, discusses courses of action to alleviate my pain, serves me great food throughout the day, manages double duty of activities where I can no longer help, puts up with my bouts of irritability, and much, much more. My children, too, are immensely helpful. They help with mundane tasks of my daily care without complaint. Although it may seem like a small thing to them when they bring me lemonade and a bowl of corn curls, it is an immense help to me. They are somehow not embarrassed to have a dad who looks like a freak (always dressing like it’s wintertime) and sometimes acts like one. I am so proud of my two teenaged boys who would no doubt rather be with their friends but who choose the responsible thing, staying with their dad, pushing his wheelchair, getting him a cup of coffee, and ready to serve me in anything that I would ask them. It brings tears to my eyes. I feel like I don’t deserve them, my wife or my children, but they love me, and this they do very well.

Forgive me for abruptly ending this journal entry. I’m not exactly sure how to continue it or where to end it. Part of the reason is due to a new pain medication which I started today. It is spacing me out a little. I’d like to discuss the theology of all this, how God calls us to show compassion, to serve without complaining, and to find their courage and strength in God. I don’t know how things will end whether it be this article, my life, or the world. But I know that God who is the author and finisher of my faith has a perfect plan for everything.

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2)

A related article would be Man in the Mirror.

I’ve been working on two personal projects recently.

One was getting my speech recognition software working on my computer. I waited too long to try it again. I felt that I had been burned enough times in the past and simply didn’t have the desire, time, or money to invest in what I thought was a failed technology. But I was wrong. This is my first journal entry in which all the text was entered using speech recognition technology. In this entire journal entry it made three recognition errors. I’ll have more to say about this useful technology later as I become more used to using it.

My other project was something very close to my heart right now. Years ago a friend gave me a tract called, “The Last Days of Edward Payson”, and I needed to find it and read it again. I wanted to share this little gem with the world so I sought and obtained permission to reprint the tract on the Internet. A couple of scans, OCR, proofreading, and editing has yielded something worthwhile. I’ll have more to say about this later, too.

You can see the first-ever-published-on-the-internet article here: The Last Days of Edward Payson, D.D.

That’s all for today.

Alive In Christ, now and forever,
Ed

Purpose:

There are a lot of things that come to my mind, things which seem to have some importance. But when considered in light of the Eternal, all of a sudden those same things become much less important or even empty, vain. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. So I guess it’s okay that I choose to write only about things which I feel strongly, things that I believe are important, things I think are essential.

Also my typing speed is very slow (and painful) and that helps me to keep my online journaling priorities straight.

This is just a qualification as to the purpose and nature of my online journal. The purpose of this online journal  is to encourage and rebuke with all authority (in Christ) so that you might grow in your personal relationship with God.

Scope:

As for scope, God being infinite and I being His child learning more and more about my Heavenly Father each new day, there can be no limit!

I wrote the previous post (below) while in some high pain. I don’t think that I could have written it with low pain. Not sure why I’m posting this post except for self-pity. I hurt so badly but can’t do anything about it since I can’t tolerate narcotics, opiates, and most other pain relievers simply don’t work with me. Arrgh! Sleep is my only solace, my only escape from this prison of pain, my only cure.

Good night.

I don’t look in the mirror often. Part of the reason is that I’ve seen myself often enough and I just don’t have the need to see what I look like anymore. I will wash my face, neck and ears. I’ll floss and brush my teeth. I’ll comb my hair. I’ll do all that without really looking at myself other than making sure my hair is parted in about the right place.

But one day I looked in the mirror and seemed to see another man. I looked more carefully into his eyes. I wanted to see what’s going on inside. I think that I saw the stress, even the pain when I look in his eyes. It doesn’t look like me. That’s funny because I don’t really know what I look like (not having spent much time looking at myself all these years.) But I see a man under a lot of stress. It’s a lot for him, but there’s nothing that I can do about it. He will just have to endure, and I know that he will with God’s grace and power.

There’s something else that I found which totally surprised me. It is more important than my own stress/pain thing. When I saw his pain I also saw the pain and the love of those around him. Think about it. If someone that you loved was in pain, wouldn’t that cause you a different kind of pain?

This new revelation is upsetting to me but an important one. Although I live daily with my disability I live in a sort of denial about it. Part of that denial seems to include not acknowledging the difficulty and pain that my disability causes others, specifically those closest to me, my wife and children.

So now I actually choose to look in this man’s eyes to see the reality of his pain and thus recall the pain that others feel so that I can better sympathize with them. What I see most of all is my wife’s love, hers and my children’s. She loves me so much to be able to live with me in an understanding way. That’s what husbands are called to do with their wives.

1st Peter 3:7 (in the NASB) says this: “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

My wife is a saint. She is born again so of course she is that kind of saint. But she is a saint in the sense that she shares my burden and, in a way, endures more pain than I do. Yet she is kind, sympathetic, gentle, understanding, and she is so even when I am being a jerk, not just because of my pain, but because of my sin, arrogance, insensitivity, …did I mention my arrogance?

I look in the mirror and see my pain and her love. And I begin to understand some things about life that are difficult to convey in these few words.

The really important things in God’s estimation are not those things which get the most attention. I get attention from people. But my wife gets God’s attention. He is pleased with her. It is an amazing perspective, to begin to see what is important to God. “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor 12:22)

“Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.” (John 7:24) This is one of my favorite verses as a man who loves truth and hates pretense. Yet how easy it is to deceive oneself. Looking into the mirror has helped me. Looking into God’s mirror, (the Bible, of course), can do so much more to reveal deception and truth in someone’s life.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” (James 1:22-24)

This is a serious admonition, one that I cannot overlook but must take to heart. I pray that I would never merely listen, but that I would obey God’s Word.

I do look into God’s mirror every day. And now I look into a physical mirror and try to remember what I see. I need to be more understanding of those around me, those who feel burden and pain because of my own pain and disability. I need to respond to their love by acknowledging it and reciprocating, loving them back with the same understanding and gentleness that they daily show me. I need to show love to them more and more, certainly more than I have been. This is what I’m intently trying to do.

I love my wife more now than I ever have before. In fact, for the last 24 years I have loved her more each year. But it is different now that I’m disabled – much different. The youthful joy has been replaced by a mature, steady, deep kind of love. It’s not as fun for either one of us I think mostly because of the reality and sadness of my painful disability. But we have our joyful times and I hope to have more of them as I am able to do so.

A related article would be Heros of compassion.

OK. Here’s the scoop. I could never complete a worthy discourse on “the truth about pain.” I set such lofty goals, ones far beyond my capacity. I would be sorry that I even started this topic except that it seems there is a purpose in it. Truth has purpose.

So I will finish my thoughts by suggesting some application to what I started. I said before, pain is personal and thus hidden. We can’t know what another person is feeling. Whether physical or emotional pain, if a loved one claims to feel pain then our response must be to show tenderness and sympathy. Let me give some personal examples of how I’ve failed, and then succeeded to show tenderness and sympathy for someone else’s pain.

When one is young and strong, we don’t notice some things that would be a discomfort to others. For instance, I was at one time unaware of drafts in a room. If an elderly person would complain about a draft I didn’t really consider that it was anything of much importance. “How much could a draft affect a person?”, I wondered. That was until I became intolerant to cold. You would be amazed at how much a draft can affect a person! For me, now, it is the difference of tolerating the environment and a severe episode with pain which renders me so stressed as to incapacitate me completely. In the “numbers”, it can mean the difference between a pain level of “2” and of “8”. For me, “2” is as good as it gets and “8” means “get me out of here now!” All because of a draft that I once didn’t even notice. So next time your grandmother complains, show some consideration. Offer to relocate to another place without a draft or to get her a sweater to put on.

Another area that I’ve fail in is when someone says that they’re afraid of something that I would say is “ridiculous.” I’d tell them, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”,  “Just don’t think about it.”, and other such statements of “dis”. (dismissals)    How cold!  Just because I don’t have such fear doesn’t mean that they don’t feel it or that it isn’t something significant to them!

I hope that I have become more sensitive to other people’s pain. I hope that you will, too.

Pain is personal. I can’t feel your pain and you can’t feel mine. We sense and react differently. There may be similarities but there can be little real comparison. There is no independent, third-party observer that can see your pain and mine and then make an objective comparison. Pain cannot be seen at all. It is a hidden aspect of oneself. It is personal.

There is no scale that is appropriate to measure pain. I’m asked to rate mine on a scale of 1 to 10. First of all, (as a programmer), I think that it should be from 0 to 10 otherwise (with their 1-10 scale) feeling no pain must be a 1. So the way they present their scale is all wrong. How I would rate pain can be different than some one else. I’ve heard people say that their pain is a 10. I wonder. I’ve never admitted to having pain of a “10” and I’m reluctant to ever admit having a “9”. I figure that a 10 is what one might feel the instant the truck hits. You feel a 10 then you die. So, (in their scale of 1-10), the only numbers that I might use are 1-9 with a “1” being no pain. Since I’m always in pain then I only use numbers 2-9.

Hebrews 3:12-13
“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Hebrews 10: 23-25
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

These are written to believers. I do not believe that a real Christian can loose their salvation, although it is possible to have “a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” It is a serious warning to all believers “so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” A heart which was once turned towards God but then sinful/unbelieving, it turned away.

I became disabled about 5 years ago due to cancer. I survived the chemo and bone marrow transplant but it left me a fraction of the physical man that I was. Since I appear to be okay other than being in a wheelchair, people tell me that I look good and I think to myself, “Stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment.” (John 7:24) I feel horrible physical pain but I smile and I ask them how they are doing. I might share a little bit of my struggle (they can’t handle too much of it) and I tell them that God Who is faithful gives me grace, faith, and strength for today.

It is extremely difficult for me to attend our church service every Sunday but it is part of what God has called me to do. The most important thing that I do all week is ministry before service starts after it ends when I talk to anyone who will come up to me. I might give them a hug, ask them specific questions about their lives, (not the general “how are you” but a targeted “how is your relationship with your adult daughter going?”). I will reach out and pray for them.

I speak life and faith into the lives of my fellow believers, the “seekers”, and the curious.

When we finally get back home I am completely spent. “But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.” (Phil 2:17-18)

Also Philippians 1:23-26
“I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;” (and I personally understand this now), “but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.”

There are 2 Psalms that I’d like to share. The first is Psalm 13. It is so short, only 6 verses. The first 4 reveal the inner turmoil that all of us have felt at one time or another. David expresses it so very well. But David doesn’t stay in that deadly state of discouragement, depression, and despair. Not at all! In the last 2 verses he states truth! (In the first 4 he asks questions, makes demands, expresses fear.)  Commentary and psychology cannot improve on these few, short verses:

Psalm 13 – For the director of music. A psalm of David.

1 How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?  

3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

4 my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6 I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.

There is another Psalm that I like because it, too, expresses our human feelings followed by God’s Truth. (I’m not trying to ignore feelings. God gave them to us but like everything else they are in a sinful, fallen state. We must renew our emotions as we are to renew our minds. Emotions must be subject to the Truth. Only then can they reflect the Glory of God.)

Psalm 73, written by my friend Asaph. The first half, (14 of 28 verses), express his great frustration.

I am particularly impressed with verse 15:  “If I had said, ‘I will speak thus,’ I would have betrayed your children.”  Just by speaking aloud of his faithless discouragement, it would spread and offend against a generation!

The last 8 verses give me much encouragement and hope:

21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,  

 22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.  

 23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.  

 24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.  

 25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  

 26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.  

 27 Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.  

 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

I will tell of all His deeds. That’s what I’m called to do. Even while my body is racked with pain and wasting away fighting the cancers, fighting unusual and miserable symptoms & medical procedures (please don’t ask about them), frustrating limitations, even in the very worse of circumstances, even in every disaster—God is good and God is great. A Sovereign, Almighty, and Loving God is my God.  I trust in His unfailing love; my heart rejoices in His salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.