best laid plans...

We all know about plans and what happens to them...that whole bit about mice and men and going awry. Welcome to my life.

In my last post, I talked about Lent, and how I was going to give it a try. I was going to exercise in an effort to identify with Christ's suffering (see below for how that reasoning makes sense). And I did start off with it. Slowly, because one should not jump into full hour workouts after not doing much. And it was going alright until something happened on the 29th...

Somehow, my sciatic nerve got pinched or inflamed, or just went stark raving mad--we aren't sure which. At first, I thought it was just an extension of back issues caused by a bad chair at work, but we got me a new chair the next day and the pain did not go away. By Thursday morning, the nerve was in a constant fire mode, and my right leg muscles were cramping. I don't know if you've ever tried to drive with your leg cramping, but it's not easy.

The weekend was horrible--I couldn't sleep despite taking high doses of pain killers, laying on ice bags, and using gelle and oils. By Tuesday, I decided to go to a chiropractor. He helped, a little, but I saw him twice, got spine x-rays, and he couldn't tell what was causing the issues (it wasn't the spine, but he still thought I should spend lots of money with him...not happening!). By the next Friday night, I was once again not sleeping, waking up in tears, screaming for relief. Saturday morning brought a trip to urgent care. There, I found a PA named J. Waters, who was as calm as his name. He confirmed it was the nerve, got me some drugs, some stretches, and a shot of something wonderful that helped right away.

This week was relatively pain free (until I rolled my ankle--that's another story), and I'm coming off the drugs tonight.

And what happened to that "suffering with Christ through exercise" plan? Well, it went out the window. At one point, in the middle of the night when I was again awake and in pain, I prayed to God and asked, "Lord, why won't you heal this? I can't exercise like this, I can't even think straight, walk without almost passing out, or sit still." But God gave me no answer, and no healing. And I started to worry that I'd be in pain the entire season of Lent...that maybe God had decided to teach me about suffering in a different way.

I'm glad that I seem to be healing. And I did learn a few things about suffering. I didn't choose to suffer, yet I suffered. Christ CHOSE to suffer. I don't know that I'm anywhere ready to do that. At least not with physical pain. There are other sufferings I'm more willing to endure, or more capable. Perhaps there's something to be said of a suffering that doesn't break us completely. I felt very broken the last few weeks.

Anyway, that's probably a lot of rambling, and it might not draw any solid conclusions. But it's what I have. And this is the first time I've felt well enough to sit and type at the computer for a few weeks, so that's what you get.

Let me know what you think!