“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26.
I’m taking it easy this week. Due to the the holidays, traveling and my normal responsibilities, my body, mind and soul need a rest. Consequently, I thought I’d use the opportunity to provide some personal background for this blog, and for those who are unaware, share my passion. It’s not my norm. My history tells me not to trust, but my Lord says to be transparent to help others. Further, I prefer to focus on the positive to keep me from dwelling on the negative. With those disclaimers in place, let me open up a bit for you.
The Problem
In hindsight, I have had problems with my gut since I was a child. However, in 1991 things changed and most foods created a host of challenges…not the least of which was pain. As a result I quit eating much at all and dropped roughly 40 pounds (25% of my starting weight) in a rather short period of time. Four years later, I had a seizure. Protocols requiring medication without thorough research would cause me to have seizures for over 10 years. A year after the seizures started, my mother passed away. Needless to say, that five year period was a dark and difficult time for my wife and me. In 2003 at the age of 46 I was no longer able to work and had to give up my career. While I have a list of diagnoses, I have no firm diagnosis for the root cause of my problems; therefore, managing my illness is mostly a matter of trial and error.
The Blog Title
The title for this blog, i.e. “Dancing Through The Pain” speaks to my reality. My health issues keep me at some level of pain all of the time. My skill set has developed enough that I can usually hide it from those who don’t know me well. However, it occasionally overtakes my world and causes me to writhe in pain. I prefer that to happen in private, but that is not always the case and is one of the means that God uses to keep me humbled. Dancing is a passion. I love to dance and I rarely feel pain when I do. By grace, the concentration that it takes to remember steps, plan the next step sequence, watch the floor traffic and attempt to lead properly don’t leave much room for my mind to register pain. In fact, during private dance lessons on a familiar floor it is not uncommon for me to close my eyes to block out the distractions of the room. Neither my wife who is usually dancing backwards nor my instructors see this as wise, but that is another reality. Another passion is living well. Once I accepted that God could and would sustain me and allow me to live with this mysterious disease for His glory and my good, I decided that I would do my best to live well in whatever circumstance I found myself. So, rather than sit in a room emoting, I do my best to rise above my infirmities and despair to live and to dance as best I can. Therefore I encourage others to do so as well to the extent that they are able.
The Verse
Psalm 73:26 has become my life verse. My heart and flesh do fail. My flesh fails in the sense that my illness regularly interrupts my life and thwarts my plans. It also fails in the sense that my sinful nature does not always respond to my physical limitations or other negative circumstances as my soul would prefer. With respect to my heart, I have many demons and I spend a fair amount of time working overcome events of the past as well as current circumstances in life that rob me of my joy and happiness. While God has seen fit to surround me with family and friends who are supportive, it is truly God Himself who provides the strength to keep going. I regularly cry out for the strength to not only keep going, but to also live with grace and joy. Another common prayer is that God would help me to remember and feel that He is enough when I would rather give up. It is He who sustains me in every way…spiritually, emotionally and physically.
The Passion
The journey to true acceptance of my circumstances took roughly 13-14 years. In the early years and for many reasons, I saw my condition as severely detrimental to my family. In other words, I felt that they were better off without me than with me. I also had difficulty reconciling God’s love to my circumstances. As these two themes played over and over in my head, I begged God for my death and was regularly tempted to use my medications to “help Him”. Thankfully, I realized that if I took things into my own hands, my next act would be to stand before Almighty God trying to explain how He screwed up my life and I had to fix things. As that was clearly a ridiculous notion, I chose to wait on Him. He did not take my life nor heal me, but rather refined me and gave me a better outlook. The point here is not my naivety or stupidity, but rather that I know the depths of despair and deeply desire to help anyone in need no matter what type of trial that they face.
Moving Forward
The absence of a career opened the door for God to use me in other ways. Through my wife, God led me to HopeKeepers and I began to lead small support groups. Through that experience God guided me to the writings of Lisa Copen, Joni Eareckson Tada, Larry Crabb and others which started me on the path to understanding and acceptance. Since then God has continued to refine me through a variety of resources. Often I have considered giving up this blog as it takes time and energy as well as the fact that it isn’t in my natural skill set. However, I desire to follow God’s calling and if it helps one person, it is worth the effort. Additionally, each post is God’s way of speaking to my needs and helps me to stay in His word and focused on His truth rather than my circumstances as I continue to struggle.
Recurring Themes
If one reads a fair number of my posts, they will see recurring themes. Some of them are:
- We were created to live for the glory of God
- Part of becoming a Christian is participating in the suffering of Christ
- For those who belong to Christ, all things work for our good
- God is enough…He is our portion
- Our survival requires trusting in God’s ability, character and promises
- God cares more about our refinement and eternal reward than our comfort
- Our trials are part of God’s plan and have a purpose
- God can redeem anything…that includes our failures and pain
- Our trials help us to be conduits of God grace to others who are hurting
- We must work to rise above merely emoting to live well
- God can and does use us mightily within our limitations and our circumstances not matter how restraining they may be
- God is always at work no matter how silent He may be
- Our perceptions or feelings are not accurate measures of God’s love. He proved His love completely when He sacrificed His son for us.
- Our value comes from God, not from the worlds perception of our usefulness
These are in no specific order and I’ve likely left a few out, but they are the significant hurdles to acceptance and adjustment that I’ve seen in my life and the lives of others as I’ve lead groups and done some limited counseling.
The Reality
Despite all that I have learned and believe to be true, like others, I continue to struggle and doubt. Normal keeps changing and often leaves me unsettled. I do not have all of the answers, but I know the One who does and I know the answers are found in scripture.
I’m Open
If you have any specific questions that you would like answered, or would like to see addressed in a post, please feel free to contact me. I will do my best to provide a biblical response.
May our God sustain us through all of our days and bring us safely to Himself in due time. May we also find joy in the journey and dance through the pain.
Will