Spiritual Fitness & Living With Chronic Pain

When people read this title I’m sure they’re going to want to throw something at me. Needless to say, my reaction might be similar if I read that Suffering Isn’t Bad For You. Is this some kind of joke?
 
However, I want you to think hard about this for a moment, especially if you profess the Christian faith. Although suffering may be quite painful, like having surgery without anesthesia, there is no place in the Bible where suffering is mentioned in a derogatory sense, except when it is self-imposed by doing evil deeds.
 
It is the construct of suffering that causes us to grow in godly character. It is not additional time in prayer or speaking in tongues or having a financial blessing or doing good works or anything else. Suffering is like the refiner’s fire, which purifies and cleanses our souls and is the primary means in which we grow in God.
 
Most certainly, I don’t wish suffering or painful trials for anyone. But if you’re in the middle of them, as many of us are today, walk directly and completely through them with faith, no matter how scary or difficult they might seem. God promises to give you a full reward for doing this.
 
The next time you are faced with insurmountable odds, remember that suffering causes us to understand deeper meaning about our spiritual quest, and most importantly, it allows us to really trust God and to grow more intimately in relationship with him.
 
I fully understand the difficulties to stand firm during painful trials, especially those that seem so far above and beyond are capabilities to cope. It seems like more of these are happening during these times of life to more individuals. Regardless, I encourage you to dig your heels into the ground and stand firm. Forfeit some religious thinking and improper investments in the meaningless things of life. Instead, by faith, organize your life around the truth of God. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. After the dust has settled from whatever you’re going through, you’ll see the realness of God and the fact, that suffering isn’t bad for you.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Living With Chronic Pain – Suffering Isn’t Bad For You

When people read this title I’m sure they’re going to want to throw something at me. Needless to say, my reaction might be similar if I read that Suffering Isn’t Bad For You. Is this some kind of joke?

However, I want you to think hard about this for a moment, especially if you profess the Christian faith. Although suffering may be quite painful, like having surgery without anesthesia, there is no place in the Bible where suffering is mentioned in a derogatory sense, except when it is self-imposed by doing evil deeds.

It is the construct of suffering that causes us to grow in godly character. It is not additional time in prayer or speaking in tongues or having a financial blessing or doing good works or anything else. Suffering is like the refiner’s fire, which purifies and cleanses our souls and is the primary means in which we grow in God.

Most certainly, I don’t wish suffering or painful trials for anyone. But if you’re in the middle of them, as many of us are today, walk directly and completely through them with faith, no matter how scary or difficult they might seem. God promises to give you a full reward for doing this.

The next time you are faced with insurmountable odds, remember that suffering causes us to understand deeper meaning about our spiritual quest, and most importantly, it allows us to really trust God and to grow more intimately in relationship with him.

I fully understand the difficulties to stand firm during painful trials, especially those that seem so far above and beyond are capabilities to cope. It seems like more of these are happening during these times of life to more individuals. Regardless, I encourage you to dig your heels into the ground and stand firm. Forfeit some religious thinking and improper investments in the meaningless things of life. Instead, by faith, organize your life around the truth of God. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. After the dust has settled from whatever you’re going through, you’ll see the realness of God and the fact, that suffering isn’t bad for you.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

This past week has been extremely difficult. My brother, Clay Owen Selley, committed suicide on September 16, 2008. His premeditated death has left a nasty sting within the hearts of his family, friends and community.

Admired personally and professionally, Clay proved valuable to others as nearly 900(+) people honored him by attending his memorial services this past Saturday. Crowds entered the church, speculating as to the reasons for his sudden fate?

Painful emotions were palpable as tears rolled from the cheeks of many; while others searched for answers to the unsolvable questions that suicide leaves behind. Why did Clay really take his life?

To begin to even scratch the surface regarding this question, preconditions must be set. I have no authority to judge the final outcomes from suicide, in terms of theological doctrine. Although I do have strong opinions about the subject, to interject my view about whether my brother is delivered into the gates of heaven or to the alternative, which is the fiery pit of hell preconceives foolish speculation and at best, spiritual arrogance on my part. For it is God and God only in the triune that knows all things, including the secret matters of each man’s heart. In his sovereignty, God has not extended this privilege to any man. For God’s ways are not our ways, they are so much higher than ours and are entirely soaked in righteousness, mercy and love.

On the other hand, God encourages us to embrace the things which he has revealed through his son, Jesus Christ. And it is from this point of reference that I make conjecture about the essentials of life and death.

Why did Clay really take his life? I don’t know. It’s easy to speculate about many potential reasons. Yet, this really does not profit anyone, especially those who will be most greatly affected by his death in the future, such as his wife and two girls.

But what I do know is this. We can learn from the meaning of life. Because once any of us crosses the line from life into death, we really have no concrete answers to satisfy our curiosity about another person’s demise. The mystery of the unknown still prevails, making us wonder about all the reasons why it was done and about all the excuses for our inadequacies to fully prevent such a tragedy to occur in the first place.

In our attempt to logically put the broken pieces back together, the grief process does not wait for us to gain our composure. Instead, it comes upon us like a freight train bullying us off the tracks of life and flings us deep into the ground of despair. After the initial shock and denial about the act of suicide, then pain and guilt slithers its way into our emotional make-up. From this point, it’s easy to feel defeated against the tidal waves of pain, anger, undone details and depression. It’s hard to grieve correctly because each stage of grief comes at you very quickly then switches gears into something else just as unexpectedly. It’s hard to keep up with it. And in the meantime, inappropriate things are said and done, causing deep wounds against those who are supposed to be closest to you, especially those members in the same family. Frankly, the after effects of suicide leave a mess and worst of all; it leaves seemingly impenetrable scars on the hearts of those left behind.

Without doubt, my brother must have experienced horrific bouts of pain, depression, brokenness and hopelessness. Or otherwise, I do not believe that he would have committed such a selfish act.

The first lesson to learn from his death involves the tug-of-war battle between pain and pride. Clay had all the mechanisms in place to deal with any life challenge, regardless of its size. This includes a professed Christian faith, a great family, a successful business, and from the evidence of outpouring from his friends, church and community, he had additional relational support to adequately overcome any obstacles.

Please listen to what I am about to convey on this blog. It’s not pain that ultimately causes someone to take their own life, even though pain might certainly act as a catalyst in the destruction of life. It is pride that is the downfall for man. It is pride that prevents us from believing and from realizing who we are and why we are created. It is our pride that denounces the power of God and creates distance in our hearts from him. And inevitably, it is pride that refuses to undergo painful trials and to sustain life until the end. This is certainly a reminder for all of us. We can’t let pride dictate our behaviors over our beliefs, faith and love.

Clay’s situation is not unique, especially during these distressed times in which we live. Many are tempted to end it all right now. It’s not an option worth contemplating.

In our abilities to cope and to move forward in life, it’s hard to function effectively without understanding the meaning about our experiences. Currently, I’m flooded with questions about suicide and living with chronic pain. Therefore, I’ll try to properly address these inquiries, especially about suicide over the next week.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain,  as well as spiritual healing.

Just received shocking news of an unexpected death in our family.  My brother, Clay Owen Selley, age 45, died on September 16, 2008.  He is survived by his wife, Val, leaving two children behind, named Karlyn and Blaine.  He will sorely be missed, and I pray that his spirit is committed into the hands of Jesus Christ.

As a result of this tragedy, I will be attending the funeral in Florida on Saturday and will most likely resume this blog late next week.

Thank you in advance for your prayers and support.  I praise God for his everlasting lovingkindness and prayerfully ask him to render comfort during our time of mourning.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Imagine feeling trapped in despair, being cornered mentally and emotionally, not knowing or even caring where you might go if you escaped from this prison… 
 
Though you’ve done nearly everything in your life with above average effort, fairly good decision-making and with honorable intentions, this doesn’t provide complete insulation from unexpected trials and the adverse affects of emotional pain. So when you’re in the middle of the junk, how do you get yourself out? Do you continue to do everything according to what you already know? Or do you make other choices foreign to your ways of living?
 
If we keep making decisions based upon our previous knowledge and experience, might we not simply repeat our mistakes and find ourselves in the same place of despair? Most likely.
 
This concept of discovering what you don’t know is not limited to alternative intellectualism. In other words, this model does not hinge exclusively on acquiring additional education, counseling or gleaning more from life experiences. It has to do more with learning about spiritual things, in particular, those that pertain to faith.
 
Quite frankly, discovering new territories of faith can be quite frustrating because you do not have the exact instructions of how to do this. Yet it is faith that will drive you to seek the important things about your own heart, such as how to live better or more purposefully. Once you find the core answers of the heart, then you can place your hope on something that will rescue you from the quagmire of sinking sand. Typically the solutions to overcoming obstacles or dealing with despair are typically not found outside within stuffy institutions or from dust-covered textbooks. Oftentimes, the key to finding your answers lies within the light of God and amidst your community of kindred friendships.
 
For Christians, these answers are found with certainty in Jesus Christ. Not in the theological or historical context or even behind the closed doors of the traditional church. As the practical answers seem to elude us when times seem worse, I strongly urge you to stop for a moment. Maybe your idea of faith is wrapped in finding the answers you want to see or based upon the solutions that are familiar and comfortable to your own knowledge base.  This is not discovering faith.
 
Faith is different.  It’s about dealing with your troubles head-on, without avoidance or denial. But practically, it’s also about letting go of what you know for the moment and to place your beliefs into fully trusting God for his practical help to pull you out of darkness. How many of us have said I agree with this last statement, but what happens next? I don’t feel pulled out of the flames. In fact, the fire appears to be spreading throughout my whole life. It’s getting worse and no one can really help me. In fact, others who once seem to care about me and professed the Christian doctrine only judge me now, saying I lack faith or sin must be stopping the progression of positive change. Although these tendencies exist within the Christian community, this does not mean that they are corrective or restorative for the human heart.
 
Because of faith in Jesus Christ, he will transform you surely from within, and as a result, you will develop a solid hope in the future. This idea of hope in eternal life and great things to come will realistically pull you – mentally, emotionally and physically – from your pit of despair. In fact, you will marvel at the results of change, and more importantly, you will tingle inside about the realness of God. You will begin to see that his love will overcome darkness in every area of your life. This is a journey of discovering things you didn’t know before. It’s a journey of faith, hope and love operating in concert to mend you from brokenness into wholeness.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Let’s stay on this theme about vision…

Over twelve years or so, I can’t even count how many times I intended to lose weight. Usually on Sundays I’d plan to make huge changes with my diet, of course, I’d start this grandiose discipline on the next day. So then I’d sit down and have that last bowl of ice cream, being really serious about my resolve. As lunchtime rolled around on Monday, then I’d do something to violate my intentions of weight loss, like eating something I shouldn’t have or I’d end up eating twice as much as necessary. At best, my efforts to restrict my food intake or to makeover my diet might last a week or so, and then everything would eventually go awry. For some reason, I couldn’t remain focused on a longer term goal that I knew would benefit my poor health.

This destructive cycle repeated itself for years. My vision about losing weight actually affected my other senses in a negative way. Just the idea of trying to lose weight seemed so impossible that I would actually feel worse physically. More headaches, ringing in the ears, depression and irritability always seemed to follow. At that time vision meant nothing to me, except pointing out the fact that I never could accomplish anything without experiencing waves of failure.

Basically, I was trying to conform to the vision of weight loss. I’d dream about what my body might look like with fewer pounds. And at times I could envision this, at least momentarily, but practically, it seemed like I’d never be able to accomplish this feat.

What changed?

My vision about how I might look remained relatively the same. Yet my belief in the visionchanged radically. Because of chronic pain and the number of failed attempts to lose weight, I no longer believed in my own abilities. What once was of little difficulty, when younger, healthier, and physically active, was now seemingly impossible.

In essence, I began my “once-and-for-all” approach to lifestyle change by giving my entire body to God as a living sacrifice. This made sense within my beliefs about God. No longer was my vision narrowed to losing pounds. The focus was on believing. And from believing, this allowed me to walk out my vision.  The only future I knew that I would commit to is one in which I believed it would actually become a reality. Believing in the vision led to small, but steady, steps toward change. Just knowing or seeing your vision is not enough! Invest your body, soul and spirit into the process. From this active measure of belief, you will live out some great results.

Whether you weigh too much or you’re feeling lonely because of pain or trying to better deal with stress or trying to cope with financial challenges or perhaps feeling bitter because of unmet expectations about your life, there are times when you have to find new vision for yourself.

It’s a well known proverb, “where there is no vision, the people perish.” When you can’t see beyond yourself or your own circumstances, you’ll find that you will be held captive by your own perceived limitations.  This becomes your living reality. And of course, your limitations will inevitably create boundaries, which will shrink steadily as adversity hits you smack in the face. Needless to say, it’s these invisible boundaries that grow higher over time like barb-wired fence meant to keep you caged.  So easily, optimism gets swapped for hopelessness. Sound familiar?

It’s time for new vision for your life. I’m not talking about the kind of vision that is merely self-gratifying or can pay the immediate bills or something you think you can control because the vision is simple and small enough to accomplish. I’m talking about seeing yourself and your future differently from everyone else. I’m talking about creating a vision bigger than who you are right now.

For instance, if you have a belief in God, then I encourage you not to limit God’s creative ways for your life. Part of the wonder of God is his way in which he helps us to discover who we really are, including a closer look at the lives we could live or the type of people we could become.

Encumbrances, like suffering, disability, bankruptcy, family dysfunction, lack of education, just to mention a few, will always try to thwart your ability to dream and more importantly, to live out your dreams as reality. Everything you’ve failed at before or everything your insecure about or everything you fear will absolutely try to scare you back to the place where you no longer dream, where life becomes stagnant, where faith becomes complacent like a walk in the desert, and where the wish to completely give up becomes foremost of all, daring you to do something you will forever regret.

I’m here to tell you that you can erase these destructive thoughts from your way of living. I want you to know that God sees your life differently from anyone else.  And it is something very much better than you probably can imagine, even though many obstacles may be pressing against your abilities to cope.

He did this for me in the most darkened places of pain and major vocational loss. In order to discover a life worth living, God became essential to the process, giving me visions about doing something worthwhile, and to be changed personally from bad to better even against the backdrop of physical affliction.  My vision about myself and my future included forward thinking and putting the desired outcomes of dreaming into everyday application.  Dreaming and desiring became real points of reference for growth.  They didn’t remain as wish lists or short-term ways of denial or ways to falsely achieve a feeling of optimism. 

Instead, God showed me that dreaming and walking out the dreams were his way of participating in the process.  Faith was put into action.  It wasn’t a way to hype myself up.  It was a practical way to start where I was with the mess in my life and to deal with things without fear.  When you start your pursuit to something better and brighter, and God puts this into your mind, then count on experiencing great joy while you walk out your dreams.  It’s walking out your dreams that brings the most happiness, joy and contentment.  It’s a jump start to fulfilling something beyond your expectations, if you have any to begin with because of pain and suffering.

This is when I truly began to see the realness of God in my life as I witnessed his power to grow my character from bitterness and anger about pain to something much better, not only for myself, but also for my family and for everyone around me.  Living out my new life became contagious to everyone around me.  For instance, I lost 50 pounds, became more active and shared God’s ways of how he transforms us from nothing to something.  When they noticed this remarkable difference, they wanted what I had in God.

When you ask God to help create a new vision for your life, he will do so by showing you something greater than yourself. It seems like God already sees the desires for our lives. It’s a matter of us integrating with him to also see them, believe in them, and to live them out with adaptability and confidence!

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Good Morning! It’s Sunday and it’s a great day. 
 
When the Colorado weather changed overnight, so did any resemblance of stability with my condition. This ongoing cycle seems rather common for people who suffer from chronic pain. In fact, many people complain of arthritic and neural flare-ups when dramatic changes happen with the “ups & downs” from barometric pressure. It’s as if our afflicted bodies show more reliability about predicting the weather forecast than our meteorology counterparts.
 
These flare-ups serve as reminders that our life sometimes gets interrupted at the most inconvenient times. What are we supposed to learn from such disruptions?
 
Perhaps, the lessons are about improving our ability to listen. Pain has an uncanny way of opening the ear holes to our hearts. As these painful flare-ups seem strongly integrated with the impulse of our surroundings, notice how spiritual things also become more readily heard from within your soul. Have you also noticed this unique phenomenon?
 
The next time you feel inconvenienced by changing weather patterns, remind yourself to listen
more carefully to what is around you and within you!

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.

Our brief getaway at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona proved beneficial and very restful. Cherise and I had never spent time together in a climate in which the temperatures reached at least 105 degrees daily. It felt like we were in dry-heat sauna for most of our reprieve. 
 
Regardless, the desert climate positively affected our appetites. We were less hungry for heavier foods and instead, we craved more water, fruits and fish. So that’s exactly what we consumed. This eating pattern varies slightly from my normal intake; but on this trip, I was delighted from its weight loss benefits.
 
As a general rule, I avoid eating the same foods each day. I try to eat smaller sized portions of a variety of foods until the early evening, no later than 5:00 usually. As a result, I purposely break any eating habits that become mundane and routine. Personally, I believe by altering your diet regularly, you’ll probably improve your metabolism, in terms of increased insulin and fatty acid synthesis.
 
I would consider this a valuable tip in the overall scheme of long-term weight management. Don’t be afraid to mix up what you eat!

After recently talking with a friend, I was momentarily caught off guard during our conversation. I had discussed my desires to regain a consistent rhythm regarding my ideas about growing this business. While sitting in my vehicle, he turned his head toward me, looked directly into my eyes and burst out in laughter. Within a millisecond, I responded likewise.
 
We both intuitively knew my life doesn’t revolve around consistent, daily schedules. Chronic pain prevents this from happening. Part of my success involves my ability to remain pliable against the demanding schedules of our fast-paced world. Being flexible has become one of the keys for adaptability and coping with chronic affliction.
 
So does this mean that you can’t ever plan anything or dream about the future if you live in chronic pain? No. But it does mean that planning must be done reasonably in the context of short-term goals, allowing additional time and space for flare-ups due to chronic pain. That is why it is extremely important to make the best of each day! 

While I might not be able to precisely plan or exactly orchestrate the steps of growth for the business, someone greater than me certainly can. Although I’ve been comfortable in the past with constructing a meticulous business plan (I’m not opposed to prudent business ways), God is showing me a different way to accomplish great things. Instead of following a detailed blueprint of how to get things done, I’m required, because of pain, to operate by faith. Not faith in something mystical or unaccountable to business ethics.
 
I’m required to put my faith in God! He’ll set the pace for me, given my condition and given the fact that I’m purposed for the good works I’m doing. 
 
Even in poor health, once your passions are realized and you’re called, then God will equip you to accomplish things in a worthy and honorable manner, especially by faith. You don’t need to try to do something you can’t, like trying to make your chronic pain condition fit into the structure of timely schedules and deadlines when it really isn’t possible. In essence, personal inefficiency, because of painful adversity, doesn’t equate to professional efficiency.  That’s where God’s grace fills in the cracks.

Keep me on your favorites.  Please click onto www.gordonselley.com for more information about living with chronic pain, as well as spiritual healing.