Spiritual Fitness & Living With Chronic Pain

September 11^th reminds many Americans regarding the unannounced and uninvited nature of terrorism and its fatal sting. From this one particular tragedy in US history, we have sat in the front row seat observing several heroic stories about the reinvention of life from disastrous conditions.
 
For those who underwent conversion, transformation and redemption, the idea of living as before literally died with the loss of loved ones. Grief followed suffering souls. Suffering eventually awakened the hearts of its mourners, reminding them about the important essentials of life and death. In order to break free from the stench of death, people had to change their old patterns of thinking for newer perspectives. Old ways of doing life were transmuted for new ones, in which difficult choices of sacrifice were required to successfully get through the challenges of each day.
 
Personally, I honorably salute anyone who was marred by the experience of September 11^th for your courage to move forward against horrendous odds. Though death seems to fragment human lives, let it be known that true life spawns new beginnings and unity! When you shed a tear, so does my heart 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.

Every time I fantasize about my former life – before chronic pain – it’s really easy to only think of the good things and to conjure ideas about what could’ve been or should’ve been, in terms of reaching the highest potentials and fulfillment of life. But in reality, this type of thinking promotes self-pity and feeds into self-delusion. Please avoid doing this. The former ways of living were the old ways. These are not necessarily the better ways. 
 
Even though I experience chronic pain, like many others, it is more important to focus on the new ways of living. And for me, I found this through my faith in Jesus Christ. This new life is not something that is just religious. On the contrary, my faith has opened the doors to practical ways of brand new thinking and having changed behaviors. To live in this perspective, it’s vitally imperative to understand that our old way of living probably prepared us on the path we’re currently walking. However, this does not mean that our old habits are able to sustain us on our new journey. 
 
Embrace your new way to live. Your power to adapt and to sustain is within you just begging to be discovered. Once you allow the crustiness of painful attitudes and behaviors to be smoothed out within your soul, you will find newness of thought, innovation and creativity. What previously seemed impossible to accomplish might very well be done so from a new and fresh perspective.
 
Though this wonderful opportunity of change is extended to every human being, not everyone will grasp the privilege regarding this new way of living. With the challenges that lay ahead, your trials are not your final encounters about what you have to look forward to in the future. Your new way of living is about learning, becoming and growing, regardless of your difficult circumstances. Even in chronic pain, your new ways of living include the reality of being reinvented. You don’t have to look backwards. Concentrate on your path of reinvention and the exciting journey ahead. This happens irrespective of chronic pain.

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 within our circle of friendships at least a half dozen are currently suffering with acute, debilitating low back pain – the kind of pain that prevents any activity, whether it be work, daily functioning or play. 
 
My heart deeply sympathizes with each friend, wishing that I could instantly take away their pain. But in reality, I can’t. In essence, the measure of sympathy is cheap; hence it provides little assistance in helping one to deal with outlandish pain.
 
So what happens when one turns to God when experiencing his or her own bout of severe pain? Does God also react similarly to us, providing sympathy and showing impotence to intervene? It certainly can feel this way at times, especially in the middle of extreme agony. I certainly have felt this way during some very low moments.
 
In retrospect, in the back of my mind, I expected him to provide the kind of triumph over disease that our Christian enterprise purports. And when this didn’t happen, of course, I experienced mountains of grief and disappointment. I began to question my entire belief system. As a result, I put more pressure upon myself to earn, in some way, his good graces of healing. It simply didn’t happen for me, and what I’ve discovered for many others as well. Where was God who I thought I knew so well? 
 
He wasn’t on the victorious mountaintop of health just sitting alone nor was he meandering in the heavenly realms with his angels. Looking inward and listening to the truth of his word, I found his incredible love in the midst of my suffering. He was smack dab in the middle of the pits with me. He never abandoned me. When he didn’t seem to be around, it took deeper levels of faith to find him. When I knocked on the door, he opened it. When I asked him for help, he offered himself first. Once I surrendered in faith to him, I could begin to really see passed the anguish and the fear I had felt.
 
Frankly, it was quite liberating to realize God was by my side regardless of the circumstances. His presence liberated me from fear, guilt and thoughts of giving up. Death no longer became an option for getting out of pain. For me, his role was not to relieve my suffering or to spare me from it. But instead, he enabled me to endure the pain as I was being reshaped.
 
So if you’re having difficulty even just moving because of pain, be assured. God is there with you. Most likely, your lives are being reinvented on your journey of life. I encourage you to give yourself to God fully, even when it hurts and doesn’t make sense to you. He is waiting on the other side of the door. So just knock in faith!

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

Thank you to those who have visited this recently developed blog.  From Wednesday, the 3rd, until Sunday, the 7th, Cherise and I will be on holiday, spending some time together and resting in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Looking forward to some “alone” time away!

Hopefully, we’ll return re-freshed and re-invigorated.  I’ll be blogging again on Tuesday.

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

Have you ever wondered where suffering comes from? In most likelihood, you’ve probably never really given this question any consideration, except if you, personally, have undergone some form of painful adversity.
 
Whether you consider suffering as an instrument for redemption or in regards to instruction, its origin remains a mystery for many. Regardless of your worldview, when suffering inhabits our core being and shatters our ability to cope; commonly, we react mentally and emotionally with anger toward others, and worse, the injustice of pain causes our pride to boldly question God about His intentions on our behalf. 
 
The unfairness of pain insists on taking the front position on the podium for everyone to see. Nevertheless, though it rears its ugly head, threatening to spread among each of us, the question still exists. And many of us, ranging from religious to political to philosophical, remain perplexed about this subject. Where does suffering really come from?
 
It really depends upon your worldview.  Peter Gomes, a preacher to Harvard University, writes, “The context of life is not living, but death, and it is out of death that life comes. Death is the rule to which life is the exception.” And from my worldview, death dominates our surrounding environment when born into this world. Suffering makes its home here, very comfortably in fact. God is probably not causing your suffering. This is not to say that you might not experience difficult and arduous trials, but to accuse God for the suffering of this world excludes faith, as well as the qualities of instruction and redemption. Suffering is not an exception to the human condition. It is the human condition. Plainly, I believe that suffering comes from the sin of this fallen world.

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