Spiritual Fitness & Living With Chronic Pain

The day after is usually very difficult when you’re trying to erase your past failures as you fight to live for a new life.

Have you ever experienced anything like this in your own life? When you try with all of your might to truly make things different? And instead, it feels like you keep repeating the cycle of defeat because you can’t break out of your depression due to pain or you can’t lose weight or you can’t overcome addictions?

I have. In fact, I had lost my personal battles against pain, depression, fatigue and compulsive eating several times over the span of the last decade or so.

Full of pain-filled excuses, I had tried to hide behind the lies and the shame of not being able to change my own circumstances.

Years of pain and subsequent obesity defined who I had appeared to be outwardly more than what was really on the inside of me.

It discouraged me even more so because I confidently knew who I was inwardly. And what I knew about myself spiritually did not visibly translate into any images of redemptive living. In actuality, the power of unresolved pain was winning the fight against my resolve to change into someone better.

As optimistic as I had tried to be, the results never seemed to match my expectations. In essence, I had leaned on my own abilities, and I really didn’t know how to tap into the power of Christ within me. It was as if there was a barrier between my beliefs about the power of God and the practical reality regarding the powerlessness about my brokenness.

So what do you do when you’re determined to make changes and nothing seems to effectively work?

From what I’ve discovered, don’t try to keep building yourself up to break through some contrived pain barrier that you’ve created in your own mind. Freedom and life aren’t waiting for you beyond this imaginary point. You’re not called to fight harder, run faster, think more intelligently and conquer all obstacles when you really can’t solve the problems all by yourself.

And that’s where you sometimes end up in your journey of life. And that’s when the ultimate test is given to you.

Realities about sustainability, conversion, peace and true life are freely given by the life-giving power of Christ. And when His Spirit lives in you because of your faith, even if you don’t sense Him yet, your expectations can only grow once you see the power of God exceed what you currently see and believe about your existence today.

Your miracle is not automatically given to you from some outside source nor does it happen instantaneously because you deserve it from your efforts toward self-empowerment.

On the contrary, your miracle about living the changed life centers on what’s within your inner being. To truly tap into this life-changing power is to put your full trust into the hands of God.

This means this. Surrender yourself to Jesus Christ. And when you do this, your life becomes His. Over time, then your thoughts will become like His. And furthermore, then you’ll start acknowledging that your “day-after” experiences will fade away because you’re not relying exclusively on your own abilities.

Change happens throughout a process. As you progress on this journey, then you will begin to rely on God’s strength even more so because He will become the motivation for your living. Life will take on a whole new meaning. And regarding the idea about long-term change, you really can’t achieve this without having an attitude of humility. Meanwhile throughout the process of starting fresh, although your brokenness might still exist, you don’t need to be humble on your own efforts.

By surrendering to the Spirit of Christ within you, His power of humility will provide the miracle of permanent change within you.

I know there’s quite a lot of information for you to digest. But please stick with me as I explain from future writings how the power of the Spirit of Christ can practically transform you from your old ways of living to the new ones awaiting you.

Keep me on your favorites about living with chronic pain and spiritual fitness.

Okay – you’ve done it. You have finally reached the point where backwards doesn’t count anymore. At last, you’ve firmly decided to do something radically different with your life no matter how damaged you undoubtedly feel or how heavy your circumstances might actually weigh.

I can vividly recall how I felt the day after I had decided to live differently. Full of grim and vigor, I was fiercely determined to make some long-lasting changes. I had reached the point where my old ways of living felt like they were killing me.

For years, the experts had tried to help me out of my brokenness, and for some reason, their efforts, combined with mine, had not totally freed me from the snare of the trapper.

The more I had listened to the sound advice of others, including medical experts, the more it seemed as if I had more to do to reach the point of becoming better. And it was like a mirage because I no longer recognized what better really looked like anymore. Chronic pain and morbid obesity and inner struggles about my purpose cleverly eluded my abilities to make things better.

It felt like I was holding on to a bag of leftovers about myself. In a sense, I thought I would have to live in some form of denial to compensate for my weaknesses. In other words, to walk meant that I had to limp; to feel better meant that I had to hide behind the lies about my unfortunate circumstances; to live by faith meant that I had to deny parts of who I was, and so forth.

Regardless, I had shown fortitude. Basically it was my way of demonstrating brute strength against self-deterioration, trying just about every conceivable exercise about self-improvement, pain-mediation, weight loss and spiritual healing known to man. In the end, the results were minimal with no evidence of sustainable pain relief or return to functional normalcy.

You might relate to the feeling of starting over, hoping to attain some level of improvement, then eventually failing, and then again repeating the process over and over again without having any real success. Things that once came easy, such as simple tasks, low-level physical exercise and keeping to a simple diet plan now had become insurmountable obstacles.

During the middle of trying to make better changes, when you think you can’t do them, then this is what usually happens. But more discouraging is when you don’t even attempt to make changes because your pain hurts you too much. I hesitate to elaborate about the darker sides of brokenness.

Nonetheless, at this very moment, you’re where I was nearly three and a half years ago. You’ve reached that place where resolve is born from the inside out.

Practically speaking for me, I decided to go against the grain of my urges. The process started out slowly. Instead of choosing the short-term fix for pain relief by constantly taking medications, or losing around 5-10 pounds instead of 50 or more, or settling for 8 hours of couch time as opposed to walking on the treadmill, I opted to get out of my unhealthy mindset though my body went in to a tantrum.

Although I’ve always appreciated various systematic and fairly reliable ways to handle painful affliction, I remember when I crossed over from thinking too small to dreaming much bigger. And the odd thing is that I knew I could no longer rely on self, of any form, to overcome the things of self. It had to be done more powerfully through God.

Today is the beginning place to start your new life. Albeit, just getting here has already been a tumultuous journey. This place where you’ve planted your feet is rock solid, giving you the necessary support to experience a redemptive life of self-discovery and ultimate purpose.

Keep up with these blogs about living with chronic pain and spiritual fitness to help you to work out the kinks about moving from the old ways of living to uncovering the hidden power which lies deep within you.

I’ve noticed that it is difficult for those who are unaffected by chronic pain to really understand the heart of those who are truly going through some horrendous times.

Case in point, it’s easy for the unencumbered individual to say, “Today is the day to get started to make changes.  Don’t wait another moment.  Change is good for you, so what are you waiting for?”

But until he or she has actually walked in your shoes and truly understands your pain, as well as the obstacles and fears that you have, then the power behind his or her voice is puny.

Getting started is a matter of surrendering your will. And in the process of surrendering your will, you have to know with whom to surrender.

And in terms of what I’m really trying to convey, when you’re at the crossroads between utter despair or rebooting your life, deliberate choices must be made or you’ll become the victim of not choosing either path.

You may have heard the expression that life is an accumulation of choices. Well, in an odd sense, it oftentimes is viewed from this perspective. But I encourage you to look at life differently – from a place where your initial choice is not actually yours.

You might believe that you have total control about what you’re doing or how you’re going to handle certain predicaments, but this behavioral approach merely scratches the surface of what it means to participate in sustainable change.

Getting started begins deep within you. Most likely, your painful wounds and brokenness are inconspicuously hidden and deeply intertwined within your soul, trying to take over who you really are.

Trying to completely heal yourself first or straightening out the ugly parts before you get started on the road to better living never happens as you intend it too.

Getting started means to go to that place that God created within you. Simply, this place can only be found through faith. This place is intended for the invisible parts of who you are to interact with an invisible God. That’s why it takes faith.

Getting started requires your full surrender to the One who created faith. This is why your choice is not of your own volition. It’s God’s, and it’s meant for your wholeness and healing through His redemptive act of love.

This is why it is vitally important to surrender to God. This is the place, deepest within your inner being, where God meets you most lovingly and powerfully. When you’re vulnerable and honest and real with Him in this place, as oftentimes happens when you’re completely broken, this is where change begins by the activity of His Spirit.

This is the best way to get started with new living!

Just some helpful thoughts about living with chronic pain and spiritual fitness…