Living With Chronic Pain – Spiritual Fitness – About Getting Started
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…
