Midnight Pain
11:45 PM 5 April 2023
Pain. 24/7. Never stops. Never. Injections, opioid drugs, therapy. Nothing makes it stop. Thirty days now without relief. Every night it gets worse. No sleep. My knee aches in waves. Then sharp like someone has a drill bit turning under the knee cap. Always in the same spot. Continuously.
What do You get out of this? What purpose can this serve? What do You want?
You see, I believe that if You wanted to, You could stop this in an instant. Everything about the witness of four thousand years of Your people says that this doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not random fate that makes me suffer. No, it’s You!
But why? I’m sure Job must have felt the same. What is the point of making those who actually want to believe in Your goodness suffer. If I could point to some terrible sin, then maybe I could understand. Do I think I don’t deserve this? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do believe I don’t deserve this. Do I think I’m innocent? No, of course not. I have plenty of guilt, more than enough to go around. But do I need a reminder, a 24/7 punishment to make me admit my sinfulness? No, I don’t think so. In fact, just the opposite is occurring.
I’m aware that I am reaching the place where I might stop believing in a good God. What good does it do to believe in a God who cares but doesn’t care about me? Why hold on to the idea of benevolence when the God who could act doesn’t bother to act? What does this tell me about such a God?
You know, I can learn to live with this. It won’t be easy. It will change my life completely. If this is what I can expect from now on, pain management will become my reality. It already is. I’m not sure what I will do if this is going to be how I must live for the next twenty years. But I do know that it will change what I believe. A God of silence isn’t my god.
It’s not hard to imagine what Holocaust survivors think about God.
Sometimes I catch myself trying reverse psychology on God. If He thinks He might lose my belief, maybe then He will act. But, of course, that’s just stupid. He already knows this game—and He doesn’t act. That’s the real story. He doesn’t act. He doesn’t do anything to relieve this constant, continuous drilling in my knee. And since He doesn’t act, what am I to conclude? The thought is scary.
He doesn’t really care.
For me, it’s really pretty simple. As a father, if one of my children had this kind of painful life, I would do whatever I could to relieve it, especially if the relief depended on me. It wouldn’t matter to me if my child was “unworthy.” That value assessment doesn’t enter the equation. He’s my child! That’s all that matters. So it’s getting harder and harder to hold on to the thought that God is a Father when I know perfectly well that He could take this away, that He actually claims that He can, and yet—silence. How long do you think it will be before the idea of “loving Father” is a mistake?
Good Father, I believe You are who You say You are. Loving, kind, merciful, and just. Provider, protector, healer, righteousness, peace. I do not know why my brother is suffering in this way, but You do. I lift him up to You in his hour/day/month of need. Quiet his spirit with Your shalom that passes understanding and instruct his spirit with Yours. Infuse him with the assurance of Your presence and love according to what You know he needs. Abba, I ask for the continued fulfillment of Your purpose in Your son to be established for Your glory and to your praise. b’shem Yeshua Mishacheinu, sar ha shalom
I say this with great compassion. Welcome to the club! I have to keep going back to Paul’s thorn in the flesh. “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness“.
I find myself without words as I read your pain, brother.
Lifting you in prayer as best I can.
Skip, I hope I am not out of place here but have you heard of TMS RoundTable Global, Educating & Inspiring Dr John Sarno’s TMS & ISTDP MindBody Healing methods
I do so pray for your release….
Shalom Yvonne
I am praying, brother, for your personal experience of God’s mercy and grace—indeed I am confronting the darkness on your behalf—that together we may obtain his release from your physical pain, and the anguish such circumstances render against your soul, which he loves more than can be expressed in terms of our own understanding. Amen and amen.
There is “no symmetry or equilibrium” between light and darkness… only confrontation. Moreover, it is only in union with the confrontation of the Exalted Risen One that we experience the mercy, grace, and power that enables us to proclaim his light so as to confront the oft-experienced darkness and tension of apprehension (and yes, even doubt), particularly in the context of enduring the suffering of pain. Yet He is indeed the Christ who is the climax of Israel’s story, and that together with those ‘of the Nations’— who in faith are together also participating in Israel’s story— remain in this tension of pain and suffering and darkness and anticipation of hope held out for their long-awaited inheritance. This tension remains until the ‘shaking’ of this world and the final establishment of the new creation. May it come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Augustine said: “This awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning. History does not end so. It is the way its chapters open.”
Skip, I am saddened to hear that you are experiencing this unbearable pain which so far has eluded effective treatment, but I hope this new chapter of your story is not entitled “The Dark Night” or “The Loss of Hope” but rather something like “Darkest Before Dawn” or “The Defeat of Doubt”. It’s easy for me, who is pain free, to offer charitable platitudes, but as you often teach life comes down to a matter of choice. My prayer then is not for the relief of your pain, primarily because I have no history of success in that realm, though I will as a matter of proper prayer protocol certainly include that hope, but my prayer is that you be given the ability to see the full range of choices available to you in this trial and then choose the one that best honors the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of whom you have encountered, espoused and endorsed. Remember Jacob walked with a limp the remainder of his life after his encounter with a supernatural entity at the Jabbok ford. Since you already have the limp may you get the blessing that Jacob failed to receive. You certainly have wrestled with the “Word” for these many years. Paul asks “What, then, does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” — that is, the word about trust which we proclaim. Romans 10:8 CJB
And while Jacob asked, but was denied to learn the Name of that supernatural entity who wrestled with him all night, but only got a new name, (Jacob to Israel) you already have a new name ( Arthur to Skip) and you have the advantage of 3,700 years of progressive Scriptural revelation and a lifetime of intense study and personal revelation to know his name: “ And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” May the LORD of Yeshua Hamashiach hear you, help you and heal you.