Raw Pain

A month ago I was meeting with some friends and confessing how I struggle to do the normal medical updates of, like, going to the doctor for an annual physical ('What's with going to the doctor when you're not sick? It's like another chore!') Or, if I did make it to the checkup, to actually schedule all the follow-up things that they send you to. 

I've written about having A.D.D. (I like to term it: Alternately Designed Diva), here before, but this is just one more peek into what it's like to live with chronic distraction, impulsivity, procrastination and bizarre rabbit trail hunting. A.D.D. never goes away. It is with me for life. It has affected every area of my life, and the medical realm is not left out of it's clutches. That's why A.D.D. sufferers (and, those who wear it proudly!) need many supports to keep us on track. Like friends. You know, friends who know things - and will DO things, like, text you the name and number of a dermatologist you should go see.

So, I happen to have friends like that. They hear me say, 'Yeah, I guess this scabby thing on my forehead that just doesn't seem to heal has been sitting here for a year or two and maybe I should get it looked at, but I don't even remember the name of the dermatologist I saw once years ago. I'd probably have to call the doctor's office to get a reference. Then I'd have to wait for the call-back. Then I'd have to jot down the number. Then I'd have to pick up the phone and dial said number. Then I'd have to have time in my schedule for an appointment. Then I'd have to remember to go to the appointment, and then actually go. That's asking a lot.'

I know this sounds just crazy to neuro-typicals who just casually pick up phones on a whim and dial things and make appointments and go to them. It sounds so simple and easy. But it isn't. It isn't easy at all. It seems so mundane, so boring, so ho-hum and not really that necessary.

My friend must have sensed my lackadaisical attitude about this and said, 'You need to get that looked at right away.' I sort of hinted that I'd try. Well, an hour later she texted me a name and number, right there in my phone so all I had to do was tap the blue numbers and it would dial itself. She saved me many, many steps.

I made the appointment. I remembered the appointment, and I went to it.

And I knew they'd find cancer - I know what that looks like, feels like, and it wasn't surprising (or scary really). There are scary cancers. And there are those who rightly fear or have an anxious response to it. This, to me, was no big deal. 'They'll just take it off,' I said. 'It will be a simple, straightforward procedure,' I said. 'It will be a minor surgery,' the dermatologist said.

And never will I hear the word 'minor' together with 'surgery' in the same way.

That day in the office they numbed me up and took a bit off the top of my forehead leaving a small sore and a tiny bandaid, and my head slowly unnumbed over the following few hours, and they biopsied it and it was indeed cancer (basal cell carcinoma), and they told me to schedule a surgery to remove it. Well, I was puzzled because I thought, 'Hey, didn't they just remove it? I guess they need to remove more.' And I went ahead and scheduled that surgery, and I even remembered to go, and even asked Sam to help with kid duties so I could sit in a doctor's office while they did their thing.

I think I kinda forgot to tell Sam that it was to remove a cancer. I think I told him the day before, or the day after, or something. 'How long ago did you know it was cancer?' he asked. 'Oh, that was 2 weeks ago. I didn't think it was a big deal or something to worry you about,' I answered. 

And that is a little insight into me. I don't know how to do pain or suffering or worry in the context of others. And frankly this hasn't been a worry; it has simply been a pain.

I didn't really do my homework as to what to expect from Mohs surgery. I really thought it would be round 2 of what the biopsy was like. I had no idea what I'd face when the anaesthetic started wearing off. I am 10 days out and still have random stabbing pain in my head. If I bend down to wipe a spill, or pull clothes out of the dryer, my head will start to throb and I can feel the wound pulsing and leaking. There was nothing minor about this surgery, other than that it was done in an office and not a hospital. 

I also don't know how much to share with people - like, is it too much to post about in on facebook? Will I seem like a drama queen? (Even when I have drama aversion?) Is it attention-seeking to put it out there? Or is it just an attempt to distract myself from the pain?

When I came home from the 4 hour procedure, I didn't feel too bad. I chatted with our guests, then went to lie down. And slowly the numbing medicine began to dissipate. And slowly I felt the pain of what I'd been through. At first I thought, 'Yikes. This is bad.' Then I would think, 'Wait, it's only beginning to wear off. It can't get worse.' And then 20 minutes would go by and I would freak out and think, 'It can get worse. It's getting worse. There's no way it can get worse...' and on and on. It was searing, maddening, blinding, crying, hot pain. 

I tried to analyze the pain: it's the incision, it's the cauterizing - that part of the procedure where I could smell burning flesh, it's the pulling my head together to stitch it tight, it's the 12 stitches, it's the swelling, it's the trauma. And then I couldn't analyze because I was IN it. You know, IN the pain - in such a way as I couldn't compare it to anything except maybe having a needle injecting straight into my eardrum as an 8 year-old, or perhaps unmedicated childbirth at home when I broke my tailbone in labour. This kind of pain ranked up there with the worst of the worst of the worst. I thought, 'Nothing's worse than childbirth!' And then I reconsidered. You get a baby after childbirth. This seemed to offer no carrot at the end of the journey, other than, 'Well, that's taken care of.' It made me think, 'Was it worth it?' I mean, if this thing would only grow, spread to my lymph system, make a mess of things, well, it might take 20 years or so, and I'm 44, so that's a ripe, old-enough-age, right?

I curled up in a ball and started to cry. I haven't cried like this since....since? I couldn't remember the last time I cried like this. Even in labour I was mostly stoic. I whimpered, cried and cried and couldn't stop. I think I cried for 3 hours the first night home.

And in the middle of the pain I started to pray (What else could I do?!). 

"I hate this, God! Why don't You do something? Are you listening? This hurts. It hurts bad. SO bad. I don't like this pain. It's awful. You could take it away." 

And then my very rational, logical, sciency brain would kick in and go, 'You are experiencing the normal after-effects of physical trauma to your head from this surgery. Pain is to be expected when such invasive treatment is done to your head. You can ask God to take away your pain, but that is also asking Him to suspend the natural laws that regulate the human condition.' Then my mind goes in all sorts of directions, from doubt to faith, to belief, to suffering, to Who is God anyway? And in the worst of it, I just kind of broke and in an impulsive, painful moment I prayed, "God, do You even love me? If you love me, why are you letting me suffer like this?!"

And I shuddered.

I have heard others ask this very thing. And I haven't often asked this of God. It's not that I fear to, or think I shouldn't - by all means, I believe we need to be very open with God on the things we think, feel, experience or question about Who He is and what it means when He says about Himself, 'God is Love.'

I caught myself - how can I question the love of God for me? This is a very basic thing!!

But in this moment when the pain was so raw, so real, so consuming, I cried and felt helpless and wondered if God was there for me. I pictured myself as His hurting child, curled in His lap, whimpering and crying out, 'Why don't You help me?!' 

And I knew I was in a new place, a different place. A place I'd heard of, but hadn't explored so much.

The pain of wondering where God is in my pain.

I have experience with suffering. I have walked different paths - some more different than most. I'm sure you know suffering, too. Some of you have been dealt such heavy suffering my soul shudders to think of it. I think of those who lose a child - at any stage - and even the thought of it blows my mind. How much it must break hearts to experience this! 

But here I was, dealing with a very simple suffering: physical pain. I believe emotional pain is often worse than physical pain. But in that moment I think there was no comparing. I realized that pain is pain is pain is pain.

"Ok, God, if I have to be here for a while, I need to go through it with You. I need to know You're with me; I need reassurance that You hear, that You know my hurt. Let it be as You will."

I started to think of Jesus on the cross. He had a crown of thorns on His head. That was only one part of suffering. But then I thought of Hebrews 12.2 which tells me He endured it for the joy set before Him. I told God, 'Well, I don't see any real purpose in my pain and suffering right now. There is no 'joy set before [me]'!'

And I remembered being in labour and the thought crossing my mind, 'Jesus never birthed a baby.'

This isn't to argue with the theological notion of Christ entering our humanity fully (which He did, by the way). Or to compare my sufferings with those of Christ, or anyone, for that matter. In fact, in my pain I even felt badly thinking of others who suffer more - who live with chronic pain, all the time. "I'm such a wimp!" I told myself. Yeah, self-reproach for the win right there, Sarah.

There was something in this experience that was new and different. Where I met God in a new way. Where the sufferings of Christ became more real to me. They have begun to mean more to me. 

The pain hasn't entirely gone, and I trust it will at some point. 

(One morning last week I could only open one eye slightly - both were almost entirely engulfed in swollenness.)

But somewhere in the middle of last week, after many had begun to pray for me, after I got a good dose of heavy pain meds...somewhere in there I discovered a change in my prayer. Instead of, 'Please Lord, take away this pain,' it changed to, 'I'll stay in this pain as long as You redeem it somehow. I'm willing to be here in this pain, if it means I discover more of You, here, now, with me, moment by moment.'

I even prayed, 'Lord, don't let this pain end if it means I'll miss understanding suffering as You want me to. Just make it tolerable enough for me to listen.'

Then I wrestled with the whole self-flagellation concept and 'woe-is-me' and glorification of pain and suffering. See, nothing is simple with me.

As I fought, then yielded to the pain, I was reminded of the verse that talks about joining our sufferings to those of Christ.

Disclaimer: I am not a Bible scholar or credentialed theologian, so take what I say with that in mind (in other words: don't shoot me for what may seem a bizarre approach).

In Colossians Paul says, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church."

I'll let the scholars and company duke it out as to what this really means. But for me, in my simple prayers and suffering, I decided that hey, if Paul could offer his physical sufferings to God for something then I'm going to take that approach too. This is not some mystical, magical, 'I'm going to twist God's arm to do something because my suffering sucks.' It was more a form of meditating on Scripture (that Scripture, in fact) in the midst of my suffering. In childbirth, there is a joy and pupose in suffering. In the wound-on-the-head, there felt like nothing at the end of the road (except, of course, the excision of cancer on my head). I suppose that is some kind 'positive purpose'.

But in my scrambling mind, I thought, I'm going to pray in and through my pain, and I'm going to allow this pain to bring me into a deeper and closer walk with God. I'm going to not just pray for my pain to end, but link my experience of pain to other painful things that I want God to do something about. For example, I am sad when I see churches hurting, struggling, with conflicts, distractions, discouragements and the like. And there are some I've been praying for off and on here and there. Well, in my deep pain, I said, 'Lord, I'm going to bring those suffering churches to You while I wallow here. Let my pain be a reminder to You that I want You to do something about these groups of people You love so much.' 

I don't view my pain as a good-luck-charm, but as an impetus to bring other painful things to the throne of Grace.

I also thought of many of my friends who have unfulfilled longings. And I entered into my pain with new eyes. I realized, 'even if their pain is emotional, it probably feels similar to what I'm feeling right now.' I started to connect to the pain of others in a new way. I am learning empathy. 

Learning empathy is a painful process. And I wonder if I could learn it any other way. I bet some do - some have the capacity to genuinely enter another's pain somehow. In the past, I thought this was a strength of mine. But now I see differently. To be truly empathetic, I must be willing to imagine and even experience in some way, another's suffering or joy. I must be able to enter another's joy, even if it isn't my own, and not slide down the slope to envy. I must be able to enter another's pain, even if it is not my own, and not slide down the slope to pity or despair. Empathy is tricky territory. I think I'm learning, through my own experience of pain, just how tricky this territory is.

So, yes, I've had a bout with pain. And I imagine, as the years pass, these experiences only increase. If only my soul would be expanded with every new encounter with pain. If only my ears would attune to the Voice of Love that comes to me in my pain and tells me, "My love for you isn't dependent on your understanding it or not. Or even your experience of pain, or not. It is constant, unending, enduring: My faithful love for you is a bedrock for your soul. Count on it. Rest in it. Believe it." 

Pain will do strange things to one not accustomed to it. As I went through the week, my attitude towards pain changed. I began to see it as a gift. God had allowed me to suffer, and I can trust Him in this. There is surely some way for me to grow, to be stretched, to become a greater vessel of His grace, in this pain. 

On Sunday, one of the passages read in the message was from Malachi 3 - about the Refiner's fire. It struck me (almost between the eyeballs, but more likely, just on the right of my forehead), that I am in a Refiner's Fire. That my dross is being sifted and burned away, just like my cancer-injured blood vessels were burned away. I literally (in the literal, not figurative sense), have felt the refiner's fire this past week. And out of this raw pain, I have spilled over into gratitude, empathy, joy, peace, grace, hope, and honesty with God. 

I seek Him in my pain. I seek His purpose. But mostly I just fall in a heap on His lap and realize my utter helpless dependence on Him.

And He meets me in it. And I trust Him.

Even in my pain.

(As I began to recover, I tried to smile in one selfie).

*Further disclaimer: (Please don't cringe that I imagine the voice of God. It is tested by Scripture, and I'm telling of my experience in prayer, not giving anyone a formula for how to pray).*