Have been doing some digging, planting vegetable seeds and even some flower seeds. Must have pulled or torn the right "Rhomboid" muscle. It is that one between the spine and the shoulder blade, and this one on the right upper back.
Have a very high pain threshold, measured years ago, but honed for nearly 31 years of constant suffering. But it seems that a new, severe pain can really do in this hermit. Can barely breathe or make any movements or there is sharp, breath-taking pain. Have been praising God for a muscle relaxant and pain meds, even though they do as they do for the back pain and constant headache: take a bit of the edge off.
This hermit is not used to managing this additional area of severe pain that verges on excruciating, with some movements in particular. Now, how can this be placed in context of letting go of temporal loves and passions? Well, it is practice in letting go of this hermit's attachment to plans for this day.
It is the Lord's day, not ours. He determines in all circumstances the Order of the Present Moment. Let go of attachment to love of managing pain, for example. Humble down and take what medications are available to help manage; and praise God for them. Yes, the medications are humbling, or the having to take them at this phase of life, age, and pain levels. Just this week, the elderly aunt and another person suggested that surely diet could help the hermit become better and better and not need any medication.
A friend considers medication as poison to the body. Her health has been in decline ever since she went on a rather radical diet that was much in vogue a year or two ago in a major way--one of those diets that some people are are thus disposed can follow kind of in an extreme and cult-like fashion--totally convinced that it is the only way to eat. Two food groups are cut off, completely.
The hermit praises God for this added pain that occurred yesterday afternoon. All work ceased, of course. Even trying to walk around the hermitage is very painful. So it is hit-the-mattress time, and use ice pack now and then, and take meds that can help rest the strained or torn muscle. (It really does not matter whether it is sprained, strained, or has a slight tear--the pain is letting the body's mind know that the muscle needs rest and healing. Ice pack, lots of water to help flush toxins that develop around injured areas within, prayer, rest, and praising God are the antidotes.)
There can be no attachment to self-made plans or projected thoughts of what would or could be accomplished today. The most that will be attempted is to hold the hose with left arm and hand, and water the seeds that were planted yesterday. And doing that is, of course, dependent upon His Real Presence. Will He let the hermit tolerate the pain enough to do even that? We will find out.
If not, the seeds will remain without water, in the earth, and will need to rest and rely upon whatever moisture might be in the soil, which is probably not a lot. But it is amazing when we realize that farmers sow seeds in fields, and they do not then go along with a hose or some huge apparatus and water their entire fields--acres and acres of crop seeding.
What a marvelous way to learn more about how God can answer a prayer. When we ask for something, such as for His Will to be done and for Him to detach us from our attachments to our particular temporal loves, He answers. The answers can come in ways that frustrate--until we see that He is teaching us that we are attached to what it is we have planned to do in the temporal realm.
Today the Lord obviously wants the hermit to not "do" but to "be." Received a short message from a friend whose daughter had a baby on Thursday. The baby is lethargic, has a temperature, and experiencing difficulty feeding. The doctors are trying to find out what could possibly be the problem. The two-day-old infant is not being released from the hospital. Prayers are asked! Am praying! There is such a difference in our plans for any given moment, and God's plans. Go with God's flow.
This hermit and its body will simply need to rest, pretty much immobilized unless can ambulate without causing the Rhomboid muscle more movement and irritation, needs to manage the added pain, and will join with the sown seeds tucked beneath gentle soil, waiting to germinate when God determines.
God bless His Real Presence in us, and us in Him. Remain in the rich ground of His Love.
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