A new morning greets me, a gift from God. Went 5 1/2 hours of sleep after difficulty falling asleep around 1:30 a.m. I still am resisting taking the 12-hour extended release medication due to how difficult it is to procure in generic form, these days of legitimate pain sufferers being punished, in a real way, due to the sins of others who have abused and do not need the medication.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, the pharmaceutical companies and especially the drugstore corporate deny special orders for the generic form of the medication--not even that strong of one in dose--because they will make $290 instead of $75 for 60 pills by not sending the local store the generic. The drug insurance will not pay toward it at all, in generic or trade name of medication.
Thus I've been trying to cope with less sleep and more pain, despite my doctor prescribing and having insisted I fill the script. Doing so caused great inconvenience to the helpful and loyal family member who had to drive quite a distance to the one store that had 60 of the generic form in stock; they told her, once there, the policy was for her to wait 90 minutes before they would fill the script.
She explained her parent had serious and extensive spinal surgery; obviously they look in the records that all of us have accessible to the various spokes of the medical wheel and could see this is but the second prescription, the low dose, the length of time between prescriptions, no abuse, legitimate medical doctor. She was not allowed to leave the store--as could have picked up groceries or run other errand; but after an hour they relented, evidently satisfied this was not going to a street addict as I guess they tend not to stick around? That is all we could figure for what they said was store policy.
So I suffer more with less sleep and waking up with pain out of control. I continue to desire very much to make more of my life to be worthwhile, to be pleasing to God, to be helpful to others. Pain can so easily suck a person in on himself. When the pain is so high, the thoughts can be so low.
I battle the devil each morning; each morning the Lord rules my mind, heart, and soul. Together He and I succeed in making it through, despite the severity of pain and the obvious setback this past week. Could it be that I am feeling the pain that previously was masked by the 12-hour extended release "dear" pill at night?
Frankly, I wanted to stop having to take that medication not only for the hassle with the pharmacy but also because I'd like to be rid of having to take it. I'd like to be able to progress more, somehow have the body and mind be able to manage the pain without. Is it a combination of resentment of persecution by government and pharmaceutical companies and a resentment that my post-surgery recovery and status is not where maybe it ought to be, or I want it to be?
Is this resentment also a form of pride in that I think I should not yet be in this much pain, or that I do not want to admit to the reality that I might be incapable of handling this pain and the debilitating effects and progress at standstill and in fact, this setback?
Whatever, I've texted four people this morning. I'm striving in this day the Lord is giving me, to put myself out of self and into offering positive love and peace, and prayers for others.
My body is but a temporal thing even if the amount of pain in it and the inability to get up much and move about, let alone "do" but the essentials of basic survival, dictate the bodily aspect of this new day. And the pain also very much affects the mind and the heart/emotions, and the pain thus can affect the spirit, the attitude, in which mind and heart live out and watercolor brush-wash this day in grays or colors.
I choose colors, as much as my choice might influence, for my soul contains the will God gave me and my intellect. I recall the hermit in the documentary on Mt. Athos saying that a hermit must control his thoughts to avoid depression. I need to control my thoughts to simply exist and to hope in God to better endure--to endure better than just enduring, to endure better than average (of course could be less than average) existing.
In my morning Scripture reading I also read selection 2845 in The Catechism of the Catholic Church. (When I first became Catholic in 1995, it seemed to me that if The Catechism were what all governments of the world and all people utilized in its practical and profound suggestions for our interpersonal relationships and explanations of the Scriptures, the world and our lives would be peaceably more functional and indeed, lovely.)
I've currently been focusing on forgiveness in excerpts from The Catechism. I like this statement from 2845:
"We are always debtors: 'Owe no one anything, except to love one another.'"
This is the key truth I wish to remember today, despite other thoughts in the selection also are truth, beauty, and goodness.
"The communion of the Holy Trinity is the source and criterion of truth in every relationship. It is lived out in prayer, above all in the Eucharist." For this, although I'm not brought the consecrated Host in tangible form, the Lord is asking of me great faith in spiritual communion as well as in embracing the reality that, as Pope Benedict XVI explains in an apostolic letter, the Eucharist is also received in and through the Living Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. His Word feeds and sustains, is also our daily bread, is communion of the Holy Trinity, binding us with God and others.
In a way, I can consider this pain as a "sower of disunion" if I allow it to be a point of focus and disruption in my mind and heart/emotions. This additional citation from section 2845 in The Catechism helps me all the more cope in this new morning the Lord has gifted me to live. I am reminded of the good of prayers that sow peace and love.
"God does not accept the sacrifice of a sower of disunion, but commands that he depart from the altar so that he may first be reconciled with his brother. For God can be appeased only by prayers that make peace. To God, the better offering is peace, brotherly concord, and a people made one in the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
I can in this new morning, reconcile myself with this severe physical pain, leaving me an invalid, essentially and substantially. I also can reconcile with the pharmaceutical companies and the laws and pressures placed upon them and the medical community due to the illicit abuse of pain medications that cause even more suffering to those of us who rely upon such medications to help ease even a small portion of severe, intractable pain for which no other treatments or medications are effective.
I can pray to make peace with my pain and all the circumstances and people involved with how it is that my body came to be in such pain. From the drunk teen years ago to the earthly spouse whose character was not at a level of being able to remain faithful to marriage vows prior to accident and who absolutely did not have the willingness to remain through better or worse, until death do us part. The Lord had other plans for me, His beloved and espoused, victim soul of His Sacred Heart, wed now in mystical marriage, with Him, in Him, on His cross, awaiting someday, the consummation of our loving union.
I pray to make peace; to make for God the better offering of peace, my own asking forgiveness is crucial, for I am a debtor, myself. I'm still being reminded of sins of which I've tucked away or folded into drawers of deception. When they are revealed, no matter how seemingly insignificant, I ask God to forgive me, directly, with sincerity of heart and with remorse. The greater effort, though, for me, seems to be to have the tried-and-true faith which assures that God has indeed forgiven me!
In this new morning the Lord has gifted, I pray for not only brotherly concord with others, but also that I be made one in the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I also pray very much for those without legitimate physical pain but with obviously a type of psychological pain, a social or emotional pain that causes them to seek medications to get some sort of "high"--a sensation that no one with legitimate pain feels from the medication. For legitimate, physical pain, the medication goes into the bodily system and is utilized by the source of constant suffering, of the area of injury and permanently altered, damaged, physical body.
I must make peace with these people who play around with medications at parties, or who have addictive personalities, or whose lack of faith or whatever other weaknesses cause them to use medication to alter their mental realities for the "fun" of it, until soon it is not fun at all but rather a ruinous habit of drug addiction. I must make peace with those who somehow think after their surgeries, that they should not have any pain at all and do not realize that we will still have pain. I must make peace with those who abuse medications because of ignorance or refusal to accept bearing some suffering for the love of God and in union with Christ, and to be linked with all of us who suffer with Him the chronic crosses of mankind's temporal trials.
I am reminded in Scripture and in this particular selection from The Catechism, that there is no limit to God's forgiveness. Yes, He forgives me. He also forgives those for whom I pray for His forgiveness, in that I ask Him to help me forgive those mostly unknown people out there who have caused in various ways, unwittingly I'm sure, more suffering for people like me.
And I recognize that I am one who has unwittingly caused suffering for others in various ways--ways of which I'm not even aware until the Holy Spirit, my angel, or some emissary of God on earth points out to me my harmful doings, the hurts I've perpetuated without conscious intention.
In this new morning, I've become aware in memory of shortcomings as well as knowing that in this new day, I desire to put into my mind and heart that which will improve my soul more than even the thoughtful films that have broadened my thoughts. I weary of these even though they expose and remind me of what others struggle with in their lives. I make peace with the good of such media forms that can expand awareness and empathy, lest I succumb to that sucking in on self that pain can so adroitly create in a suffering person's mind and heart.
But what will help most? I consider all the good for my soul that comes from a short selection of Scripture and, such as from The Catechism, a line for this morning, this day, for my living out:
Owe no one anything, except to love one another.
This truth is a good thought, a better start and re-start to this new morning. All that is of God is for my better enduring.
God Bless His Real Presence in us!
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