So much for my taking that small, round, costly little pain medication tablet last night. Even with the added regular medication plus the prescribed muscle relaxant and the herbal sleep aid, the pain kept me awake until sometime after 2 a.m. This pain situation is as it is, intractable and potent no matter; it remains thus, and with me for whatever reasons God alone knows.
I finally fell asleep--really and truly by the grace of God. This morning I awoke after five hours of sleep. Not enough, in my view of it, but God surely deems it acceptable, and I am grateful for that amount of reprieve from conscious awareness of this suffering.
The situation with suffering, with pain, is the sense of helplessness.
There is a difference between helplessness and hopelessness, of course. One must be aware of and recognize helplessness as distinguished from hopelessness. I'm not sure how, exactly, to know the difference other than through the love of God and His hope which is so intrinsically woven within faith and love.
We can feel helpless; others around us can feel helpless. We can even be helpless, such as I am helpless in this waking pain and helpless last night in falling asleep until well after 2 a.m. There really was not more I could safely do to manage the pain other than to wait and pray. The prayer was not mental; it was more verbal.
I wrote a couple emails--wrote about, per usual, the suffering, and wrote of my joy at one person's exciting and most uplifting plans for a trip with a son and beloved granddaughter. They fly off on an adventure at Thanksgiving, visiting another of the friend's son and his wife--a reward get-away a gift from the Almighty for anyone who grasps the helplessness in suffering through which this older friend has also travelled.
In the other email, I wrote about the suffering, but then asked for any specific prayer intentions of the priest who is, despite being halfway around the world, would be considered my closest. living spiritual director. It could be awhile before I hear back from him; he is a holy priest the Community of the Holy Spirit--the Spiritans--in an African country of which the internet service is not as consistent as is the fullness of his many responsibilities in his ministry.
And while I emailed Fr. V., I had already admitted in the silence of solitude and in the relentless suffering, that I have instantaneous contact with my dearest spiritual da, as well as with the ones who loves me most--my late mother and father. I thought yet again of my spiritual da, his temporal form buried in the earth of the convent in which he served as chaplain for the last 28 years of his over 99 years of life. So I called upon my spiritual da, my earthly dad, and my mother--the latter of whom was more bluntly verbal but also more understanding and relational than my dad.
Yesterday, actually, I once more considered reading through the many letters and notecards my late spiritual da had written me over our 24 years of his spiritual guidance and friendship. He of all persons on earth, knew my soul and person best, as far as my religious life, spiritual experiences, and my relationship with His Real Presence. He and I were, in his words, anam cara. When the soul is involved, and someone knows and loves one's soul, there is a supernatural love that runs deep and wide; yet it is also a love that is not biological or physiological.
I am blessed with much love that is within a thought's reach--far closer and accessible than an email or phone call of anyone on earth. I will ponder such love today; and I will consider those for whom I love in the ways that are greatest in the ways of love and what matters to the human soul. My own accessibility to other persons' need for love and understanding is, also, the greater when in faith, I am but an instantaneous thought, a supernatural prayer, away. (What is prayer if not divinely supernatural?)
Hope exists in faith, and hope and faith exist in love. Helplessness exists in suffering; but therein also thrives hope, faith, and love when we know our soul existence is in His Real Presence: God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. No matter the reality of helplessness that exists in suffering, temporally and spiritually--mystically eternally--are the realities of faith, hope, and love.
Love of God in Himself and love of others in our love of God proves powerful over pain's helplessness. Even in the worst of suffering when our minds seem helpless against the various pains of all sorts of sufferings, His Real Presence is with us, in us. God's hope, God's faith, God's love flow and fill every cell, every fiber, every infinite intangible of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls.
Helplessness, although an earthly reality, should not be feared nor spurned. Helplessness is as it is--a state of not being able to do for ourselves physically or even mentally or emotionally, nor to do for or alter how it is for those around us or those who are not in proximity. While we may not think about how helpless we are when we have physical health, the actuality is that we are helpless in so many tangible and intangible ways. This is the reality of our human condition.
Only can we survive the reality of our helplessness, through, with, and in His Real Presence. I mean, only in God, only in Jesus, only in the Holy Spirit can our earthly helplessness be made tolerable and not a negative, not a feared and terrible take-over in our lives. Wait and pray; pray without knowing we are praying. There is prayer in the simplicity of the waiting--even the feeling of helplessness waitwhen waiting is the prayer, when the pain of the various sufferings in our lives is our prayer. God provides, somehow, someway, the faith, hope, and love that we need to endure and by which we understand others, by which we stand a chance to prove helplessness to be simply a thing of this woring.
I don't know how God does it, but He does. He gets us through our helplessness one way or another when we wait and pray,ld that exists, causes a flurry of thoughts and emotions, but is not capable of destroying our souls.
Faith, hope, and love of God in Himself and of and for others, keep the helplessness of suffering in it's place as a thing not to be feared nor spurned...just a thing that exists in the temporal that one way or another, God brings us through, over, or around. Helplessness is not forever. Wait and pray. Only God is forever. Remain in His Love.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
I finally fell asleep--really and truly by the grace of God. This morning I awoke after five hours of sleep. Not enough, in my view of it, but God surely deems it acceptable, and I am grateful for that amount of reprieve from conscious awareness of this suffering.
The situation with suffering, with pain, is the sense of helplessness.
There is a difference between helplessness and hopelessness, of course. One must be aware of and recognize helplessness as distinguished from hopelessness. I'm not sure how, exactly, to know the difference other than through the love of God and His hope which is so intrinsically woven within faith and love.
We can feel helpless; others around us can feel helpless. We can even be helpless, such as I am helpless in this waking pain and helpless last night in falling asleep until well after 2 a.m. There really was not more I could safely do to manage the pain other than to wait and pray. The prayer was not mental; it was more verbal.
I wrote a couple emails--wrote about, per usual, the suffering, and wrote of my joy at one person's exciting and most uplifting plans for a trip with a son and beloved granddaughter. They fly off on an adventure at Thanksgiving, visiting another of the friend's son and his wife--a reward get-away a gift from the Almighty for anyone who grasps the helplessness in suffering through which this older friend has also travelled.
In the other email, I wrote about the suffering, but then asked for any specific prayer intentions of the priest who is, despite being halfway around the world, would be considered my closest. living spiritual director. It could be awhile before I hear back from him; he is a holy priest the Community of the Holy Spirit--the Spiritans--in an African country of which the internet service is not as consistent as is the fullness of his many responsibilities in his ministry.
And while I emailed Fr. V., I had already admitted in the silence of solitude and in the relentless suffering, that I have instantaneous contact with my dearest spiritual da, as well as with the ones who loves me most--my late mother and father. I thought yet again of my spiritual da, his temporal form buried in the earth of the convent in which he served as chaplain for the last 28 years of his over 99 years of life. So I called upon my spiritual da, my earthly dad, and my mother--the latter of whom was more bluntly verbal but also more understanding and relational than my dad.
Yesterday, actually, I once more considered reading through the many letters and notecards my late spiritual da had written me over our 24 years of his spiritual guidance and friendship. He of all persons on earth, knew my soul and person best, as far as my religious life, spiritual experiences, and my relationship with His Real Presence. He and I were, in his words, anam cara. When the soul is involved, and someone knows and loves one's soul, there is a supernatural love that runs deep and wide; yet it is also a love that is not biological or physiological.
I am blessed with much love that is within a thought's reach--far closer and accessible than an email or phone call of anyone on earth. I will ponder such love today; and I will consider those for whom I love in the ways that are greatest in the ways of love and what matters to the human soul. My own accessibility to other persons' need for love and understanding is, also, the greater when in faith, I am but an instantaneous thought, a supernatural prayer, away. (What is prayer if not divinely supernatural?)
Hope exists in faith, and hope and faith exist in love. Helplessness exists in suffering; but therein also thrives hope, faith, and love when we know our soul existence is in His Real Presence: God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. No matter the reality of helplessness that exists in suffering, temporally and spiritually--mystically eternally--are the realities of faith, hope, and love.
Love of God in Himself and love of others in our love of God proves powerful over pain's helplessness. Even in the worst of suffering when our minds seem helpless against the various pains of all sorts of sufferings, His Real Presence is with us, in us. God's hope, God's faith, God's love flow and fill every cell, every fiber, every infinite intangible of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls.
Helplessness, although an earthly reality, should not be feared nor spurned. Helplessness is as it is--a state of not being able to do for ourselves physically or even mentally or emotionally, nor to do for or alter how it is for those around us or those who are not in proximity. While we may not think about how helpless we are when we have physical health, the actuality is that we are helpless in so many tangible and intangible ways. This is the reality of our human condition.
Only can we survive the reality of our helplessness, through, with, and in His Real Presence. I mean, only in God, only in Jesus, only in the Holy Spirit can our earthly helplessness be made tolerable and not a negative, not a feared and terrible take-over in our lives. Wait and pray; pray without knowing we are praying. There is prayer in the simplicity of the waiting--even the feeling of helplessness waitwhen waiting is the prayer, when the pain of the various sufferings in our lives is our prayer. God provides, somehow, someway, the faith, hope, and love that we need to endure and by which we understand others, by which we stand a chance to prove helplessness to be simply a thing of this woring.
I don't know how God does it, but He does. He gets us through our helplessness one way or another when we wait and pray,ld that exists, causes a flurry of thoughts and emotions, but is not capable of destroying our souls.
Faith, hope, and love of God in Himself and of and for others, keep the helplessness of suffering in it's place as a thing not to be feared nor spurned...just a thing that exists in the temporal that one way or another, God brings us through, over, or around. Helplessness is not forever. Wait and pray. Only God is forever. Remain in His Love.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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