Merciful Lord! Sleep deprivation plus pain built within, without my realizing just how severely! The Lord rescued me from my bodily self. Last night, after the man whom the Lord sent to get needed provisions (plus a couple items not crucial but sweet) had left Solus Deus Hermitage, the pain and exhaustion reached a peak.
All day I'd been battling terrible nausea with the pain. I'd had to take the anti-nausea medication which is also sedative, and remain in bed on the icy pad other than when the man arrived to unload and converse some while doing so. As soon as his corporal work of mercy was completed, I returned to bed, and the one symptom of arachnoiditis that usually does not get to me much, was getting to me.
It was as if bugs were crawling all over my back which is typical, but in addition, the inside of my torso and insides of my legs were as if bugs crawling within. I so wanted to be able to get in some other position than on the back, with pillows under the knees. Too risky to be on my side yet, with pillows propped between legs. Plus, the pain was quite severe in the lumbar and my head had been battling since morning the threat of a full-blown spinal headache.
I took more pain med, plus another anti-nausea med, plus a muscle relaxant, plus an herbal sleep remedy. My little "window to the world" (laptop) live streamed some mentally effortless series of times past, a seeming wasteful and unholy distraction for a Catholic hermit, consecrated in the life of the Church.
And this weighed on my mind, as well: the kindly man whom God sent as an angel of corporal works of mercy, I sensed was rather disappointed in or having a hard time not judging me as a hermit. I will write these thoughts in a separate post, but some of the comments and observations while he was unloading the food supplies he'd procured stuck with me. In many ways, his life might seem more austere and purposeful in externals, than mine. He's not met a consecrated Catholic hermit before; the consecrated aspect might not even be a factor in his mindset as to what would comprise a Catholic hermit.
The personalized external images in their minds are what tends to form people's notions of what a hermit is; it has to do with how the hermit looks, sounds, and lives in what is seen. What a hermit ought be within does not seem to be considered. I admit that over the two decades of living this life, with nearly 19 of those lived in consecrated state since my profession and avowal, my own image and thoughts of the externals have changed. My evolved formation has moved from my own experimenting with the externals to the internal aspects in kind with how my spiritual life has moved to the interior increasingly.
These were my last, conscious thoughts as the variety of medications brought much-needed sleep. I had no idea how sleep-deprived and off the spiritual-religious mark my mind, heart, and soul had drifted during this post-operative ordeal. This morning I awoke having had over 7 hours of sleep! I was jubilant in my praise of God! Yet I still did not realize just how fatigued until three hours had passed since getting the cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin (one of the sweet treat splurges I'd had on my shopping list that stood out as not austere or sacrificial, nor particularly healthy).
A knock at the door surprised me as I was responding to someone's email--and was going on and on in my writing for I did not realize how still crazy in pain and sleep deprived. (I knew enough to close off the email reminding the person that the rambling is pain; that person has known me for 15 years of it. ) The visitors came in bringing the medication refill; I wanted to pay for another amount owed from a previous errand. The person prefers to be paid through a tech-app called Venmo.
I'd tried to download that on the phone, but pain and exhaustion and unfamiliarity with apps had stopped my efforts. I'd actually asked the Lord to somehow have the person download it for me. Amazingly the person offered and did so, just like that! They stayed a bit--not long--but not at all rushed this time, and the young person brought in some items from the patio. There was brief conversation but with looking at one another and my listening to aspects of their lives of which is what I'm to be in hospitality to whomever the Lord brings.
Then back to bed, and medication time, and more sleep, and yet more sleep until late afternoon! No scriptural reading that I can recall, for I tried but kept dozing off. In fact, the sleep was at a point of hallucinating off and on; I cannot recall what were the hallucinations, but part of it was thinking I ought be awake and doing spiritual reading and praying.
What a different person I feel, after being able to sleep. I think in part I was irresponsible in trying to cut back on the medication more so than what the body needs. So what if my pain post-surgery is double what it was prior. Certainly the Lord has provided, thankfully so, and it is my own thinking I can, and wanting to, manage the pain with less medication and be able to pray and read and write (succinctly and something of holy worth!).
Instead, I am sharing with you these good points St. Gertrude makes. I'm taking them to heart, and I will lay off my guilt and disappointment of my not being able to do other than love God, wait on His strength and whatever all He desires to allow me to be as His mystic hermit and beloved. I am not what others might envision or even need me to be; but I am God's, all His, for better or worse, in sickness or health, never to be parted in death or eternity.
St. Gertrude of Helfta, 13th c. Benedictine nun, from The Herald of Divine Love, Book III, SC 143:
"On a certain occasion, while she was interiorly worrying that she was unable to feel as much desire as was fitting to the glory of God, Gertrude received this divine explanation: that God is fully satisfied when a person, without being able to do more, is in a state of wanting, if possible, to have great desires. Just as great as they would like to have, so they are before God. In a heart filled with the desire of wanting to desire God finds greater delights to dwell than we do in the flowering of early spring.
"On another occasion, due to illness, she had been less attentive to God for several days when, regaining consciousness of this fault, she started to confess this negligence to the Lord with a pious humility. And as she was fearing she would have to bear a long delay before recovering the former sweetness of the divine presence, all at once, in a flash, she was aware that God was bending towards her with a truly loving embrace with these words: 'Daughter, you are always with me and all this is mine, is yours' (cf Luke 15:31). She understood by this reply that, even thought through the weakness of nature, a person might sometimes omit to direct their attention to God, nevertheless, in his merciful kindness, he himself does not neglect to hold all our works as worthy of an eternal reward provided only that we do not deliberately turn away from him and that we always repent of everything for which our consciences reproach us."
I admit that I think at times I have purposely turned away from God! I dare say, I think I have done this when at times I have sorrowed for having turned away in what I thought was my weakness and wrong in distracting myself with less than what could be considered or viewed by self and others as holy and befitting a hermit, consecrated in the life of the Catholic Church. The responsibility I feel by the very fact of my consecrated vocation, is probably the reason why I keep striving so, and asking God's forgiveness for the times I feel so inept and unworthy--for even being a disappointment to those who look to the externals of my evolving eremitic life.
There was a time in which I was quite austere--and I stood out as that, and people judged that, as well, as being strange and garnering attention. It did not inspire people; rather it made them feel less adequate and as if they were not doing enough themselves in their spiritual lives. Just how I looked and my external sacrifices which can be quite easy, actually, to do rather than the interior aspects of mind, heart, and soul that are in us for eternity--more masked how I was inadequate myself, in what a hermit is to be, not appear to be.
Well, St. Gertrude has given good points to ponder and trust. God is kind and merciful, and He is not rushing us nor expecting the impossible for us in our given situations and trials. Through Him alone, are all things made possible, and in His providence and way. I'm still exhausted and the pain too much. I must do what is necessary and by what God has provided for me to help me sleep and manage the pain responsibly. Then I will better pray and make a far more suitable offering of self to Him and others.
God bless His Real Presence in us! And know well and remember always just how very much Jesus loves us with tender understanding and acceptance.
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