Up in the night with excruciating knee pain. Replacement surgery is June 20. This is yet another injury that the Lord allowed, as it was not by my doing, not even bodily degeneration. It was an accident in a garden section of a store. I oddly had done a good deed for an employee, being helpful and replacing something where it was to be. But she had a hose that was oddly looped, her first day on the job I was later told.
The immediate result was I fell, and fell very hard on concrete, the left side of my left knee taking the brunt of the fall, and my left hand was affected, also. Manager later told me it was that employee's first day on the job, that they were liable and at fault. Said she saw the video and no doubt about it, and their insurance company would be in contact. I thought my leg broken, but the manager pulled me up and dispersed the crowd that had gathered around me, concerned and wanting to help.
I remained in the store an hour and half just dealing with the pain. Another employee finally brought some ice for the leg. I should have called for an ambulance, of course, but I'm not one to want to think there's another calamity with my body, as I was trying to get the place in which I lived, capable of selling due to another long story on that situation--involving three people connected in real estate, able to dupe me, of which I should have known better, yes. However, those years became spiritually rich. God knows what He is doing.
Long story short, the knee would, as I thought immediately, end up needing to be replaced. Was a matter of time. I had bad advice from an orthopedic surgeon two and a half years ago to have arthroscopic surgery. No, turns out it needed to be replaced; the arthroscopic surgery did nothing to help--a waste of surgery and couple months or more of trying to recover. Needed replacement all along, obviously. The store's insurance company pulled the wool; destroyed the video, kept saying they needed another paper, taking more time, finally running down the clock getting any financial remuneration to help with the knee replacement.
I kept putting it off, as well, due to four other surgeries including the wasted arthroscopic knee surgery. The other three had to do with serious spine surgery, then an intrathecal pump surgery, then a hand surgery. Each has had it's suffering and lessons of depth and richness with His Real Presence. Now I await the knee replacement and must wait due to surgery schedule of of the surgeon: booked for awhile.
Got the painful, swollen knee drained again, but no steroid could be injected following the draining due to being within three months of replacement surgery. I did not realize how excruciatingly painful the knee is without fluid in it; as it is plenty painful with too much fluid in it. Praying I can cope with this amount of pain on top of the back and also very much now, the neck pain. I see the neurosurgeom on May 1 regarding the neck...
Finally with spring weather arriving, I have outdoor chores needing to be attended to, not the least is mending a sprinkler and mowing, of course. Just getting up to use the bathroom is worthy of agony. However, it is only temporal, and only pain. It is another example of my life of years of suffering in which my pain bodily and emotionally and mentally--in whatever form of suffering God allows and deigns for me--is intended as part of my earthly existence and as a hermit and victim soul of Jesus.
This suffering is united with Christ's suffering. My suffering becomes effectively His suffering in all temporal and spiritual reality. Our suffering is utilized by His Real Presence as reparation for all in need, in the world and beyond this temporal world. There are souls on earth and no longer on earth, who benefit by the prayerfully born suffering of those who are called to suffer--those whose sufferings are allowed by God, one after another and without cessation of pain of one type and another, often a "bevy" of sufferings.
Thus His Living Word sustains in the nights as it sustains in the days. Christ sustains throughout the suffering earthly servants time on this earth in physical body. And yes, the one who suffers long for release from the body when the pain increases, when sufferings of body are compounded by sufferings of mind and heart--which includes sufferings due to people, due to souls out there, who are troubled or have offended His Real Presence by this or that poor choice or wrong=doing, subtle or obvious.
These souls can include those we know as well as those of which we are unaware. This also includes the one who suffers, as well, being part of the Family of Humankind and of the Body of Christ...being an imperfect human amidst all others, imperfect.
The following Scripture has sustained me for a couple of days, in addition to more Scripture I've read and pondered since this one was proclaimed, having been a reading at Masses around the world just the other day. Long blog post now coming to the pith and point of what matters: His Living Word Sustains Us!
Be sustained by these words from the First Letter of Peter, 5: 5b-12.
Beloved: Clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another.
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