Suffering or complaining

Many people are going through some tough times. We have many on our prayer list who are going through treatments for cancers of different types. Some of those treatments are painful and debilitating in and of themselves even without the disease that is being treated. There are others in the world that we may not know about who are having to deal with pain from pinched nerves in their necks and their spine. The problem with the “treatment” for those is that it usually makes the problem worse in the long run. The same goes for the cancer treatments which usually make your quality of life worse from the first treatment.

As Christians we are supposed to “count it all joy” regardless of the pain that we experience. Many of us live with some kind of pain or other problem that causes us to dread getting up in the morning to go about another day. Our friends and relatives don’t understand what is bothering us so we don’t tell them how we feel on most days. We just go through the day with whatever it is and if you are like me you just pray that God will give you the strength to get through the day today. Then that prayer is repeated tomorrow and the next day. I don’t tell my wife how I feel because my pain is…well it’s my pain and she won’t get it. So I keep it between me and God.

Disability does hurt. It hurts because I can’t do many of the things that I would like to do like go hunting or fishing. My balance is gone and there have been many times I have nearly fallen in the shower or when I bend over to get something off the floor. Having your balance gone doesn’t sound like a disability and most people only lose their balance occasionally. I live with it every day, all day.

I am not writing this to complain, just venting a little. I have seen the looks that people give me because I don’t “look” disabled. 

God does allow things to happen to us in order to bring about His purposes. He gives each of us a talent or an ability that He knows we will use and sometimes it takes an affliction of some kind to make us use what He has given to us. I have never written as much as I have since this came on me. I thank God that my affliction has allowed me to point some people to know my Savior, Jesus Christ.

I began this blog before I became disabled but my early writing was more world-weary or about some other things that were happening at the time. This site didn’t become a true witness about Jesus Christ until I became sick just before Thanksgiving in 2012. It has been twelve years now and God has seen me and my family through many trials since then. I pray that this site has blessed those who read it.