My Pain in the Neck.

These past few days have been difficult. It is always hard when I'm in more pain in my back and neck than usual. Saturday and Sunday were extra trying because my back and neck were affecting my stomach in not so great ways, and the cavity that's forming in my back tooth has been affecting my right ear pretty intensely as well. So, I've been "not so good" in my back, neck, stomach, ear and teeth--all interconnected and all working off of each other's pain to incapacitate me. My biggest grievance when this happens is not the pain. I no longer am concerned about it (though there was a time when I used to be). Pain is a part of life. There is no reason I should be a special exception. It is always temporal; I can not only imagine a life hereafter without it; I am also blessed enough to know that after a few days I will often receive some form of relief (not the case for most people).

No, the hardest thing about it is being incapacitated, unable to do the things I wish to, whether that mean cleaning or grading or especially attending church. I cried so bad this past Sunday because I could not get up to go to church. I simply had to lie on my back and weep as my neck locked up in that all too familiar way. I miss worship and the body of Christ and fellowship with my husband on Sundays when my body seems determined to deter me from something holy and right.

It does help to have a loving husband with me in the pain. It also helps to go the chiropractor every two weeks (there was a period when I went twice a week, so improvement has happened despite current pain). The thing that is still difficult for me to grasp is the point of all this. (I know I've spoken of this before, but bear with me...suffering is a continual learning process) I ask myself sometimes: Why must I miss church due to neck pain? Why must I suffer through school days with difficult children whilst my back experiences its own personal hell? Why can I not have a normal morning with my handsome husband as other wives get (one without pain every time I turn toward him)? I ask myself these questions on the days when I am especially flesh-driven, on the days when I have forgotten my Savior's suffering, on the days when I am self-centered, on the days when I ask "why me" instead of "why not me." So, I decided to explore my neck journey to see the hand of God there, to once again accept the fact that there is a purpose in the pain and in the seemingly pointless days in bed. And here is my story...

During the first months of this battle, I didn't really know what was going on. At the start of my second year of teaching, a lady had bumped me at a stoplight. We stopped. We chatted. Nothing seemed wrong. So, when I started having intense neck pain and sickness every Friday at James Irwin Charter School in Colorado, I blamed stress and a bad immune system. I grew quickly acquainted with Susan Mitchell's guest room where I spent Friday nights in pain and silently weeping. I was often alone--I felt I should be. Who, after all, would want to deal with an invalid every weekend, I asked myself. (Of course, Susan would have, but I had not yet learned how to be a burden at this point in my life.) I would work hard all week, Friday would be hell, I would usually leave school early due to neck pain and often vomiting (missing my drama class), and crash on the guest room bed at Susan's--sometimes petting Sunny, the family dog, and sometimes calling David Shelley on the phone (my suitor at the time). Sunny would make me smile, and since I could convince David I was feeling chipper though I wasn't, I left those conversations feeling better too. This became a bit of a routine, and I simply (like my father) learned accept life as it was--I believe we Clearys are a bit like the mountain people in Christy, slow to seek solution and quick to accept life as it comes.

Fast forward quite a long bit...long enough to call it quits on all suitors, focus on the Word as a single all over again, and re-meet the one suitor I was intended for...

My pain basically disappeared once I visited Scotland & Iceland with dear friends, moved, started dating my future husband Isaiah, and got engaged. I now consider it God's special grace and care for me during my courtship and engagement time. I believe He very kindly put my trial on hold until further notice whilst my Isaiah wooed me and whilst I learned that burdening people at times (specifically a husband) is part of a life lived correctly. Judi, at the time my future mother-in-law, noticed something was wrong and suggested their chiropractor (Dr. Rose), giving me the birthday present of paid-for appointments, not knowing what this would mean for my life.

Dr. Rose, after x-rays, informed me of my severe reversed neck curve and of the fact that, that fateful bump at the stoplight was the last nudge needed to screw my neck up for a long time. I've had chiropractic appointments ever since. And I have learned quite a bit from this experience with the chiropractor...including lessons about how to accept pain when it serves to produce solution (whether that be a correct neck curve or a more holy life). I have also learned lessons about sacrificing immediate desires for the sake of something of greater importance (though this started in a lesson of eating non-inflammatory foods in order to seek lesser pain, it ended in a spiritual understanding of the sacrifices we make for the sake of righteousness and holiness....worthy causes which at the time seem less tempting than the immediacy of indulgence). And I learned of the power of prayer. My neck did not move a centimeter (7 months of nothing!) until Elena Farrell prayed for healing for it at the Boardwalk Chapel. When she prayed and claimed in Christ's name, I started to feel it move for the first time, and the moving was immediate. When I came back home and looked at new x-rays, I couldn't believe it; the immovable bones had become alive with movement. I will not again doubt the power of prayer or the healing that is possible and probable when the Holy Spirit is present. I lost a bit of my Presbyterianism that night, but I also lost an even bigger measure of my doubt.

Before I move forward though, it should be known that this moving, which Elena prayed for, was painful. My healing was neither pleasant nor painless. I remember one fateful night in the back room at the chapel with Alexandra Ramey and Mikaela Wilson. It is to this day the worst pain I have experienced in my short and blessed life thus far. I was crying and holding their hands and being prayed over, and so many essential oils were placed on me that I swear I smelled like a one-woman garden. It was this night that I truly learned dependence. It is true that Isaiah had already helped me immensely (as had his family), but this was the night when I broke. There was no way I could care for myself. I had nothing left, so I could longer try, and I let go. I broke before my sisters in the Lord, and I didn't shatter to pieces. Instead, I was held and comforted and I heard their stories of pain and struggle and was strengthened by their weakness and mine before the Father. Not to rip off Charles Dickens or sound cheeky, but it truly was the worst night of my life and the best night of my life. I have never since feared breaking in front of others who may not be able to handle it. I just break. And I never get broken completely because God is constant, and we are all more resilient than we know.

I also learned to love the Word of God in a new way that summer. I could not go out as the others could at night, for often, after the night service, I could do no more. My body was finished, and my neck screamed at me to lie down immediately (on the plank boards of the Boardwalk if necessary). So, I would head back to the Dunn House (often alone but not always) to get in a hot tub which offered some relief and read the Word of God which offers all of the relief a girl could need. I read a lot of the Bible that summer, and learned to relish sweet moments with the Savior when alone and in pain. I learned that being in pain with God is actually preferable to feeling good with Him. There is a connectedness to Christ in suffering that cannot be otherwise gleaned. And I still love remembering discussing the Word with Isaiah when he returned from night evangelism, telling him what I had learned and what I was looking forward to reading again. It was a hard time, but it could not have been sweeter.

And now, I am here, months later (almost a year later) with less chiropractic appointments and less frequent pain, but still annoying and at times agonizing, pain. When the pain and more importantly the incapacitation comes, I ask why, for I feel I have learned the lessons God intended to teach me through this. Why, I wonder, must I keep this pain the neck, this still only partially healed mass of bones and nerve that plague me when I have learned what God has intended for me to learn? For a while I tried to comfort myself with what others would likely tell me--that God is not finished teaching me, and that may well be true.

But what I have found a greater truth, one that is of greater comfort, is this: Jacob--God's Israel, learned the lessons intended for him when he wrestled with The Angel, but he kept his limp for all of his life. God taught Israel, as He has taught me--not to be self-sufficient, not to deceive, not to be always working and pushing--to rest, to depend, to learn to be lesser. And yet, though the lessons were learned, Israel continued to limp because of the impact God had made on his life. So, if this pain in the neck is to be my limp, my memory of an encounter with the Almighty who had things to teach me, who considered me worthy enough to taught, then it is a blessed pain in the neck which I will continually try to look on with gratefulness and even joy.

I may not be as strong as I once was, but like Israel, I have become taller indeed.