Everlasting

It's not as if I did anything terribly strenuous.  In fact, this time I think I was just sitting there minding my own business when, suddenly, I felt it: that old familiar stabbing pain.  And just as suddenly I knew I was in for a long and painful two weeks.  That's just the way it goes--when it goes.

It's the little things.  Pick up that pencil?  Reach for the faucet?  Put on my socks?  Not without bracing myself for another spasm and that excruciating pain.

It's OK, though.  It gets better.  The Advil helps--and rest (easier said than done!). After a while, most folks get used to the wincing, the cloud of wintergreen, the constant excuses.  "Wish I could."  And usually, after a while, the muscles relax again, and eventually things go back to normal...at least they always have before. 

I wondered, though, this time.  What if they don't?  What if things don't go back to normal?  What if "normal" now means "in constant pain?"  It was almost a panic that washed over me--and then I was filled with sadness.  What kind of a life would that be?  Would I want to live it?

Chronic.  It means "lasting for a long period of time."  How many people live with things we call "chronic"?  How many live with constant invisible pain?  Emotional stress?  Mental illness?  How many live with a "normal" that is chronic and unbearable?

These days I find myself so grateful.  Not because "there but for the grace of God go I."  But because I've been given a new gift: to see that I don't always see--that I can't possibly know what burdens others may be bearing.  And all I can do is live out the call to see beyond my assumptions about them, to be a little less judgmental and a lot more helpful.

I hope it lasts...

"Bear one another's burdens."