Living Gray
I don’t feel well today. I have a groggy head, a snuffy nose, and a throat that burns. When I feel like this, it’s difficult to remember what healthy feels like. I tend to normalize my affliction. In many ways, this coping mechanism is a blessing. It allows me the grace to accept loss and find a path on which to continue. The alternative is a system-wide shut down, such as when I had bronchitis, or when I ate the bad sandwich and simply could not function.
But pain can also seep into the cracks. I can absorb it in a way that it becomes part of my flesh. Too much pain comes from preventable sources. I want to give bitterness no ground to root. And unless the source of the pain is necessarily permanent, what’s the point? Why continue to suffer?
I need to sit before my Lord and take stock. If I am in sin, then I need to ask Him for forgiveness and the strength to sin no more. If I am yielding to the dark side of another, then I need to forgive, and ask for the strength to not give another such power. If I am in a perilous situation, with an outcome yet to be determined, then I need to keep close to my Lord, so that I will know when he nudges be forward.
In a day or two, I will feel better, and I will have forgotten what it felt like to be sick. I want to live right with God, taking daily walks in His presence, seeing His blessed face from my bended knee. May this feeling be what I internalize, normalize, and never, ever forget.