I’m still having pain from head to toe near constantly now to the point my hopes of recovery are in limbo. I’m neither actively hoping to much extent at this point nor am I willfully despairing. But if this is long term, my life, and my wife’s life, will be one of extreme hardship.
God knows how much I’ve persevered in my duties of state as an adult and since marrying. And as a child. Despite all my setbacks up until now, I’ve never given up or turned mg back on God or moral living. With each setback, I appraised the situation, consulted advise, prayer about the future, chose what seemed to be the prudent path, was responsible and hard working, diligent and intelligent, yet with continuing setbacks. But I never gave up. I would get knocked down, then pull myself up by my bootstraps looking forward.
Up until now. This is the biggest test of my life, facing the real possibility, not daring to say likelihood, of permanent disability, based on extreme, chronic pain. If I take major pain narcotic meds, which I’ve so far avoided doing, I don’t see that enabling myself to work or function normally. The insomnia caused by extreme pain alone is itself disabling, never being able to count on anything resembling a good night of sleep which you need to work.
On the human and logical level, my situation appears at present to be dim. Given our pagan and hedonistic society, I expect many or most would deem that kind of life not worth living and give into despair, considering the worst option.
But I will not. I will persevere, by God’s grace This for now, God knows if for the rest of my life, is my new mission, to suffer. To suffer for the reasons the Church says we must suffer, but also for those extremely afflicted.
I feel like I’ve died, in a sense. My past ordinary life prior to this May, while an uphill battle, was still full of hope and promise, with some prosperity. Now most everything I normally do, or plan to do, such as hunting or fishing this time of year, or having a simple, pleasant dinner outing with my wife, or any of the hundreds of things one does and plans out to do in their daily lives, is indefinitely on hold, and gathering everything told me by doctors, what is known and not known, I have little to no reason to think I will recover. God knows, I pray for that daily, but I’m not seeing medical reasons that will happen.
The devil is pounding on my daily to give up, especially in the late hours of the night, when I’m not able to sleep due to pain. But I pray.
This is God’s will and J accept it with difficulty, a daily struggle. But it is what it is. This is a fact. If I let the pain drive me to despair and giving up, then I can lose my soul. And soon after death, that would mean being in a prison cell in hell tortured by demons that make the monsters of Hollywood Halloween movies look like angels. That too is a fact.
Therefore God wants to to embrace this cross and trust in Him to the very end. My sense of faith is that if I persevere and not give into the devil, I will have moral certainty of my salvation, and that if this is long term, a good avoiding purgatory.
I offer this for my wife, mom, sister and her family, other relatives, past friends and enemies, for their salvation. And in reparation for my sins.