Today Nelson is grappling with intense pain, trying to make sense of his situation.
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October 26, 2022
Woke up while it’s still dark. My back hurts so bad. It’s amazing how many little pain things this cancer comes up with, one after another. Every day it seems I have something else.
It’s times like these I struggle not to wonder why this happened to us. All of a sudden, the powers that be decided this is for us. What about everyone else? Why do so many people walk around all healthy and we have this? I don’t know.
I don’t know if this will go on for years or what will happen in the end. God, when will you let up on this? When will this stop so we can live again? We have been given so much, but you have taken so much away, too.
“Hear my prayer, Lord, listen to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were. Look away from me, that I may enjoy life again before I depart and am no more.” (Psalm 39:12-13)
“Look away from me.” I like the way that’s spelled out so plainly. You have given me so much: Annso, Will, our house, money, and you are so good to us on the one hand. But on the other, I wake every morning with pain in some part of my body.
You remind me that I’m not healthy. You remind me that anytime, I could die from this. There is nothing to do but just to press on. Mom said that God is partnered with me to somehow bear the weight of the cancer. I think that’s true.
I shouldn’t ask, “Why me?” I know, and it’s not usually more than a thought that comes and goes. The temptation to think it over and over is all it is. “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
We closed on our house today! It’s a dream come true for me, even though it was one of the hardest days, health-wise, that I have had in a while. My back hurts so bad, I can barely stand it. I lay on the ground for an hour at a time trying to take the pressure off.
Who knows why it’s like this. Maybe another fracture, maybe something we will never know, like the thing that happened to my neck a couple months ago. I pray Lord, that you carry me through this, even though so often it feels like it will kill me eventually.
Please let me live to take care of Annso and Will as a husband and father. She is basically raising him alone, even though I’m here. I can hardly help at all. She doesn’t hold it against me, though. Her folks are here, which is a big help. Thank you for them.
Physical pain is a monster. People who have had chronic pain know what I mean. I used to take my health for granted, as if it were owed to me, as if I was entitled to X number of years before things went downhill.
We all know we’ll die at some point. We just don’t know when. We have all been sick for a while, but the me in days-gone-by used to get better. Honestly, I probably had illness or sickness stop me from work or school only about 2 days every 5 years… and I went to the doctor even less than that.
I’m sure there are some scientific or psychological stages a person goes through with illness that goes on and on. Maybe denial, acceptance, then, “Is this really happening to me?” Maybe, “What did I do to deserve this?” Then the wicked thought, “Why not any one of the thousands of people I see walking around ungrateful for their health?” As if they should replace me in this crucible.
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“Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.” (Psalm 6:2)