Striving to be God-focused/Not self-focused

Well, it’s been one month since I last wrote. I have been to four appointments at MotionCare and my neck has been significantly better. (Until yesterday morning that is). I woke up yesterday with soreness in my neck and back for the first time since going to this clinic. I’ve been raving to everyone I meet with neck or back pain that this is the first place I’ve been to in 15+ years that has made a significant difference. I do still believe it's better though because the pain I’ve had isn’t as intense as usual and bizarrely enough, the pain is in different areas. For years I would use my TheraCane to do “trigger point” therapy on myself and the trigger points were always in the same places. But now they’re in a different area and the pain seems more manageable. Plus I’m down to 10mg of my Amitriptyline, which is also very significant. I hesitate to go off the Amitriptyline completely because it has helped my allergies SO much and the diff. allergy meds I tried while off the Amitrip. caused side effects that were very annoying. And also the fact that night time has always been my worst pain times and I take this pill at night.

I’ve been on the 10mg dose now for about 3-4 wks, and have only lost about 2-3 lbs. I actually did lose 5 lbs in the first 2 wks by eating very moderately and exercising regularly, but once again I found myself sliding into a pattern of striving to lose weight for the sake of looking good instead of seeking to glorify God by taking care of my body, and I ended up gaining some back. :-/ There is a great tension there between the motives for me, and they seem to fluctuate back and forth. I’ve realized that I will probably never have perfect motives in this life, but I refuse to give in to this incessant flesh! What is it about the sinful nature that SO longs to look great in front of others (physically, intellectually…etc)? I have visions of Satan wanting the other angels to worship Him instead of God. I’m not saying that we all necessarily want others to “worship” us, but aren’t all self-centered, self-focused motives an attempt to take glory away from God and divert it to ourselves? My greatest desire is that God would simply continue to decrease my self-obsession and increase my Christ-obsession, for His glory and for what I KNOW is my overwelming joy! And I have confidence that He will!

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." - Philippians 1:6

The Joy of Sanctification

I was at Walmart a few weeks ago and Melissa (my daughter) called me on my cell to ask if I would buy a scale (we haven't had one since I threw our other one away after I weighed in at the doctor and saw that I was about 6 lbs heavier than my scale showed). So I bought it (regretfully). I was surprised, when I stepped on it, to find that I was at 150 lbs! I don't think I even reached 150 lbs with any of my pregnancies. Maybe with Angela, but I was back down to 110 by the time she was 6 mos.

I've been very tempted these last few weeks to go on the non weight-gaining $50/month medication simply because I’m not sure if, (since I went off the medicine for a few months and went back on again) I will continue gaining more and more weight. I kind of peaked at about 146 when I was on it before and the fact that I started gaining again is a bit scary. But I did some internet research on the new medicine and don't like what I saw people post about it’s side effects at all. So after praying that God would give me some sort of sign to assure me that I could go on this new medication (it‘s only 2-3 months on the market), he scared me away from it. lol

He is working mightily through all of this. Sanctifying me. I know this may sound foreign to anyone who has not battled with a poor self-image, or should I say, anyone who hasn’t lived their life believing that their total self-worth was tied up in how they look (although having self-worth tied up in job or friends or anything other than God isn't any better). Yet at times I feel embarrassed to even write this kind of stuff in my blog. Sometimes I feel like maybe it's just me. But I know that's not true. I can see, even in my own daughters, the effects of a culture that is screaming everywhere, to girls, that beauty is everything. I grew up with it.

I am so grateful to God for this trial. I am learning to really believe that my body is not me. It does not define me or my value. I have a long way to go for sure, but I am seeing changes in my thinking. When I first began putting on weight and up until very recently in-fact, I felt as though I were hovering between two resting places. On one side, I saw rest with God….a looking away from self to Him and finding my peace and confidence in Him. And on the other side I saw a very comfortable and familiar rest with self….an obsessive looking to self, (my body, my looks) and desiring so strongly to pour myself into that (knocking myself out exercising and dieting to lose weight) so that I could find peace and confidence in me. I felt torn between these two (I actually still do sometimes). My flesh wanted to continue the well-trodden path I’d been on, but I knew that there was no real peace and rest there at all, and so I strongly desired to be where I knew I'd find true rest.

The problem was that I couldn’t (for quite awhile) rest in either place. Every time I tried to turn my focus to self for peace, I felt the hand of God moving it away. (Examples: Allowing *ordaining* ailments that caused me to go on the meds in the first place/ Causing a recurrence of pain after I went off the meds so I had to go back on/Closing doors to try other medications/A general feeling of prodding by God to not turn to self…even an inability to rest there I‘d say). Yet, when I tried to get to the side where my true peace and rest could be found, I just didn’t know how to get there. I couldn’t make myself stop feeling like I had to prove my self worth by losing the weight. This sort of “rest” was so ingrained in me. But over time, through prayerful pleadings that God would help me to rest in Him instead of self, and quoting the truth (Scripture) to counteract the lies (the flesh, the culture, Satan), I feel like I have made much progress toward resting in Him, and who I am in Him, instead of what I look like in this body. I’m not saying the struggle is over. But I am hopeful and joyful as I continue to move closer to true rest in God and further from false rest in self.

UPDATE: It looks like I will be staying on the Amitriptyline for now. And I am fine with that. I really do see a noticeable change in my thinking as I deal with the fact that I am unable to diet and exercise my way back down to a size 6. This is good for me. Sometime soon I want to do a post about how being on this medicine is also changing my relationship with food (for the better).

The Pain of Sanctification

Well, it’s been almost a month since my painful wake-up in the middle of the night. I’ve had an MRI and I’ve been to my regular physician, a neck/back specialist and my neurologist. The results of the MRI is that I have a mild extrusion of the disc in the C5-C6 area of my neck (a bulging disc). I also have the same in my low back, which has been causing pain problems again. I’m off the muscle relaxants and the ibuprofin, but I’m back on “amitriptyline”, which is a chronic pain medication that I just got off of in August after being on for a year and a half. My neurologist prescribed this after diagnosing me with Chronic Myofascial Pain Syndrome, which is sort of like Fibromyalgia, but not as bad. The only symptoms I really have from it are a burning like pain throughout my neck, face, chest and arms periodically. It kind of feels like sunburn. And I also have pressure points all along the sides of my body that hurt if I press on them. Sometimes my husband will just tap me and it will hurt. I probably wouldn’t have stayed on it, but the pain medicine helped my neck pain so much that I did.

I spoke in my last post about God using pain to sanctify us, to make us more like Christ. And I am not unaware of how God has been using my pain to sanctify me. For one, pain humbles me. It makes me kinder. Maybe it does the opposite for some. But physical and severe emotional pain makes me feel weak and it slows me down so that I don’t react to things as fast (like snapping at Rich or the kids) and it just overall makes me gentler and quieter. God has used pain to bring me to this state many times. One time I had 3 canker sores in my mouth (one on my tongue) and I literally couldn’t talk without severe pain for several days. That was a good learning time for me.

Besides just generally causing me to slow down and quiet and humble me, here is how I believe God is using my pain and situation to sanctify me: Since I was a teenager I have always had an obsession about my appearance and my weight. Struggling with acne probably (it did) brought about my obsession with my appearance, and I suspect that the combination of dissatisfaction with myself and compliments from others about my petite size made me sort of latch on to this body image as the thing that made me count for anything. I had always been a size 6 or smaller (except when I was pregnant with Angela -my first) and even then I exercised to extreme afterward, even injuring my knee in the process.

Several years ago, I began to realize that this preoccupation with my body and appearance were sinful, and God showed me how caught up I was in this and how much my sense of value was caught up in this and I confessed my sin to Him and asked him to help me let go of this, focus on Him, and value myself in a godly way. Well, this is a lot easier said than done. Especially when I was so used to these feelings and this inner thought life…it permeated my very being. Well, I continued to wrestle with this and pray about it, asking God to help me in this area and give me godly thoughts, and then (2-2 ½ years ago), after finishing physical therapy for my neck and back at Sister Kenny, I was having severe burning pain as I described above and was diagnosed with the Chronic Myofascial, and the doctor prescribed amitriptyline. One of the side effects, (that I didn’t know at the time) was “excessive weight gain”. I eventually gained 25 lbs on this medication and when I realized this was happening because of the medicine and that no matter how much I exercised or restricted my eating, I couldn’t lose the weight, I made an appt. with my neurologist to talk about switching medications. Prior to this, we had gone through some severe financial woes and we were on a very strict budget. Well, the other medication that the doctor wanted to put me on would cost me too much out of pocket. We couldn’t afford it. So I went home and continued to struggle with anxiety as the pounds were being put on. For many, this would not be a big deal. For me, it was a horrendous feeling of losing control and of utter disgust with myself.

Well, God allowed me to battle through these feelings and make progress. I dealt with and prayed through these feelings I was having and felt good about the progress I was making. My neck and back were feeling good and I decided (last August) to take the step of going off the amitriptyline. For 3 ½ months, things went well. I continued to do my stretches daily and my strengthening exercises twice a week and I’d get sore sometimes, but no out of control pain. As the weight began to come off, I found that my thought-life was beginning to fall into old patterns again and I found myself desiring to lose all the weight. In the past, whenever I would gain weight, I would do everything necessary to lose it. I felt that old impulse kick in and yet I knew the motive behind it was not godly, but selfish. It wasn’t about being healthy, and honoring God, but about looking good and drawing attention to myself.

I battled these thoughts and feelings, some days feeling like I was winning and some days losing, till 4 weeks ago, I awoke with searing pain in my neck. Nothing but the amitriptyline gives me real relief. I don’t think this is all a coincidence. I believe that God is in the business of graciously sanctifying me at painful costs. Today I had an appt. with my neurologist. I talked to him again about alternative medications. He gave me some samples of a new one that came out 2 months ago. I called my pharmacy to ask how much this would cost me. They said $50/month. This may not seem like a lot to some, but finances are tight, especially when I’m going to go through more therapy next month, and my amitriptyline cost’s me $3/month. Now I have a decision to make, but I don’t doubt that if I make the wrong one, God will correct me, for my own good, because He loves me and He knows that self-obsession leads to emptiness, dissatisfaction, and depression and God-obsession leads to fullness and satisfaction and joy.

God's Sovereignty Over Suffering

I woke up in the middle of the night early last week and I couldn't move my neck. The pain was excruciating. I was able to lay back down and fall asleep but whenever I woke up I could barely move, the pain was so bad. It became so bad in recent days that I couldn't sleep on either side and only on my back for an hour or two at a time without shooting pain. I believe I had (have) multiple muscle spasms in my neck, but am thinking something else might be wrong as well. On top of this, I started working full-time last Monday and so I dragged myself to work each day, popping pain killers and putting a heating pad on during the day at work.

This kind of pain isn't something that I'm unfamiliar with. I've had neck/back problems for the past 15-20 years, and have been to numerous chiropractors, and even did a few months of physical therapy at Sister Kenny Institute about two years ago. But this has probably been the worst because of the intensity and the fact that it doesn't seem to be going away. I had to call in sick on Monday so I could go to the doctor. He gave me some muscle relaxants and pain pills and scheduled an MRI of my neck for this Friday.

Which brings me to my point on God's sovereignty over suffering. It is such a comfort to me to know that God is sovereign over my pain. And I don't just mean that He can heal me if He wants, but rather that He is ordaining/allowing this for my ultimate good (Romans 8:28), my ultimate sanctification, and for His glory. And that this is not just some random occurance based on the condition of muscles, connective tissue and nerves throughout my body, (though that is most probably the second cause of my pain) but that God is the ultimate cause, working it for good.

"Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good." - 1 Peter 4:19

"Who has spoken and it came to pass unless the LORD commanded it. Is it not from the Most High that good and bad happen?" - Lamentations 3:37-38

"....we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." - Romans 5:3-5

I want to write more on God's sovereignty through suffering, but my time is limited, so I'll write more next time.

"They will all be taught of God" - John 6

I just have to give a link to John Piper's sermon from this past Sunday because it is so tied to his sermon the week before, which I already posted. Really, he's going through the whole book of John and I encourage any reading this to watch the series. You can just click on my Desiring God link at the right and look under "sermons". Here is last weeks sermon though. His interpretation of the text is just not what the vast majority of us grew up learning in church. Very eye-opening.

"There go I but by the grace of God"

I was thinking about this phrase as I was writing my last post. We’ve all heard this phrase. But have you ever really thought about it? When we look at people we know who are lost in sin and refuse to repent and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, can we honestly say, (and believe) “There go I but by the grace of God”? Do we believe in our hearts that it’s God’s grace that has made the difference in our lives - that it’s because of His grace that I’m going to heaven and that person is not (unless they come to trust in Jesus)? Or do we believe God gives equal grace to all and that the person’s “decision” is what really makes the difference between one going to heaven or hell? One produces an attitude of deep sympathy for people who don’t know Christ because that was me! The other produces an attitude of wondering what in the world is wrong with “other people” that they refuse to humble themselves and turn to Christ. One produces a deep thankfulness to God for what He alone has done. The other produces a more shallow thankfulness for what He and I have done. One produces humility. The other produces pride.