I spent the morning flat on my back in my bed, pain radiating from hip to shoulder and every movement worsened by the limbs of a small child pressed into my ribs. He had crept in sometime in the early morning hours when the world was still tucked gently under darkness like a warm comforter. I don’t know if it was a nightmare that spooked him but I lifted the blanket like an invitation and he scampered up my side and nestled in.
Around 3 am, I heard the moaning, that deep guttural pain that comes when insides are not working as they should. My girl came in with her hands pressed to her guts like she could absorb the pain into her palms, extract it like poison and offer it to me to take from her. Oh how I would if I could.
But we don’t know why she keeps getting this stomach pain. Old diagnosis’s and remedies aren’t helping. On Friday we’ll go back to the doctor and hope for better answers. For now, we’re a week in with hives and itching and stomach aches that stretch through the night as she curls into herself and there is no remedy but enduring.
And some days are just this. There is no remedy but enduring. No shortcut or easy fix. Sometimes, you’re pulling groceries from the car and you hit an icy spot and you know you’re going to hit the ground so hard but you don’t and just when you’re about to whisper thanks, you feel it. That shock of pain like friction along the wires of your nerves and you know you’re gonna hurt after all. No broken bones or casts but the inside stuff, the pain no one can see. The pain that’s hard to explain.
Sometimes, that’s the worst kind, the invisible burden of pain, because it hurts to explain again and again how you hurt and why. It’s easier to just pretend sometimes, isn’t it? I wonder how many of us do.
How many of us just hobble along with our nerves burning holes in our bodies, with our minds a hive of stinging pests, and with our souls dragging behind us like a weary rag, worn out from too much wear?
How many of us want to live with great expectations but find we settle for enduring because it’s the only choice we have?
Maybe it’s because I pulled out my back when I had such a wide hope for this month and had dusted off my spin bike and was just getting it broken in again. For a moment I recalled the girl whose body didn’t feel like a trap, whose mind didn’t feel like a tangle of webs and who believed this is what it must feel like to be normal and no wonder normal people can get so much done! And when my muscles ached those first few weeks back on the bike, it felt good and right to hurt. It didn’t feel like a burden of pain, but a gift of promise.
Maybe it’s that I’ve been feeling so much better, had more energy, and started dreaming again. But even when I dream a bit, I’m tethered to the intersection of brokenness of this world, to the brokenness in me. And I am never the remedy for that.
Maybe some days there is no remedy but enduring. Maybe self care on these days is relenting to the great waves of things undone, to the hollow of disruption, and to the disappointment of open ends. And for this burden of pain, both the seen and unseen things, I can only pray for abundance in my lack, for the holy to enter my broken, and for the strength to rest here without excuses, living into grace.
So for those of you who are there with me today, on those days that are soul weary, would you pray with me?
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.- Matthew 11:28-30 The Message (MSG)
This…so beautiful and speaks to me exactly where I am,
I know you’ve been in such a hard season for so long. Praying with you, friend, to the God who sees.
I am so sorry that you pulled your back, and that your girl’s stomach aches so much. The burden of pain is a hard one, and so I pray for you and for the one I love who suffers so much invisible pain, that the holy will enter the broken. Amen.
Praying with you. Amen.
Alia Joy, such a beautiful name to write about so much pain.
May the DNA that God used to create you spring forth as Lazarus did from the tomb; whole, alive, well and free. May your name and the joy you explain be the same.
I hated my name when I was a kid because I longed to be Jennifer or Sarah or something that didn’t make me stand out. You just want to fit in when you’re a kid but I’ve come to love it and believe I was named this for a reason. Thank you.
It’s amazing how God’s children sometimes share similar biographies. I’m grateful you boldly share yours with us.
I, too, am going through a dark season. I’ve prayed for healing, release, relief, anything. Instead there has been grace sufficient. I’m praying for you today. Praying you would also find healing, release and relief. But if you’re like me, and God has allowed this time for a reason, I’ll pray you find grace sufficient as well.
Sufficient grace, what a beautiful and hard thing to live with isn’t it? Yes, there have been long hard seasons that don’t seem to relent but grace abounds when we’re weak or hurting. Thanks for sharing where you’re at, I’m right there with you.
Alia, your words speak so powerfully to me always. I can relate to the aching pain inside, the pain that I get tired of explaining. Though are stories are probably different I appreciate how relatable your honest words are. Praying along side you today and that you’re able to feel well enough for that spin bike again soon. -Chels
It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Describing pain and explaining it. But I realize more and more how many of us are limping along broken and hurting and never mentioning a thing about it because we feel not only tired but tiresome. So thank you for getting it and yes, I’m praying to get back on the bike soon.
I love you so… and you know that I am praying with you… for you… and of course, for your littles (and not so littles!) too! xoxo
We got some answers, we hope. So thank you. Now I’m recovering from the flu and it set off my asthma. It’s always a party round these parts. 😉
I know few who minister to the depths like you, Alia. When we’re there ourselves, we can only cry, ‘Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy.’
I cry that too. All the time. Sometimes His mercy is eyes to see and sometimes it’s memory and language put down to know He’s good and sometimes it’s the body of Christ carrying me or… dragging me along to lay me at His feet. It’s always grace, sometimes it just feels like too much. On those days, we can pray this. Help us to know Your presence.
I so do not want to be one of those parents who assume you haven’t already tried a remedy for your child, but your daughter’s symptoms sound very similar to my sons before we took him off gluten, just in case you haven’t tried that yet! Prayers for better days for you both!
Thanks for the prayers. She’s been on a gluten free diet since she was 2 and was diagnosed with a wheat allergy and she’s had stomach issues over the years but these past episodes were particularly bad and I know she wasn’t exposed to anything so it was puzzling. We’ve recently discovered she likely has celiacs and some other allergies as well so we’re working to make sure she gets better but it’s never fun to see your babies hurt. And I’m all for better days ahead.
Alia,
I was so blessed by this and featured your post in my week’s end “Snapshots & Snippets” at Hearts Homeward … Your prayer captured the words I need to echo to God today. I needed the reminder of the “Come to Me” invitation and I love the Message version of this verse. Endurance stretches us to the end of ourselves – right where we need to be sometimes. I know it’s where I need to be. Once again saying, “I can’t, but You can.”
Thanks for sharing it!