The Rough and the Hard yet God is in Control

Today was a rough, I repeat rough.  I had a medial branch facet-joint nerve pain block this morning.  Those who know me knows that I don’t favor any type of treatments involving needles, but I know that if I want to have some measure of relief, it is the way to go.  The medial branch nerve block is the first part of the treatment—then in two weeks, April 10th, I will go back and get a medial branch facet-joint denervation, where the nerves will be “burned” in that area and hopefully that part of my neck will give me less pain…for part at least.  This is all from my whiplash injury from the car wreck over a year ago.    My pain management doctor is just awesome.  He works with me so well and knows and sees how much ALL my pain is (chronic and whiplash) affecting me.  He can only do so much working with all the pain I struggle with what my disease (NF) carries, but he is diligent in open conversation with myself and all my doctors at UVA, especially my neurologists. It’s been a blessing.   I still get so frustrated (as do my doctors) with no answers and no solid “cure” for all this pain and at times “extremely OFF days”, where I will fall on my face for no reason, where I am so confused at just about everything and everyone (seriously, one day I actually was convinced one day that it was nighttime, when in reality it was only the afternoon).  I keep questioning God, “why do I keep getting a band-aide fix?  I want a complete cure for all this pain….or at least an answer so we know how to treat this thing!”   Then, I’m reminded that many things aren’t meant for us to understand in this life; we can question God, but not his sovereignty. 

Something I hear over and over again is “God won’t give you more than you can’t handle.”  I cringe at that statement because that is such an unbiblical statement.  I’m not sure where that statement came from or who came up with that statement, but it simply is not true.  In fact, I think He often gives us much more than we can handle.  I remind myself of this over and over again as I battle life’s hard day by day, hour by hour and yes, even if it means dealing with new things that arise or may arise in my life/my health.   God has commanded us to cast our burdens to Him for he cares for us; He commands us to come to Him when we are burden and heavy laden because he will take our yolk from us and bear it for us.  Therefore, by surrendering all of this “hard” to God, He is the one who is handling everything; we don’t have to go through this alone.  I’m not saying that the pain or the health issues will go away; I’m not saying life will be easy as pie; I’m saying our pain, our health issues, and our sufferings, are only FULLY understood by God—He’s the ONLY one who can truly understand what true pain and suffering really is.   

Last month, I visited a sweet friend in the hospital and I shared with her some hurtful things another person said about me and what I have been going through in comparison to others.  She pointed out something so clear and so true.  We can’t compare our pain and sufferings to each other here on earth.  We suffer differently; our attitudes towards our sufferings may be different.  Yet one thing remains true: God is always in control, and He is always right there.

"God is in control, and in His control we experience pain. Nothing is so small or trivial as to escape the attention of God's sovereign control; nothing is so great as to be beyond His power to control it." Jerry Bridges