A Wise Saying

"Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world." C.S. Lewis said it many a time in his speeches, and it is written at least once in his writings. How wise He was!

Whether it is a 2 AM or 2 PM or any time in between, I've noticed that when I am hurting, I cry out - if only in my mind, "Oh God!." Yes it's true, we do call on Him when we are in pain, don't we?

It's happened to me several times! I remember it well when I crashed a Moped in Bermuda and lay sprawled out in the middle of the road, endeavoring to assess what had happened and if I could move at all. It happened when the pressure cooker blew and scalding potato water burned the skin from my hands and thighs. I remember it again when I had a knee replacement about twelve years ago, and I would sit in the recliner in the middle of the night wondering why I felt so punished. It happened when I faced the surgeon's knife in 2005 for a cervical fusion and fear enveloped me like a blanket of doom. And it's happening now when awakened in the early, early morning hours with stabbing pain in my shoulder from a parking lot fall. Yes, I call out to God and wonder why I must suffer with this at a time when I really need to be getting adequate sleep for all the tasks that lie ahead on a daily basis. But in reality, I know.

You see, it's that in the middle of the night that there's not much to do but write and spend time communing with God. He knows that I need an excuse to sit and ponder, to read, to write, to spend time in quiet pursuits instead of in doing, doing, doing! And maybe having a fall such as I did, is the way to get me to a doctor - I'm so busy doing so much, that I tend to neglect myself.

When people are flat on their backs, the only way to look is up. God knows that and He will make it happen if He knows that ultimately it is in our best interest. That's what love is - A God-given power of choice to do that which is in the best interest of another, regardless of my feelings. To be sure, God ALWAYS does what is in our best interest, even if it hurts Him - or us in the short term.

It is true, Mr. Lewis, and I wish you were still alive to hear me, and others, agree with you. Pain does arouse us. It alerts us mainly to our need for God and it forces us to submit to His control of us and to the loving give and take relationship He offers.

Lord open our ears, will you please, so that we hear your slightest whisper and don't have to be alerted to Your Presence by the screaming siren of pain.

Back to home page

Don't Do What We've Done

Paper, paper everywhere - and much more stuff to shred! My Grandmother's stuff, my parents' stuff and ours! It's just too much when one finally comes to downsizing and packing to move.

We have had a storage room off of our garage, where we have kept files and files of not-needed and now definitely unwanted papers of all types. You don't want to know how many bags of shredded paper our poor garbage man has had to haul off- unbelievable. There was just NO WAY we were going to cart it all to our smaller house that does not have a garage nor a storage room, and is in itself, much smaller than our house here.

Reminds me of the stuff of our lives that we keep and just don't need to! Of course there are precious, treasured memories, that we hope we'll never loose, but there are other experiences and thoughts and feelings that we need to shred and put in some never-to-be-looked-at-again landfill, far away!

After all of the research that we have done about the human mind and it's power, we believe that those long ago, should-have-been-trashed memories, that are filled with the accompanying emotion, slow down our thinking and create glitches in our recall and thought processes as we age. We believe that many seniors loose awareness and memory because there's too much "paper" (recorded memory and emotions) junking up the brain, just like the unwanted paper has cluttered our storage room and study.

You know, one of the finest thing we can do for seniors, is to get them to talk about the past - their lives, their loves, their pain, their regrets. That's like helping them to identify unneeded paper and shredding it, making things ever so much simpler. Maybe, before you are a senior, you should start talking or writing about some of your memories. It's the painful ones that drag us down, because the accompanying negative emotions pull us toward sadness, anger, fear and a host of other negative emotions.

Moral of this blog - start shredding NOW!

Hold Someone's Hand

I remember it well. I had just returned from work in my pantsuit nurse's uniform. Our visiting friends had prepared a wonderful supper, and we were just waiting for the potatoes to finish cooking. Suddenly I head a familiar sound from the kitchen - it sounded like the potatoes were boiling over. I raced to the kitchen, but was surprised to see that the potatoes were cooking in my pressure cooker, but the gauge was not on the top, nor were the handles locked. Flames shot up around the pot from the potato water on the electric burner. What to do?

I made a quick decision. The baking soda was in the cupboard behind the flames, and the knob to turn off the stove was behind them. So I reached for the handles and ever-so-gently slid the pot off the burner. But as I got it to the center of the stove, the top blew off, and hot potato water and cooked potatoes landed on me - both hands, my tummy and both thighs. Of course, I let out a war hoop! Ron ran to the bathroom and turned on cold water in the shower, I stripped, getting off those nylon stockings and pants, and headed for the shower. I stood there under the frigid water and watched the skin roll off my body. The pain was beyond anything I had ever experienced.

We wrapped me in a clean sheet and headed for the emergency room where the doctor I worked for and our family doctor awaited our arrival. After a whole lot of pain medication and an IV inserted, the three hour process of debreedment began. And every morning for a week, that process was repeated. My dear visiting friend, who HATES the sight of blood and most medical stuff, was with me for the morning ordeal every day. She held my hand, handed things to the doctor, and was a great nurse and comfort to me.

Holding someones hand in times of distress or pain, is a great blessing. Poor Ron, was given the daunting task of putting silver nitrate on the open wounds after that first week. That was for the purpose of creating a scab, under which the skin could rebuild itself, leaving me with absolutely no scars. Not only did he hold my hand, but he cried along with me as he applied the medication. It burned as bad or worse than the original burn!

What a comfort and an assurance to have special someones who can hold our hand, share our pain or sorrow, give us chicken soup, or rub our feet or aching back in our times of need. Physical touch is healing in itself, but when there is love behind it, the touch is even more beneficial. Actually, touch send out endorphins

Do you have a special someone who holds your hand when you are in need? If you don't, seek out a friend or a family member who is happy to do that for you. And by the way, you can be that hand to hold for someone else too!