My back hurts. I don’t say that much – I hope – but there’s often a dull ache that goes along with the hum of my life. Today it’s a little worse than normal. Today it hurts. And yet today was a wonderful day. Yesterday too.
The pain started yesterday, and I tried to wiggle and stretch and move to make myself comfortable in my wheelchair, but nothing settled my muscles just right. It exacerbated my insomnia which meant I was awake for the two different messages from alumni wanting to talk about theology and philosophy. I can’t express the joy that sang through the pain to be able to respond right away to “What’s Romans 1 all about?”
I’m not really sure what started this increased discomfort in my lower back (well, other than breaking a couple vertebrae four years ago), but I took a couple ibuprofen to help me sleep which I do as infrequently as possible. I’ve just popped another two which I’d like to stress the rarity of. Again, I don’t know why my body is rebelling today, but I’m going to celebrate the good that came through this week. I got out for a couple good walks, and despite Hunter and Cindy both going away for the volleyball tournament, I got Cindy’s daughter to go for a walk with me this afternoon.
She’d come over for lunch with a couple friends, and after the dorm students went home, she and I headed down the street towards the school. We passed by her house on the way which I’d recently celebrated reaching with Cindy and blasted past the school soon after. I made it past the recyclinghof which is about 400 meters from my house. It’s not my record, but I did it with no braces, and have I mentioned the pain in my back today?
“That wasn’t too bad,” I told my student as I had her put the brakes on my wheelchair for me to sit down. I wish I could keep her in my pocket always, because this amazing kid spent most of the journey back to my house letting me know how impressive I am. Sometimes I need to hear that because I still feel like I need to justify my presence. It’s a compounded feeling of being a missionary on display and being disabled. The kind messages that came through this past week helped fight that phantom guilt and meant a lot to me as I keep working to live and serve well.
I hope you’ll continue to look for nice things to say to others through this week. Perhaps you’d also think of me and pray that my pain would dissipate tonight never to return. More importantly, I’d like prayers that I can still glorify God through my pain. I don’t want it to be a distraction. Like Ivan Denisovich uses the cold in Solzhenitsyn’s novel, I want the pain to be a tool to focus my energy and accomplish amazing things. Also it’d be cool if I could walk again too. Today I managed 400 meters brace free through the pain. What might tomorrow bring?
