Pushing Forward

I've got a bad back this week, the consequence of driving 180 miles daily to work and back, and also from eating at fast food restaurants. Mind you, I do not eat at fast food places on a daily or even a regular basis. It was just something I decided to do for the past week or so, a few burgers from Burger King here, a snack at McDonalds there. But there's something about the stuff that really aggravates my scoliosis.

I've lived with this discomfort since 2001, shortly after I got married. It was quite a very shocking surprise, when one ordinary day back in 2001, I did something I had always done a million times before. I bent over to pick up my backup, expecting to nonchalantly sling it over my shoulder and be on my merry way. Well, that was something I had taken for granted all too often. That time, it felt as if my backed "caved in" on me. The lower-back muscles betrayed me, it seemed, giving way and giving out. The pain was intense, as if I were caught in a large, powerful tightening vise, the bone and muscles and nerves being wrung together like a wet cloth being squeezed of its liquid. I was unable to bend without significant pain, and it hurt even to turn in bed.

Over the years I had learned to cope with the pain, and to work around it. What I needed was more exercise, I would reason. Yet, being a man with one active child and a job ninety-three miles one way, I hardly found time to do an adequate amount of calisthenics and running to combat an ever-enlarging gut. A gut that pulled my center of gravity forward and made my scoliosis even more painful. Then, something happened last year, Sept 2006 -- the LORD had healed my back! It felt wonderful, though not as good as it used to be prior to my marriage, I could do most things I used to. However, any prolonged physical activity would cause mild discomfort that would eventually become the pain I had known. So I became careful, though it pained me that I could not play with my daughters as much as other fathers got to do. Still, at times I would experience short bouts of intense pain where doing even the simplest of things involving seemingly minute efforts of physical activity would be extremely painful -- even things such as leaning over the sink to rinse my mouth after brushing my teeth!

Well, this week has been one of those times where my scoliosis was aggravated to the point of inflammation, and for the reasons I stated in the above paragraph. Perhaps it was the Tiger Milk bars I've been eating, or maybe it was the Filipino dried mangoes. Well, whatever it was, I have decided to push through and lean on God's amazing grace. When I was first struck with it, I immediately became depressed and despondent, thinking, "God, why?!" The capital we earned from selling our first house was already gone, dried up in paying the mortgage for a large house we had planned to sell but can no longer in this foul-weather real estate market. My attempts to acquire a second job have all failed, and any attempt we make to make some extra income, it seemed, has all failed. All that and more has compounded my stress, and now my aching back!!

After feeling sorry for myself in the space of an hour, I prayed to the LORD, strengthening myself in the grace of God. I laughed and decided to push through it. If this is what the LORD had wanted; the LORD, Whose grace is sufficient for me, Who would never give me more than I can bear, Who would walk through all things with me and enlarge my faith that I may bear more, then I say that I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me. The LORD will get me through this, and I will prevail in the power of God's Holy Spirit. I laughed, then sang a song of praise to the LORD. God can heal me with but a single thought, a single word, a simple touch. My Father is the one that made the heavens and the earth, all the countless decillion decillions of stars in but a single day. What power and majesty He has!

This has made me only look forward to that day where God will redeem our earthly bodies and make it like Jesus' resurrection body. The LORD will give us the power to be strong, and the wisdom to be wise.

I can't help but think that this pain has a spiritual angle to it. Since I am now desiring to walk with God, the closer I try to get to Father, the more I am attacked. That tells me I am on the right path. The Bible says all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Who says persecution only comes from other humans who believe not the gospel of Jesus? The chief source of such trouble comes from the evil angels of the spiritual realm, from the fallen angels of Satan! Yes, God may have given them permission to do this to me, but whatever it is, I am looking forward by pushing forward. There is a blessing in all this awaiting me. If not in this life, then in the life to come. The LORD will reward me, and He will also avenge me. For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth. Though worms should destroy my body, this I know, that with my eyes I shall see God. I, and not another!