"I Told You So, Didn't I?"

    I woke up this morning, my back really sore and hurting and then the spasms hitting like lightening. It is hard to bend and to sit—I hurt so bad! So, I hit the cold compresses, the medicines, the back brace is on, the vibration used and I kept going. Animals were fed, and breakfast cooked. My husband said ‘what did you do, that caused your back to go out?’
     What did I do? It is more of what didn’t I do! God tells us He will discipline those who He loves. And I had this coming. I continued to eat with no intention to loose my weight, even though daily I start out with intentions to do so. But along comes that need for comfort and just like some who suck on a cigarette, or sip on the alcohol and do drugs--many of us fail to admit this fact! I am an addict, I am a food-a-holic. We deny, and we continue that emotional eating.
    I also did not really pay attention to the warning signs of the tinges of pain that came with lifting and bending. I knew that I have arthritis and even though I do continue dancing with my dogs and the swimming at least 3 times a week, loose weight I did not.

   But the real reason for my pain, is the continued attitude of mumbling and grumbling about those everyday chores. I get angry and upset picking up after 'others' who should not be leaving things lay where they are dropped or used. I get mad about the unfairness of life! So, stress and that stinking attitude prevailed, and I kept going to my "fix."
     This pain now, is as if my body worked with my mind in helping me to be free of the ability to do those chores—to go to work, to even be able to sit. In other words, my body is the voice screaming out---“I told you so, didn't I?”
“You have abused me and mistreated me, your pride to keep going and be defiant even when symptoms started up---has led you to this point! I am shutting your body down! This is what you are going to have to face if your hardness of heart continues?”
Like so many others, I am walking in an attitude of complacency. The attitude of ‘it won’t happen to me.’ Yeah my grandfather smoked till he was eighty and never got cancer---attitude. Or for me, my mom died at eighty, with those 200 pounds on her body—but wait, her back was bent over from arthritis, and she suffered for years with the heart pain and weakness.

     So—look at the truth here---listen to what the medical experts tell us!!! Choose to take care of your body or watch yourself slowly deteriorate into a painful ending. We are told to take care of the temple that we are, and we are warned too that if we desecrate that temple---woe to us!!! We would never kill someone: why do we slowly kill ourselves?
    Mea culpa—what can I say now dear body of mine—I am sorry? Forgive me, Father for I have continued to sin—and I am so not worthy for You to say the Word—"be healed."
    I am human, I am weak and this is why my back pain began my day as the greatest gift to me. It brings me back to the foot of Jesus, to ask for His mercy and healing of my wounded heart that seeks comfort.  To ask also for wisdom and knowledge that why my sins of pride and arrogance still exsist.

"Thank You God for the pain, the wisdom from the experience and the joy that comes with knowing just how much You love me—that You discipline and purify in all the ways You do."
    I do not know the final outcome of this pit stop of my life’s journey. I do know this—I will rejoice and praise Him in all the storms of life—knowing that His love, His grace is all that I want and desire. His presence in our life is the one and only thing we should desire over all the tiniest of gods and temptations that come our way. "Lord, may I truly desire only Your comfort--You alone oh God."
His Words come to me from Joel—chapter 2-v 12 “Yet even now—
Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
13Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God,
For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
and relenting in punishment."