Herbal Baths and Worship

It's 1:00 AM and I am in severe pain...sorry guys, this post may not be a rib-tickler. I think maybe you are going to be introduced to some of those "darker" thoughts that I mention in the intro to this website.

Pain is pretty much a given in my life...I can't think of a single moment in the past maybe...I don't know...I was going to say 5 years...but it could well be 40 or 50 ....(and yeah, I KNOW I'm not yet 50!) Seem like every moment since 1986--when my spine first began it's rebellion, has HURT....! And I'm not talking about a mildly -aching; annoying--but --forgettable kind of hurt....I mean the kind that when you are trying to carry on a life or death important conversation with someone, you can barely focus on or even HEAR their words of the pain that tries to come to the foreground and consume you - likeI picture nerve gas in World War I....creeping along the ground, gradually rising until it chokes out any hope of air for breath.

In the morning, my biggest problem is my arthritic disease. (PsA to be official, but sometimes I call it RA for clarity, because many people do not know what "PsA" is ((It's Psoriatic Arthritis and it has not been satisfied with consuming hands, hips, shoulders.....No, it MUST gobble up my spine as well....)) ) It stiffens me and every vertebra aches with a terrible and intense pain....movement is extremely difficult...yet that is what I need to and must try to do....My inclination is to huddle in my recliner and moan....but I try to get moving. Sometimes lately, after about a hour of the "huddle thing", I put on the video: Richard Simmons "Stretching to the Classics" - an exercise video where he doesn't speak merely leads you in a series of gentle stretchesd. Or, I'll do a quick Pilates or yoga workout.....

I do yoga. I know that among some of my friends and relatives - who are conservative, evangelical Christians (If we must put a label on it, I guess that would be it) - yoga is not always smiled upon because of its ties to Eastern Religion. But, as I heard a practitioner of yoga once say: yoga predated the Eastern Religions by several thousand years...To say that it is wrong, is like saying Prayer is wrong because other faiths practice it too... And that makes a lot of sense to me. My rheumy told me that yoga was probably my only hope to keep my spine from fusing in ways it should not fuse and crippling me like the hunchback of Notre Dame or something. To me, it is an EXERCISE...not a faith. I do not participate in the meditation part of the videos...during that time I merely talk to the Lord and try to relax my screaming hurting body...And I find that this helps. It also keeps my muscles in some degree of tone that they would not have otherwise.


I have a concoction which I call my "Pain Bath"...It is Epsom Salts combined with a combination of about 10 (guessing at that number) herbs - herbs which I've selected because of their pain relieving properties. I chose each specific herb because it covers a different type of pain,or works in a different manner than the rest. Some are for nerve pain, others for muscle aches....some are specific to arthritis, some for inflammation, etc.. And I take a fabric drawstring muslin bag (about 4"x2" large) and fill it with scoopfuls of this mixture (and it has lots of lavender and chamomile, so it smells lovely also)... I fill the tub with pure hot water...(and PLEASE, if you are doing something like this at home, wait for the water to cool sufficiently before you try getting into it!) I toss in the herb bag (closed with a twist tie) into the water and wait until it has steeped a bit and the water is still hot, but cool enough not to burn me...and soak myself. During my bath I hold the wet bag of herbs against whatever specific places are hurting me the worst at the moment...usually neck , hips, and sometimes hands--like a poultice. Occasionally soaking and squeezing it to get more of the medicine into the bath water... And when I'm done with this WHOLE process (which can take close to three hours total), only then can I stand to dress myself and go on with my day. On days when I have to be somewhere early - which I usually try to avoid (but church prayer time prior to Sunday School time, cannot be rescheduled, so I just either start the process at 4:00 AM or else I skip some of it --usually the yoga and Pilates-or else I take a very hot shower instead of the bath before getting dressed.


But no matter what, the first hour or two must be spent huddled in the recliner praying that God let me die...and that He would simultaneously get me through this day without attempting to take that decision out of His hands. I'm not depressed. Don't misunderstand me. I merely hurt more than any person should hurt...and sometimes I feel like one more day of it is demanding way more endurance than I have on hand... But all of this is not without a bright side. And I don't mean only that I get to park in disabled parking either! The bright side is this: by submitting and yielding to this which is God's plan for me right now, God has shown me a side of Himself that I never would have otherwise known. It is this side of Him that, on days when I'm so leveled by pain that I can't consider budging from the bed or recliner, I often just raise my hands to heaven and worship Him...because there is little else I can do with the whole situation but praise my God that He know what He's doing , even though I don't. I don't question Him , as I think I've mentioned before. He is GOD, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe... I think He certainly knows, better than me, what is best...not only for His purposes,...but for my life as well.

I've had times when second by second ticks by and each second I can only pray for God to strengthen me to get through the next one. And somehow, miraculously, He does. I'm listening now to the song "Hallelujah " by Hillsong. It is my very favorite worship song....It brings me right to the throne room of God. Check it out if you get the chance. Sometimes when I'm alone in my room, hurting, praying, and listening to music like this, I have to just lift my hurting arms toward heaven and keep them there for a while...worshiping the God-who-knows-better-than-I. Because of all of this, I've had the blessing of seeing a side of Y'shua, that many people never get to see. It's the side of the Savior hanging and suffering on that cross...and sometimes I think...I'm so glad that Jesus knew pain even worse than mine...Because then I can talk to Him about it.. He is not some distant, removed God out in the universe...but the one sitting on the bed next to me holding my hands and saying , "Cyn, I know. I know how you are feeling. You have to just trust me with this one. Okay?"

And I do.