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.

Evening Ramble

Well, it's not midnight, but since I just got the blog up and running, I thought I at least owed you an opening post since you dropped by. As I mentioned in my bio, I'm always in pain...and I like to write poetry...so add the two together and you get...No, NOT pained poetry! You get poetry about pain. I have a number of such poems but I won't slam you with such a gloomy topic since you just got here for the first time. And don't worry, the blog won't always be so erudite...It will be my talking to you, just like I sit and talk to myself.

I'm a compulsive writer...I have numerous blogs, and participate in forums, and also have maintained a journal since I was in eighth grade...Of course I burned about 20 years' worth of them. What I wouldn't give to have them back now! The reason I destroyed them was that, my daughter was young and I was currently ensconced in normalcy and didn't ever want her to look into the dark corners of my earlier life. But now, she's 18 and my best friend and both she and I would be interested to find out what kind of craziness went on back then (since I don't recall much of it at all, and what I recall was more what was in my head than in my surroundings...so I'm quite confused about what really DID go down.) That was when my 30 year struggle with mental illness really got underway....But that's a whole OTHER story. We started out talking about pain...so I guess I rambled into telling you about all of the pain of my life and not my current, physical pain.

I have an expression. I say it to people who have a clue what I'm going through and who don't say things like, "Oh, yes, I fully comprehend what it is you are going through. I hurt my back once..." Well. It's apples and planets my dear. It is easier for me to hear when people say things like, "I have such a stiff neck today! It's really hurting." But then they go on to apologize for complaining while all along they are sitting next to Job himself. haha. (Sorry for the "haha's" I often make myself laugh.) And I say to them this, (and THIS is the expression I referred to above before I was so rudely disoriented): "Pain is Pain. Everyone has pain of some kind and to them in that minute, it's as large and all-consuming as they can endure it to be."

Now, lest you think that I should have said that to person #1...The reason it bothers me, is that they think they understand what it's like to say, be on the rack for thirty years or so and every day have the screws pulled tighter...and they think that their pulled muscle gives them the authority to think that. However, I definitely must give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe that was just their awkward way of trying to be sympathetic...And they only confused empathy with sympathy. Person #2 has more humility and comprehension I think...and so I don't pooh-pooh their pain. To them, it is as disconcerting, maybe, as mine is to me. I've gotten to be quite a pro at managing pain that exceeds belief.

NOW, to the poem! The reason I like this one (other than for its silly rhyme scheme ((I just wanted to see if I could pull it off)) ) is that it's among the more positive of my pieces...well, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I will stop arguing with myself and give you the poem:

God and Pain

By

Cynthia Lott Vogel

I cannot articulate my agony;

Cannot convey its tenacity.

Lonely, I live out its verity

As anguished, I pray to my Deity.

I do not ask “why?” but only

Wonder in some deepest part of me

Why God should seem to be in complicity

With powers of suffering, When He is Almighty

To save and to heal out of love for me.

Yet inner healing must have priority.

Greater need have I of maturity

Than to coast thru life being pain free.

My weakness keeps me clinging fast to Thee,

Trembling legs stumble haltingly

Your ears are soft to my prayer and plea

As you bend down, lift, and carry me.