(written on the 28th from notes taken previously)
Just not getting much sleep. 🙃
I was both tired this morning and starting to migraine. I was supposed to go with Heather and Hans up to Rapid City, but with my being in my little pre-migraine phase, I didn’t want to be hanging out in another city with nowhere to go if I just wanted to lie down, so I stayed behind.
At first when I woke up, my canker sores seemed better, a lot better, but then as soon as I rinsed out my mouth, I realized they were really bad.
At least I think more painful than they’d ever been.
I went inside and ate breakfast with my brother-in-law and sister before they headed up north. Then I started working on my journal catch up, which was slow going because of long posts. 🙃
Lots of good stuff, though. 😊
The rain continued from yesterday, and pretty steadily, and so I decided to head into the house to check on the leaks.
Lots of leaks. 😞
So I went around the construction area, and then into Rover looking for containers that could hold water. I ended up using two of my little trash cans, two of my bigger totes, one of my little totes and some other stuff, setting it all around the upper floor to catch the drips. Sometimes wind gusts would make it so the drips wouldn’t go in the buckets and receptacles and whatnot, but it was better than nothing.
With so much standing water everywhere, I went and looked for the push broom, and then I started pushing the water out of the second floor. Then I grabbed my little microfiber washcloth that I use to dry myself off and started going through the whole upstairs, stopping up what the broom couldn’t.
Spent some time chatting with someone on the phone.. I had had a thought that I had sort of dismissed the night before that I was going to share but then decided not to because it was sort of a totally random, left field thought, and I couldn’t figure out any way that I liked of expressing it, so I just let it go. But then in the morning, during that phone conversation, the person I was talking to brought up exactly what I had thought to mention to them.
🙃
I think in total I ended up spending a handful of hours sopping up water and ringing it out, then climbing up into the rafters with the spray paint can to mark new leaks that I found.
I alternated back and forth between marking leaks and sopping up the floor, going out to my van to turn on my internet because my sister’s internet didn’t reach far enough to be able to hold a phone call signal.
Listened to a conference talk over and over from Elder Scott from many years ago. Chatted with Cory for a good long time–mostly spiritual stuff.
I love being able to chat with him so frequently about such beautiful and important things.
In fact, one of the most desires/feelings/sentiments I’ve ever had/felt came during my chat with Cory.
Well, I guess the desire has been there for many years already, but the verbiage that came today to me and the slight tweak in internal perspective made it more meaningful to me than it ever has been.
Pain is a privilege.
I guess I should say that that’s not the sentiment, that’s the prelude to the sentiment. 🙃
I’ve been trying to be grateful for pain, and in chatting with my mom a few days ago, she mentioned having recently watched a podcast episode of Let’s Get Real, with Stephen Jones (LDS podcast) talking to I think either a paraplegic or a quadriplegic or something, and his experience having been involved in a car accident on his mission and being paralyzed, and the pain and suffering and everything that he’s been through since and the struggles that he had, and that was one of his takeaways from the experience was that pain is a privilege, so I, without even having watch that episode, have latched on to that phrase, is it fits well in my own view of the universe, so to speak.
So… as I see it, and to borrow the phrase, pain is a privilege.
Why?
Well, for me, it gives me opportunities to receive what I want most. I want to be patient. I want to understand what people are going through, to be truly empathetic. I want to understand what the Savior actually went through. I want to go through it. I know I only comprehend the smallest part of what he went through, but I hope one day to have the capacity, the willingness, the strength to go through all of it, to have that as a possible gift from God.
I think I’ve wanted that as far back as 2010ish?
And now here’s the slight tweak that is so meaningful to me that if I’ve thought before, I’ve forgotten:
I want to be able to give my dear Savior the gift of a friend who truly understands what it was like to go through what he went through for us.
So pain?
It’s a gift from God to me to give me one of the deepest desires of my heart, through which I receive the privilege of experiencing some small portion of the suffering Jesus went through for me and for all of us.
🥰
🙏
I hope to have the strength of heart and mind to go through whatever pain must come to truly understand.
What a glorious day of gratitude and light and joy and happiness will that day of profound understanding be, when I can throw my arms around my dear Savior and friend and be l can give him that gift and say: “My dear brother, I understand. With everything I have and am, thank you.”
I hope I can maintain that perspective when pain and hardship and suffering try to push aside and crush gratitude and perspective and hope.
May I always remember my deepest desires and my testimony that God is doing everything he can to help me receive what I want most.
May I remember to let go of what I want now, and trust him with what I want most, if what I want now isn’t the best means of arriving at what I want most.
🙏
I spent some time loving on the animals–first with Fiona (a horse) for a good long time. It was fun to see her excited to be loved on and to put her head down because see wanted me to scratch her mane line. 🥰
Spent some time loving on Zora (the dog) as well. 😊
I was able to do a little bit more catch up on my journal writing as well.
Heather and Hans came back from their jaunt up to Rapid City, and we spent most of the rest of the night chatting. We talked about what they did while they were up there, stuff about the house and the leaks and how to proceed forward, etc.
Hans headed out to start working on some stuff in the house, and I stayed and mostly kept talking with my sister.
We talked about all sorts of things, and I don’t remember exactly how we got on the topic, but I might have mentioned something about the nerves in my feet having gotten really bad (instead of just twinging every once in a while now, I’m at the point where I’m getting some pretty severe pain in the instep portion of both feet, just sort of lightning stabs that come and are gone in a moment).
Anyway, she mentioned that somebody had told her recently that if she had any spine issues, or she knew anyone who had any spine issues, they should definitely 100% get in touch with Dr Gust.
So I decided to look him up. 5 Star Google rating.
Wow.
But what were the chances that my crappy insurance would actually have him as a network provider?
I jumped over to the provider search to find out.
😶
😶😶😶
🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
He was there! And Not only was he there, but he was listed with a purple dot next to his name, which supposedly means that he is willing to accept the price that my insurance company says something is worth, which means everything that he could do for me after my deductible would be covered by my insurance 100%.
Holy… smokes!
Guess who’s going to make a call to a neurosurgeon tomorrow. 🙃
Yes! He’s not just an orthopedic surgeon who works on the spine, he’s an actual neurosurgeon who focuses on the spine. That’s exactly what I need!!!
And he’s in the same city as the dentist I’m planning to go see who’s supposedly really good!
Gosh, I’m hopeful!
At the same time, it’s an interesting place to be. I’ve gotten to this point where I’m just beginning to learn to be grateful for the pain that I’m suffering because of the understanding and opportunity that it brings…
And now I might find relief? It almost feels like cheating. 🙃
But I’m going to leave it in the Lord’s hands. A healthy physical body, I can serve more people. And I’m sure God can give me whatever I need to receive whenever I need to receive it in order to eventually get what I want most.
So I’m going to go forward with efforts to take care of my body, and I’ll let the Lord take care of the rest.
😊
I spent some more time chatting with Cory about his van issues, worked more on catching up on my journal entries, texted my brother Richard a little bit, and finally crashed for the night.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful that by the end of the day, I started feeling like the canker sore issue had plateaued at its worst and was starting to be on the mend.
- I’m grateful that I had the opportunity and inclination to want to pay my tithing and give offerings today.
- I’m grateful that I was able to help with the house, marking up leaks, and removing standing water to prevent wood from swelling.
- I’m grateful to have been able to have a lovely little conversation with my brother, a wonderful conversation with Cory, and a great conversation with Heather.
- I’m grateful to be able to be grateful in the face of ever worsening nerve issues.
- I’m grateful to have the possibility of a great surgeon being right here nearby. 🤞
- I’m grateful for the beautiful little spiritual experiences and insights and tweaks to perspective.
- I’m grateful for the changing of my heart.
- 🥰
Success:
- Haven’t been cracking my back or neck much at all. I felt like I should stop, and I’ve generally been really good!
Improvement:
- Gosh, folks, I’m probably blind and forgetful, but it was another really good day with nothing glaring coming to mind. 🥳
Love and hugs! 🤗
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 