September 14, 2012

• {Chasing the Pain}

  (Written yesterday)

  I have a headache today.  It is a really bad one.

  The kind that makes me want to close my eyes and curl up in a ball in my bed.  The kind that feels like a migraine coming on and makes my mind work at about 2/3 capacity.

  But I am at work. So I can’t crawl into bed and I can’t stop using my brain.

  I have noticed this many years ago: If I take Tylonol as soon as I feel a headache coming on, it usually doesn’t get too bad.

  Still, somehow, I often barely notice or just brush away the realization that I have a headache until I have already had it for 2 or 3 hours.  I’m busy and its not that bad yet, so I just let it go.

  Then I pay for it. 

  
  

  The other day I was talking with a friend and she was saying how she had this recent flu and strep throat and she was popping Ibuprofen like nobody’s business.

  She knew that her body was in a lot of pain, but as long as she kept downing the pain pills every 4 hours, she was fine. 

  She made a comment that I have been thinking about since.  She said that as long as she kept ahead of the pain by being pro-active, she was fine.  But that if she waited too long to take her medicine, it didn’t go well, because then she was just “chasing the pain.”

  In the days since that conversation, my mind has been fingering that phrase.  Feeling around its edges and trying to figure out the lesson that is there.

  Something about that phrase resonates with me.  Chasing the pain.

  We all have hurts in our lives to a greater or lesser degree.  We have those things that in our lives, that, when we look back on them, cause us pain. 

  We have those relationships that are hurtful and maybe things are scabbed over, but just below the surface is a lot of stuff that isn’t dealt with.

  Do you ever get in a funk and start feeling sorry for yourself?  Feeling like nobody else has it quite as bad as you do?  Maybe feeling like life was somehow unfair to you and that you got more than your share of heartache?

  When you CHOOSE to persist in those kinds of thoughts patterns, pretty soon, instead of being pro-active, you are “chasing the pain.”

  Because now you are feeling raw and somewhat powerless against the strong emotion you are feeling.  At the beginning of the downward slide, you have some choices that seem fairly easy at the time.  You can choose to just focus on other things. You can choose to ask a friend to pray for you. You can choose to claim the truth of God’s word.

  Speaking from personal experience, once you have wallowed in the pain long enough, it is much harder to climb out. You find yourself chasing the pain. 

  Maybe you chase your pain with self-pity. Maybe you chase it with alcohol.  Or with lies. Possibly with food or something else you use to try and forget.

  So next time you feel yourself sliding down that slippery slope into whatever pain is your own special vice, ask yourself the question:  Do I want to choose to believe truth right now and head this off at the pass? Or do I want to spend the next days/weeks/month chasing the pain? 

  My Dad told me about this quote the other day and I thought it was SO good. And I think it bears repeating and fits with this post.  It is “Emotions seem to be one of the least reliable yet most influential forces that guide our lives.”

  I find that to be true in my own life sometimes. And even now, as I am struggles to make some adjustments and changes in relation to my marriage, I find myself wanting to let my emotions control me instead of what I know to be true.

  Anyway, that’s my challenge for the day!

  • 7:40 am
  • 9 Comments