Right after I wrote that post, I scaled up to my final dosage....and that next morning was a doozy. All of Sunday was a blur of nausea, fatigue, and dizziness. My husband and girls have been very helpful, and I've been able to get the things done that I need to, so it's a barely manageable kind of yuck. It's slowly getting better, and hopefully soon my body will have adjusted, but all the suffering got me thinking.
Last night, as I lay in bed, I prayed, "Dear God, please, I just want to feel better. Please, just make this stop."
Then it struck me how similar it was to those words in Gethsemane, "Take this from me." With a notable exception of Jesus' addition, "Your will, not mine."
And in those four words, Jesus teaches us how to suffer. In the midst of the nausea, I felt tremendous gratitude for our Catholic faith. We have redemptive suffering. Jesus shows us through his life and death how to do suffering. We have a guide to make our suffering into something. To offer it up and lay it at the foot of the cross, crying, praying, falling in silence.
This moment isn't a waste. As much as I want to be on the other side already, this awfulness isn't just something to gut through. It's something to give.
So, I'm doing my best to give it. Even though last night I was so tired, I cried because the bath mat was damp. So together over here!
Yes! Such gratitude for our beautiful Faith, and the way it makes sense of our suffering.
ReplyDeleteLove.
ReplyDeleteI love the lesson of this. It makes me think my suffering (being apart from my husband) is not for nothing either. And that I can think of it as a sacrifice or gift to God.
ReplyDeleteI too am so grateful for the beauty of our Catholic faith to help give meaning to suffering. It doesn't make things easy but it does give them purpose.
ReplyDeleteI often forget to reflect on redemptive suffering, but it is indeed one of the most beautiful aspects of our faith.
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