Pesky Thorn

Ever lose yourself? I mean completely tune out what’s going on around you? The craziness of the world just slips by, and all you want to do is escape.

You feel as if you need to be alone, and your craving for privacy trumps chocolate, bar none.

Living with chronic pain does that to you. My arm muscles begin to spasm out of nowhere, and I feel as if they’re being torn from their sockets. Headaches from neurosurgery on my neck on three separate occasions, resulted in plates implanted, that connect my neck to my spine.

A chronic infirmity, or as the apostle Paul said, “a thorn in the flesh,” changed me. It debilitated me, to the extent that I can say the pain feels like a messenger of Satan to torment me, to rob me of joy.  

I am so able to relate to Paul of Tarsus. I have Paul beat in the prayer for healing department, he only asked three times—I’ve asked a gazillion.  Paul was so much wiser than I. He heard his answer the first time.

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." ~ 2 Corinthians 12: 9

So Lord, now that I finally get it, I surrender all to you, and like Paul I can boast. My infirmities drenched in Your grace ain’t so bad after all. ~ Blessings, Diane Velikis