The NFA Clothespin Challenge:

Here is how it works:

1. 1) Place a clothespin on your finger
2. 2) Set a timer for 30 minutes
3. 3) See how long you can bear the pain. Did you leave the clothespin on for 15 minutes? 10? 5?
4. 4) For each minute you adverted that clothespin pain, donate to the NFA-$20 a minute, $10 a minute, $5 a minute…
5. 5) NOW. Imagine this pain forever… This should help you understand what it is like to live with constant pain - but people with FM can’t just “remove” the pain the way you can remove that clothespin!

Interested in helping? Support the National Fibromyalgia Association. Every penny helps us support FM patients as they strive to manage their pain.

http://www.fmaware.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ClothespinChallengeCampaign

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In the beginning of our democracy, the Declaration of Independence stated that each of us had certain "inalienable rights." The outcome from this statement of entitlement becomes obvious when observing the behavior of most Americans. Our disposition looks after "me, my, and mine." We justify controlling situations and people because it is our prerogative, our right.

Yet, when our bodies betray us with age, illness, or chronic pain, we lose our ability to control. We cling to our right to feel good, and nourish the hope that we will get our life back to normal as soon as we feel better. The longer we cling to the misconception of "my right to a comfortable life," the more difficult it is to release our circumstances and relationships into God’s care. Our declaration of rights pales as we struggle with the challenges our bodies now have.

Thus we need to surrender our rights; but by our very temperament we need to be in control. The nature of rights can be observed in the behavior of a cat. For those of us lucky enough to be owned by a cat, you already understand the metaphor. Feline dispostions cannot be changed. We can train and direct some of their behaviors–litter boxes, kitty windows, etc.–but in the end, they control us. Our best efforts cannot remove their underlying, controlling personalities.

The fallen nature of man also cannot be changed. We may be kind and generous, loving and helpful for a time, but in time, we will revert back to our need to control. Only supernatural intervention can achieve what our own efforts cannot. Jesus Christ quite willingly took on the weight of our sins so that we do not have to be controlling. We must hand over our rights to Him, or we will continually  struggle as we encounter the storms of life.

I’m not sure how to hand over my rights to Jesus. Yet it has become paramount to do so. Will I get healthier? Probably not. Will I have more peace? Definitely! "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30 NIV) So every time I struggle with a circumstance or a relationship, I must consciously give up my right to control and watch God work in that area of my life. "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 1:6 NIV) Pain, finances, relatives, etc. can cause no fear if I am willing to give up my rights.

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 We who are in pain frequently buffer ourselves from relationships. It takes emotional energy to interact, and our energy shortage makes personal interfacing hard work. Continual pain starts changing the landscape of our lives. Our life-style begins to reflect this shift, and soon we find ourselves all-about-pain instead of all-about-people.

Relationships demand time and communication. Doctor visits, prescription pick-ups, therapy sessions, and many other health-related activities consume large chunks of time in our day. Chronic Pain insists on being heard, to the detriment of individual rapport. Pain can also become a hiding place to avoid stress-filled associations.

How do we step back in to the relating aspects of relationships? In our own strength, we really can’t. The Bible answers our question: “So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.” (I Peter 4:19 NIV) We must make a choice. Will we accept the suffering God is allowing us to go through; or will we succumb to the quiet shriveling of difficult relationships? God tells us that He has provided all we need to do His every good work. (2 Tim. 3:17) So how much should you and I trust Him?

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The phrase, “tranquilize ourselves with the trivial*,” caused me to hesitate and ponder. Do I allow myself to get immersed in the minutiae of the day so that I do not have to face the bigger issues in my life? Can my fears and insecurities be banished to the back of my mind as I scurry about doing inconsequential tasks?Both questions resound with a “Yes!” Distractions are good sources of escape. TV, food, shopping, reading, alcohol, drugs use up blocks of time in which we do not have to think beyond the moment. Finances, crumbling relationships, physical incapacities, disinterest in pursuing God’s best overwhelms us if we allow these crucial life-changes into our thoughts. So busyness rules the day.

There’s always a valid excuse not to do something. Spending time with the Lord in worship, study, meditation, and prayer can be pushed aside with the single statement: “I don’t have enough time!” The urgent replaces the important. Trivialization occurs when the accepted practice of busy schedules replaces the desperate needs of the heart.

What to do? Pause. Take a deep breath. Refuse to be hurried or distracted. Define priorities. What single issue needs addressing? Claim Holy Spirit power, step out in faith, and break through the trap of inertia. Become conscious of  the anesthesia of the trivial and find serenity. Take on the big challenges, standing firm in the knowledge that the battle is the Lord’s. Surely, being a warrior for Christ can take precedence over the busyness of the trivial. If not, what else is there?

*Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death. (19th century Christian Philosopher)

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Email has replaced the need for writing letters, getting stamps, licking flaps of envelopes, and finding a mailbox. Even more convenient, email replaces making obligatory telephone calls, and up-dating  people on the details of your life. In many ways, email just makes sense. You can tell a lot of people the important stuff with one typed letter and the click of a button. You can be selective on who receives what news. You don’t have to worry about forgetting anyone because they are already in your address book on-line.

Even better, people don’t interrupt your life by using the telephone at their convenience and not yours. You’re not put on the spot to make an appropriate response immediately. Best of all, you can write and rewrite your reply until you are saying exactly what needs to be said, exactly the way you want to say it.

How then, do you respond to an email that breaks your heart or requests prayer? It might be appropriate to immediately telephone the hurting person. But as you can tell, I’m not a big fan of the telephone. When I receive a distressing email, my first response is to ask God how I need to respond so the email sender is comforted. Many times, He tells me to email a prayer.

Emailed prayer allows freedom, a liberty to refocus, not on the problem, but on the problem-fixer, Jesus Christ. By typing the prayer out as a response to the email, you can address the situation and offer comfort in a thought out, positive manner. Trust me, the prayer does not need to be eloquent or lengthy, just a direct statement to a mighty God.

Should you pray for healing? I don’t know. Do prayers count if you send them to more than one person? Absolutely! Can you pray for the person after the fact? I believe God is not on our human time-line so any prayer, at any time, counts!

A typed prayer is a thought out prayer; and yet spontaneity still occurs through the Holy Spirit. So don’t be afraid to email prayer for the good times, the bad circumstances, or the ugly relationships. Email provides another venue to draw us closer to our Creator.

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Sometimes, I feel like a fraud. Here I am doing my life, following the Christian disciplines as best I can. Suddenly, I am conscious that I am not who I portray myself to be. My “bJ” (before Jesus) feelings begin to surface–annoyance, frustration, inadequacy, swearing, laziness, etc. It’s as if my mask of “good Christian” is slipping.

I suppose I learned basic mask-making as a young child. Being told to be a “good girl” did not make me a good girl. My behavior may have improved but my soul did not change. Even then I could understand how to pretend to be something that I knew I was not. My rebellious spirit did not match my modest behavior.

Mask-making, then, becomes an art the older you and I become. Each persona we share with others has its own “look.” A drawer full of emotional masks might include: perfect spouse, loving parent, cooperative child, willing employee, understanding boss, compassionate Christian, etc. Masks make it easier to deny that we have unacceptable feelings. We become more dependent upon the truth of our masks then on the transparency of Jesus Christ. And while we are busy hiding ourselves, like a hermit crab using other animals’ empty shells, we miss the freedom of being a child of God who doesn’t have to be afraid. We can trust in Holy Spirit power instead of our own ineptitude.

Is it possible to let go of our dependency on masks? Yes and no. Recognizing when we put on a mask is the beginning of change. Over time and when we feel safe, we might allow another person to peek into the reality of our soul, our emotions.

But every time we find ourselves in a new or frightening situation, our first impulse will be to rely on what we know best–the mask, our barrier of  protection against this hostile world. And often, we don’t realize what our true feelings are. The mask feels so familiar that we think, “This is who I am!” Our unrecognized denial of objectionable feelings can cause emotional and/or physical symptoms with which we struggle the rest of our lives–our inheritance from age-old masks we know nothing about.

How refreshing it is to know we are free in Christ. God works through us for His good purpose; and one of His purposes is to peel away the facade of our masks. He prepares us to do His good works, one layer at a time.

 What masks do you hide behind?

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I sit here in a Vicodin fog, trying to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness. This goal is not easy. “I hurt! I hurt! I hurt!” my body screams. The noise drowns out my focus, so I must constantly go back to the Scripture, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” (Matt. 6:33) God’s Kingdom recedes with pain’s schreaching distractions.

Now is the time to step forward and be counted. This battle is not mine! “Stand firm!” is the command (2 Chron. 20:17). All I want to do is go back to bed, yet what an opportunity to practice what I preach in The Silver Bullet: God’s Rx for Chronic Pain.

• Today’s Challenge: is to literally stretch beyond my physical limitations.
• How do I choose to cope? I will pray for the saints of God in their struggles. I will read my Bible study for today. I will take a nap and feel better when I awake. I will meet one other person’s need today. I will do no “shoulds.”
• My attitude will be “can do!” I want to stand firm and see the deliverance that the Lord will give me.

I have my Jesus, God’s answer to my pain. I have my plan. It’s the Lord’s day and I will rejoice in it. How can I not?

What do you do when pain screams at you?

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"Religious people are just weak individuals who can’t deal with life’s problems so need a crutch called God! They don’t want to be responsible for their actions." Have you ever heard a statement like this before? I have. I used to think and speak this way as I breezily dismissed God, church and the whole religious scene. Then God lead me back to Himself, after an eighteen year hiatus, and began to teach me the cost of following Him.

 The first lesson was accountability. Life requires choices for which we are responsible. No Christian can say, "The devil made me do it!" Many of our choices cause us difficulty because they require we pay a personal price. Jesus told His disciples: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:27 NASB) Jesus carried His cross to His death–now that’s enough to make one pause.

Death to self is another hard-to-swallow lesson. The world we live in proclaims the virtues of being our own person, taking what we can get, living with gusto. At any moment, my needs try to eclipse another’s.  And so, another choice: "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?" (Luke 14:27 NASB) Jesus tells us that there is a cost, not a crutch, to follow Him; and sometimes I feel disinclined to pay the price.

 What if Jesus had chosen to forgo the cost of our Salvation? Without His death by crucifixion, we would never have tasted freedom from sin’s bondage. Here’s where "the rubber meets the road," and all Christians must face the question: Can my obedience to Him be just as important?

Are Christians who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ weak? Christianinty is not for the faint of heart. If we take responsibility for our choices, count the cost of discipleship, and step forward in Jesus’ Name, we are anything but feeble personalities and frail egos. We are saints and warriors of the risen Lord. We are promised: "You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you... Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.’" (2Ch 20:17)

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If all humans are destined to suffer, to fail, to fear, and to feel shame, then what is the point of having a Jesus relationship? God isn’t going to pad our existence so that we don’t suffer as much as everyone else. If we have any doubts, look at the Biblical life of Job, God’s "blameless and upright" servant. He had it all and lost it all, after which he spent thirty-seven chapters trying to figure out what went wrong. In the last five chapters, God tells Job that He alone decides what will be and not be in a person’s life.

The lesson of Job is our lesson too. We  suffer, perhaps more than anyone else we know. We are misunderstood when we fail and are fearful. We hide our own shame by blame/shaming others. The destruction in our lives appears no less  than the devastation in anyone else’s. So the question must be asked: Does Jesus make a difference?

And the answer is: maybe. If someone receives Jesus Christ’s Salvation at age 14, and never again pursues a relationship with Him, then Salvation will count only after death. But, if we doggedly press on toward the cross, no matter what our age, actively practice what we learn, and yearn for yet more of Jesus, then we change. Then we recognize that there is a difference.

Our character changes, though our circumstances may not. When we ask Jesus Christ to walk with us through the fire and the floods of our lives, than we see the transformation–not in our circumstances but in ourselves. We live a transformed life in spite of our suffering, failures, fear, or shame. Yes, Jesus makes all the difference in the world.

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