It's Earth day... I am here, observing...still living... growing... standing... sitting... with a grin

                                                        Making time to reflect...

This post is about prayer, my own battle with
PAIN-
The unpleasant face distorting kind.

When I look back three years ago at this time, I remember being in incredible pain, two years ago, same story... Last year, the pain finally went away.

The pain was so bad that I was fed up. I couldn't do anything with friends or family because just taking little steps would make me cringe, yelp, and stiffen up. It hurt to sit on the couch, the bed, a chair was out of the question. I would endure mind blowing pain to sit with family who would visit, and suffer in pain flat on my back afterwards. Simple things like rolling over to find a more comfortable position... that wasn't so simple.
----
Since the day the pain went away, I have been saying "Thank you God" each time I bend down to pick things up off of the floor, to stand and sit pain free... The little things.

Why do I say "Thank you God"?
Well, although I prayed a *lot* for the time I endured the pain. Most of the prayers were along the lines of, please make this pain go away, please fix me, please heal me, etc.
Nothing... The pain was still there, tearing and ripping at my nerves.

 I remember last year, the two weeks of solid prayer and days of fasting feeling *determined* to be healed- and knocking on His door with my pleading.
I couldn't sleep at night and each day was so hard to deal with.
I have seen miraculous healing with my own eyes and *knew* that it was possible.

So I kept at it. Finally I said, "What do I have to do to get rid of this pain already- I cannot take this anymore?"
That did it...
I started understanding a few things that were brought to the surface of my consciousness.
Things I hadn't seen in myself were being revealed... My own mindset... I knew that there were things that I was "supposed to be doing"- I'll not get into personal details, I just want you to know that I promised to work on them... Some I am still working on.

 I decided to let go of my hidden anger. I chose to sincerely forgive people. I was starting to see how my heart was filled with the back breaking burdens that I was feeling physically.

One day, a short while after praying for forgiveness for a few things that I knew I had been wrong about- thinking of others with judgement and holding resentment- forgiving really deep hurts that others had caused me *the pain just went away*...
It was gone! It happened one day- after an entire year solid of total agony, pain and misery- one day it all just turned into loose muscles and pain free bones and joints.
It wasn't a coincidence... It wasn't a fluke, or whatever you'd like to say it could be.
It was a learning experience.
It wasn't my need for a pain free life in my body, it was my heart that needed to let go of the invisible pain. Pain that I had learned to ignore, mask and pretend wasn't there.

Asking for God to heal me was easy.
Asking God to do anything is easy.
Asking God what I needed to do to get rid of the pain... That was a whole new angle.

When things bother me physically, I now look to see what I am doing, how I am thinking...
I am recovering quite quickly from things these days...

Just thought I would share.