In Pain and In Rest

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  -- C.S. Lewis

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking the bus to school and there were no spots to sit down. So I was standing and holding onto the pole, and the bus driver made some very sharp, hard turns that wrenched my ankle as I was bracing myself. Consequently, a muscle in my ankle was strained. And this caused me quite a little bit of pain. I actually missed a day of classes, and spent the better part of 2 days resting, icing my ankle and taking ibuprofen. For about a week I used a tensor wrap for support when walking and standing so that the muscle wouldn't continue to be strained and could start to heal.

The resting process was a bit of a challenge, I will admit. I felt that I should be up and about -- there were things that needed to be done, and I felt really lazy -- but at the same time, I didn't want to make the pain worse. It wasn't unbearable, but I don't have the greatest tolerance for pain. But I quickly realized, especially through the advice of my parents, that strained muscles take time and rest to heal, and that this was going to mean I would be a little less active than usual.

God has blessed me with the ability to look at most circumstances and see the positive side, the blessings. So   when I knew that I would be taking some required "rest" time, one of the first things I did was to spend some extended time in worship, prayer and Bible reading. This is something that I do regularly, but not usually 2 hours at a time because there are so many other things to do.

So in this time of pain and required "rest", I realized how easily I forget what a great blessing it is to be able to walk and stand without pain. I also rediscovered how rejuvenating it is - not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually - to take time to really rest. To set aside the pressure of having to do things now and just to sit and "be still" in God's presence, and to think on the blessings we so often miss when we're rushing around.

God is sovereign over every aspect of my life, so I firmly believe that He allowed me to sustain this minor injury at that particular time because He knew that I needed to take a step back and have some "rest" in the midst of a somewhat painful circumstance.  I also realized that I tend to be a little impatient when something happens that hinders the "stuff" I think I have to be doing. God has been teaching me how to be patient in the healing process, and I am very grateful to Him for that.

I have to agree with C.S. Lewis -- God was shouting to me during this time of pain and I heard Him very clearly because I was stilled and allowing Him to speak to me. That's important too - He always speaks to us, but so often we are too busy to really listen and hear what He has to say. Hopefully I have learned from this so that I don't have to wait for the next painful or difficult situation in order to take some time to be still, to "sit at the feet of Jesus" and learn from Him.