The past couple of weeks I have tried to do something that I have rebelled doing for quite some time. Several people recommended that I should try physical therapy! I couldn't imagine myself doing this. In my thoughts--the pain I was experiencing was bad enough, more than I was able to handle at times. So, my idea was, why should I subject myself to try something that would bring me even more hurt and pain to what was already too painful. I stalled and stalled no matter who was recommending it. Until the day a doctor wrote out a prescription for--physical therapy!! Finally I could not avoid it. I could not move forward to the needed resolution of my pain until I did the dreaded physical therapy. And to add even more trouble to my troubled mind--I had to find my own therapist and make the appointment. By now you may have guessed that I try to avoid anything "medical". It is unreasonable on my part for sure. Nevertheless, that has been me. And now I had no choice. The choice to do nothing was no longer survivable. The pain was too great. So with fear I made an appointment. With fear, I went to the first appointment. With fear I met the therapist!
I am pretty sure that the physical therapist could see fear written all over me. And so she sat with me and--we just talked! We talked until I figured out that she was not going to make me hurt. We talked until my fears started to be relieved. We talked until she was able to get me to try out a couple of her suggestions. We talked until my fears decreased and my mind figured out that she did not want to hurt me, she wanted to relieve the hurt.
The things she asked me to do were such simple little things. Move a muscle in just a small movement. Move my foot in a way that was easy for me. Raise a leg but do it with a towel and pull it up. I was relieved but skeptical. How could such simple little movements help make the pain better? They were easy, almost too easy and not at all like I was expecting! She assured me--these things will help. And after just a couple of sessions, she assured me that she could see progress. That she could see that I was getting stronger in several ways.
Now I can see that the therapist is in a way like what God wants to be for us/me! He wants to take our fears and put them behind us/me. He wants to take the fear of the unknown and assure me that with Him, there is no need to fear. He knows what is best for me to do, I just have to be willing to do it and follow His guidance. He does not want me to make major changes that I don't want to and am rebelling against. He has me change in small ways that I can see will be better for me. And then later, if I accomplish the small changes, they will add up to a big change almost before I can realize it. And I will be better for it.
I am so thankful for my therapist here now and I am even more thankful for my therapist sent from heaven to make it all better for me, if I follow the Therapist's suggestions and practice them daily, several times a day until they become a habit. One of the things I was asked to do was move a muscle that I was sure I had no control of. But I finally figured it out and now it is an easy one to control and make it work. God will make me try out some things that I have never done. He assures me that He won't leave us to do it alone. He is always with me, to help me. to care and to love me and to celebrate with me when I can make progress.
The next thing after the physical therapy was to schedule an MRI. Another medical procedure that I feared! But this time there is a change in my attitude. I have experienced enough pain that I want relief!! I am ready to just do about anything to find out what is wrong. Once again though, there is that fear! Fear that is hard to overcome. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what will happen that I don't like! Fear that I can't do what is asked of me. Fear from hearing stories of other people's experiences. Unreasonable fear for the most part.
The day came, along with my fear. I was asked to answer several pages of questions and medical history. Then someone came and explained what would be happening. I was given a wheelchair ride to the truck with the MRI machine. I had an elevator ride to the top. I was met by the truck driver and two technicians who were introduced as the photographers. They all were as kind as could be and tried very hard to make me unfearful. In an MRI machine, you have to be very still. I have trouble laying still in bed with a nice comfortable mattress. What I was laying on was not my comfortable mattress. Laying still is usually quite painful and that is why I move a lot--trying to relieve the pain. How will I survive this procedure? But they assured me that they had multiple pillows and that they would find a combination that would help a lot. They finally did the best they could for me and I thought that I might be able to be still for the needed half hour of stillness. It was explained to me that the procedure is quite noisy! There are bangs and bells and many other noises that are loud and sudden. They were not wrong!! I was told some people go to sleep! I don't see how! I was offered headphones to deaden the noise and to have music to listen to, too. That was kind of relieving. I was given many choices of music styles but of course my mind was blank trying to think of what I might want! I finally remembered—ahhh, Christian music! That would calm and relax. On with the headphones, into the machine and then came the loud noises! And I concentrated on laying still--real still! And then came the music into the headphones. But try as hard as I could, I could not make what I was hearing to be anything like what I expected to hear as worship music and/or hymns. I tried very hard to hear anything like what I could recognize as something worshipful or even that could be called "Christian rock!" That kind of music is definitely not my style but I thought perhaps it would be durable. I couldn't hear a single phrase that I could make out that would have indicated it was about a God experience. In fact, I couldn't make out anything clear that had meaning to me. It was just a whole 30 minutes of loud noise. I will not call it music! I didn't sleep!!!!!!! My endurance of it for 30 minutes was tried out. I wanted to press the emergency call light. I didn't! I just wanted to.
Finally it was over. The head phones were removed, the machine was turned off, I was taken out of the machine. And then came the apology--that somehow the music genre had changed and they were sorry! I won't say the name of the famous music star--but this artist has definitely confirmed that I don't appreciate them as an artist! WOW! That style is only from the devil and if it is favored by many, I can begin to understand why we have so many problems in this world today. Satan is definitely controlling many "music" artists. And this was one of them!
I am so glad that God can take away fear. I am so glad that I can trust Him to help me through whatever bad and trouble comes to me. I do not want to face life without Him. I need Him every minute of every day of every year. I need Him to help me through it all—including Satan’s music.
I long for the peace that is promised to us in the promised future to come!
Small everyday things lead to big things in the future!
