I know I complain a lot about physical things, and I apologize. Sometimes when I stop doing and "come to the moment," I become conscious of the pain.
It's never gone, but most of the time I can distract myself enough to push awareness aside. Other times, it screams. Right now, it's howling.
My patron, St. Teresa, also complained fairly often in her letters about physical ailments. She suffered from debilitating headaches and relapsing fever. She was so ill at one point that her family took her out of the monastery for a long period of rest and healing.
So I excuse myself for not always shutting up about what hurts by looking to her example. BUT there is a critical difference: No matter how *she* suffers, whether from illness or from the obtuseness of some fellow Catholics, she NEVER FAILS to bless and thank His Majesty.
I *want* to do that, but I forget. I want the nuisances and pain to serve some purpose by being united to the Passion of Christ. Since I can't remember to make the offering each time, I make an intention to give it *all* whenever I think of it, usually by praying the Prayer of Abandonment of Bl. Charles de Foucauld.
Actually, many years ago, I pretty much wrote God a blank check. If it's in my account, it's His if he wants it. It was terrifying to make that offer. I have to say, though, that He has been unfailingly considerate, and all those grand gestures I promised Him have turned out to be mainly just enduring petty annoyances, hurtful words, being misjudged, going without at times, the ordinary strife of daily life.
Even the 24/7 pain is nothing, really. The fact that it can run in the background much of the time means that it's manageable. Real pain was having my fractured ankle reduced. (The fringe benefit of that was that, after surgeries, the morphine drip gives me the only truly pain-free moments I have known in decades. It is not a practical daily means of coping, however. 😊)
Prayer *is* pain management. Communing with God gives meaning to suffering, because it gives meaning to life. Without that connection, I am quite sure I wouldn't still be here. Intercessory prayer, in particular, transforms pain. If I ask that their suffering be lessened, if I suffer *for* another, my own pain is thereby tinged with joy. It becomes active, rather than merely passive.
C. S. Lewis, of course, said that pain is God's megaphone for getting our attention. I am clearly tough to reach. So I will keep praying this prayer, thanking God for everything.
But don't be surprised when I kvetch.
PRAYER OF ABANDONMENT
Father, I abandon myself into your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my spirit. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. Amen.
