Learning to love suffering (again)

I've come to realize that my pity parties are never profitable, 
and the sooner I turn them around, the better...

A POEM BY MARGARET SNELL NICHOLSON
(a "mendicant" is a beggar)

    I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
    And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own
    I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
    I cried, "But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
    This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me."
    He said, "My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee."
    I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
    As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
    I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
    He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face

When I posted this recently, I received this email in response:

"Such a romantic thing, to be able to be as she was... but is it even possible to get there?  I struggle so greatly with my life.. the pain, the constant loss. The feeling like I'm in a bubble and the rest of the world continues on... the emotional struggles of those around me in trying to deal with this new lack of function.  It's hard on not just me.   Do you think this can happen for everyone?  Can we all can get to the place she is at?" 

Here is my reply:

Yes, Sis, it is a road, but more than that... as you know, I'm so exhausted by noon every day, that I fall asleep... but when I wake up, most of the time I'm depressed rather than rested... I've always been so productive... but not any more...  I can be so hard on myself that I'm a pain to be around.

However, I've come to realize that my pity parties are never profitable, and the sooner I turn them around, the better... 

Philipians3:8-21  I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things (our sense of what we've lost due to our illnesses.) I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ— the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. [Sis], I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, [sis], and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

 I always need to remind myself that in my loss, I've gained something so much better!