Who Can Bear It?

This morning I put a cover over Miss. Bluebell (my scooter/mobility device) confirming to me that she is now in storage, no longer of immediate need. What I feel about that is such a myriad of different shades and chromas that it seems I feel nothing. I do remember what I felt the day Miss. Bluebell came in the mail, my friend Taylor put her together and I sat in her for the first time. I wept. At the time, I had no idea what was to become of me. Broken, for the pain was so intense that I - a stubborn "walk it off" dancer - had surrendered to disability. I remember the chronic physical pain i endured every minute of every day. The hours and sometimes days spent in bed just breathing for that was all I could do. I remember the anguish of the pain being so great that the food i had hoped to nourish my body was rejected. And trips to the ER, wishing I would just pass out or die. That was bearable.

I came across Proverbs 18:14 this morning and, oh man can i agree:
"The spirit of a man can endure his sickness, But {as for} a broken spirit who can bear it?"

I know now that all the physical pain was a mere reflection of the emotional/mental/spiritual pain that had gone unattended. Now, with the exception of a zap here and some weakness there, the Somatization has reversed and there are days that I long for the physical pain.

It is so clear to me why, after being so grotesquely mutilated, the only record of Jesus crying out is at the moment of spiritual death. Why, at Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives the distress Jesus felt was so great that His capillaries broke and blood came as sweat. The spiritual grief that is capable in our soul is too much for the mortal body. Muscles spasm, vision is lost, blood vessels break, neurons misfire - in our earthly dwelling, the fullness of the Spirit cannot be contained.

Having a very small peek into this kind of torment, i like to believe that immeasurably more than this pain is the inexpressible and glorious joy to be found in Christ.