Excitement! Tension! Deflation! Depression! Devil! Duh!

Image by illustratorsam via Flickr

Prelude

Most of you are aware that I’ve got a herniated disc in my neck.  Little bugger has been giving me horrible fits with pain over the last, what, month or month and a half.  I’ve been going through some physical therapy for about as long, to see if that would/could loosen things up a bit.  Seemed to help…for about a week.  The pain seems to have gradually started to get a bit worse since.

Excitement!

After several weeks of whining about the pain, here, on twitter, at church, at work, and just about everywhere in between.  After taking pain pills to ease the pain over the last month and worrying about becoming addicted to those.  After feeling horrible from the side effects of the pills.  After all the prayers that everyone has said for me about this day, it was here, finally.

Today was the day that I finally returned to my surgeon.  The day I was ready and anxious to hear the words “you” and “surgery” in the same sentence, and them being directed toward me.  Those words, to me, meant relief!

Tension!

I left the office around 1:00ish with about an hour give or take a few minutes travel time.  Plenty of time for surgery to settle in and really start to come into focus.  I was nervous, I’ll admit it.  I mean after all, it is surgery…on my neck..around my voice-box and some pretty important arteries.  This tension built up in my muscles making the drive long and also painful.  But that was OK.  I was going after the fix or at least schedule the fix anyway.

I arrived at the doctors office a little more nervous, but a little more excited!  After about 2 minutes of waiting,

“Mr. Carver.” I heard the angel say, and I proceeded back to the patient rooms.

Stepped on the scales (I’m almost positive I saw the thing say “Error” before it actually gave out the reading), took some blood pressure (111 over 80).

“Have a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly” she said.

“Ahhhh”

A minute later, he walks in.  He who has the keys to my relief.

“So, how are you, Mr. Carver”

“I’m hurting from the top of my neck to the middle of my shoulder blades.”

“How are your arms?”

“My wha?”

“Your arms, are they still bothering you?”

“Well, no, they never had been a big problem.  Some tingling every now and then.”

“So your arms are OK?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah blah…….

Deflation!

“Surgery probably isn’t going to help you…..blah blah blah blah..pain management….blah blah blah…pain blocker shots….blah blah blah…..helps if you have arm pain….blah blah blah blah…”

Depression!

He just broke the keys!

Now what am I going to do?

Nothing ever works out in my favor!

I can’t deal with this pain!

This is horrible!

Devil!

“See Scott?  Now, you see?  Just, go ahead, go back to drinking cause your life isn’t really all that much better, is it?”

Yep, he was in my head.  He was trying to get me, that pesky varmint.  It gets worse.

“Remember when you were drinking how you knew how everything was going to be?  You had a solution to all the problems.  Here..let me put that taste back on your lips.”

And I could taste it.

“Where is God now, when you need him?”

Duh!

I was listening to my iPod and had downloaded a podcast by Joel Osteen last night.  Never had downloaded before.  Never even thought about listening to him (except seeing him on TV every now and then), until last night when I downloaded it.  Now I know why.

It was time for the ipod to go to the next track, and do you know what it was? It was the podcast I had downloaded last night.  Title? “God Remembers You” The gist of the lesson? When you pray and pray and pray and you feel that God is away from you and you are just about to give up on things, and you tell God never mind, he says “No, No, No.  I told you I had a plan, and I do, I Remember You.”  People may leave you, people may forget you, life may deal you a blow, God promises that he hasn’t nor ever will forget you.

Conclusion

Funny.  After I heard that, I heard no more from the devil.

Because of HIM
SC