I know that Thanksgiving is technically behind us now,but I feel like every day is a good day to learn the true meaning of thankfulness. Today, I've been reflecting on how that lesson can be learned and applied in my current life.
I've been thinking lately about attitudes and how they affect our interactions with those around us. More importantly, I've been reflecting on how sometimes I do not choose to have the most gracious attitude with people because of the physical pain that I've experienced of late in my own life. I sometimes translate that pain into my interpersonal relationships, which is completely unfair and altogether not Christ-like.
In order to truly explain this lesson, though, and how I am learning it, I'll need to tell the story of my current life as it pertains to this post.
I love TaeKwonDo. I feel as though never before in my life have I been more dedicated to or more challenged by something.It is becoming a true passion in my life, and the health benefits are definitely great.
Like any physical activity, though, there are risks. I've twisted and broken toes; I've been kicked in the stomach; I've been bruised countless numbers of times. But it was never anything I couldn't handle.
Then, about two months ago, I was kicked in the jaw during a sparring match. I managed to dodge the brunt of the blow, but the 2nd degree black belt's foot clipped my chin as it passed, causing my jaw to almost pop out of socket on the right side. I readjusted my mouth and just kept on sparring.
Later that night, whilst teaching a friend the basics of sparring (he had just recently received his sparring gear and needed to learn quickly before the next testing), I received another blow to the mouth. I didn't think anything of it until the next day when I could barely open my mouth without intense pain.
Needless to say, I wasn't the most gracious person in the world over the next few weeks. Being in physical pain has never been a huge problem for me (I have a fairly high pain tolerance), and I am rarely sick. But when I am sick or in pain, I instantly revert to the whining little baby of the family that I was as a child. It's one of those character traits that really makes me ashamed of that part of my personality development. (Hence the reflection on how to change it.)
Over fall break, I was referred to a maxillofacial surgeon after my own dentist felt of my jaws clicking and hurriedly exclaimed that this problem was above his pay grade. Yes, at this point, I began to panic. Best case scenario: the problem would fix itself with time. Worst case scenario: The surgeon would want to perform some sort of procedure, possibly even rebreak my jaw to realign it.
Long story short, I was given drugs for the swelling and told to not chew for 10 days. My jaws were still clicking horribly, but the pain was mostly unnoticeable. Then one day the weather changed so rapidly that it felt like I'd been kicked anew. It was the most pain I had felt since before fall break. The pain in my jaw soon escalated to a migraine that debilitated me for hours. It was "one of those days".
I recently returned to the specialist for a two-month follow-up appointment where he released me and told me that the clicking would most likely continue for the rest of my life. When I asked about the tension in my muscles that caused pain, all he said was to take ibuprofen and soften my diet. Basically, I'm to deal with it.
Also in the past few weeks, I have discovered that my slight sensitivity to cinnamon has greatly increased to the point that anything above a small bite of anything containing cinnamon causes my entire mouth and throat to be set ablaze for a couple of days. Yet another physical pain in the head. Great.
And this is where I sit back and look at my life and realize that I have a monumental decision to make. What attitude am I going to carry when faced with this physical pain?
I could continue to sulk and expect attention and pity from others. Or I could use my pain to take that which I consider to be a weakness and a flaw and adjust my attitude toward pain.
Someone once told me that there is a key difference between pain and suffering: pain is something you cannot avoid in this world; suffering is just a negative attitude we often assign to pain. Oftentimes we do not even think of the two things as being separate; we consider them interchangeable.
My mother is the greatest example I know of how pain and suffering are really quite different. For almost as long as I can remember, she has fought a battle against chronic back pain. I know she is in pain, and as I've gotten older, I've been able to sense her pain more, yet I can never remember her complaining about her predicament.
She is truly one of my heroes for the way she conducts herself in the face of adversity. She has every right in this world to suffer, yet she does not allow her pain to relegate her to a place of suffering. Even at the age of 21, I still find that I have so much to learn from my mother.
Hopefully with time and God's help and grace (and the wisdom of my mother), I will also learn to not let my physical pain be the cause of suffering. There's a chance that the clicking in my jaw joints will diminish with time, but it will never be completely gone.
But the occasional migraine seems so juvenile when compared to those dying from cancer or living with a mental disorder. I have so much for which to be thankful. And I choose to focus on my blessings instead of negativity that could come with these few things that God has chosen me to bear.
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