Good news????

Saturday was my birthday and I started the day off by traveling by ambulance to the hospital. I had excruciating pain in my back of such a magnitude that it was intolerable. After X-Rays and a CT scan complete with iodine, (which made me have a mega hot flash), the doctor told me that I have degenerative disc disease and sciatica. I think that means that the crumbling lumbar section of my spine is putting pressure on my sciatic nerve and now I can barely walk or sit. The only position that my back doesn’t hurt, as it has never hurt before, is to lie flat on my back on a heating pad.

What makes it strange is that I didn’t do anything specifically to injure it. I went quail hunting by horseback on Wednesday and whenever the dogs went on point and it was my turn to shoot quail I got off my horse and then after blasting away at the covey rise I got back on again. I did this several times as we encountered several coveys, but I wasn’t cognizant of unduly twisting, turning, or throwing my back out. Nonetheless the next day, Thursday, I started experiencing severe pain in my lower back and by Friday the pain was also in my hip and leg. Saturday morning the pain was excruciating and I was fully at the tears-running-down-my-face stage. I couldn’t walk or sit up and the pain was agonizing. The ambulance guys had to administer a pain shot before they could slide me onto a stretcher.

Bummer!

They did not keep me in the hospital. They wrote a prescription for pain medication and tomorrow I have to go see an orthopedic surgeon and get an MRI and discuss options including back surgery. In the meantime I’ve been lying flat on my back on a heat pad and watching TV UGHHH!

2010 has been a medical nightmare for me. I can’t remember ever having as many medical problems. I don’t know what the message is from the Lord, but He has my attention and trust me I will be praying about it. I’ve tried to find something positive about this otherwise grim situation and then I remembered that our new home will be finished next week and there are mountains of boxes that need to be moved. Hmmm The doctor sternly instructed me not to lift anything that weighs more than five pounds. Guess who will have the perfect excuse not to help out?

Oh yeah! God is good ALL of the time!

Many people blame God for every malady that descends upon them and some take it to the point of actually deserting Him when they undergo a few trials and tribulations. I read the following verse and reflected upon it for some time this morning: Gal. 1-6 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ”

Astonished is right!

I can relate to this little verse perhaps more than others. God saved me from the Hell and eternal damnation which I richly deserve. He then heaped blessing upon blessing upon me like my wife Teresa who on December 12th will have put up with me for forty years, my sons their wives and my grandchildren, my career, friends, my dog “Coopy” and who could forget my horse Dusty, and on and on and on. It would truly be astonishing for me to desert God now.

God is good and satan is the antithesis of it. If I want to harbor ill will, it will be directed towards satan and not God who delivers me from sin. God works for good in me ALWAYS. I know that because the Bible tells me so. Aside from getting out of moving-day duties, I accept that premise without knowing how any good can come out of this pain or disease or understanding it in the least. In the final analysis I think that is what faith is really all about. I trust God. He knows what He is doing and after I suffer for a while, He will perfect me. Just like refining a nasty dirty rock and ending up with a beautiful gold nugget.


Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.