“We don’t know what we’ve got ‘til it’s gone” is a popular word from the wise. A recent incident in my own life really made me appreciate this all the more and in this moment, I realized how far I’d come in my ability to take negative occurrences and transform them into something positive.
Yesterday morning, my daughter, while playing on her Amazon Kindle Fire got a little over-excited while I was looking on. Up went her hand in excitement and out went my eyesight. Her little hand smacked me square in the eye with brute force. It was like being poked in the eye times 10. I covered my eye in pain and then moved on acting as though it was no big deal. Later that day I kept getting sharp shooting pains in my eye that were fairly debilitating and I knew it was something more than just a minor poke that had done no damage.
To give this situation a little more clarity, I am no baby. I gave birth without meds and got through it like a champ so I am not the personality that cries about every minor twinge of pain. In fact, I’m your classic holistic wellness person who would have a limb falling off still swearing that I am fine and that “God’s got me!” Ok, maybe not that extreme, but I definitely lean more on that side of the fence if we were choosing teams.
Mid-day, I ended up finally calling my fiancé and asking him to bring me to a walk-in to see what was going on with my eye, brain, etc. I felt like I was literally being stabbed in the eye every 5 minutes and it was penetrating my brain causing me to double over and squeeze my eyes shut until it passed. When I finally made the phone call, it was because my inner voice was screaming at me to “Take care of yourself. You know something is not right here. This is not normal after a minor poke in the eye.” My fiancé is also a proponent of modern day medicine and always encourages me to just “go and get it checked out.” Sometimes he has my best interest at heart more than I do. So I threw my foolish pride out the window and went to the walk-in.
My blow to the eye caused a pretty severe corneal abrasion, which apparently has all of the characteristic symptoms I was experiencing. I left with some antibiotic eye drops and directions to follow up with an ophthalmologist the following day. Yesterday, as I was experiencing these symptoms I became so enamored with gratitude for my vision. I kept thinking, “What if I don’t get this looked at and it ends up being something serious that costs me my vision in one eye?” Then, my mind wandered into what it would be like to be blind and I scared myself into accepting the fact that I needed to go and get it checked out.
I honestly couldn’t bare to think about what it would be like to have vision and then to be blind. In fact, I believe that would be worse than never having seen at all. I went down the path of all the amazing things I’d miss if I could never see them again. They went pretty much in this order, my daughter’s face, my fiancé’s face, the beauty of nature, ordinary objects in my house, and every other thing I’ve ever seen. It made me think about how miraculous this gift of vision is and how blessed and fortunate I am just for this one reason alone.
It made me stop and consider, also, how blessed I am to go through life 99% of the time pain free. So often I get up and take feeling well for granted. This debilitating pain in my eye had me thinking about being stuck with this type of pain for the foreseeable future and I thought, “This would be no way to live,” and in that moment I was struck with the many individuals who live each day with unimaginable pains that I have been blessed not to have. It made my heart melt for these individuals who are struggling through invasive treatments for debilitating illnesses and I felt their experience of life and became incredibly grateful for my own.
Many want to run from pain, but I’ve been learning that pain is an incredible teacher. Pain allows us a deeper perspective into what truly matters and what doesn’t. It graces us with the ability to see shortfalls in our prior perspective and helps to mold us into better people if we allow it to. Pain allows us to develop more compassion, understanding, perspective, acceptance and gratitude for what we have and those that come in the midst of our pain to help ease the burden (special thanks to my fiancé for all of the ways he eases my burdens). Pain shows us what is sacred and allows us to gain even more fullness from those things. It enriches our experiences on this Earth and takes us deeper into the gift of life so that we can take it all in more fully, not just superficially.
Today, I feel a marked improvement over yesterday, but will continue to hold front and center this experience of the pain so that I can remember to prostrate myself in gratitude for all that is given. Thank you God for the pain of yesterday that allows me to gain more from the blessings of today and the tomorrow’s to come.
How has pain impacted your life? How have you embraced the lessons and gifts that pain has to share? What have you learned through pain? Are you struggling to deal with pain at this time? Share with me in the comments or in a personal message. I’d love to learn through your story.