21/05/2024
Don't Numb the Pain
I shot this and two others about a week before she passed. It's been eleven odd weeks since then. I didn't want to post, and I still don't, because it hurts. Everything hurts. I listened to this a number of times for the simple reason that I was going to delete it afterwards. I would have a good enough reason to miss it because I had watched it too many times. And somehow, at some point, I realised how unlike Jesus I was. He bore His pain and served the Father and humanity. He could have interpreted things selfishly: ‘Since my Father has looked away and nobody cares, what's the point? Serve me some myrrh, please.’ But He finished His race in all it's gore, torment and hideousness. Deleting this was an attempt, my attempt, at numbing the pain. (Talk about being served your own medicine!) If the pain won't go away, Charles, use it. Jesus used his. His scars and nail-pierced hands don't lie.
The mild narcotic was designed to offer a false narrative: Once you take this, it'll be easier, more manageable, less painful. You'll cope better. You'll be fine. But that's far from the truth. I'm 81 days in and the pain isn't going anywhere. That pain will never really go away. You will not be fine in a sense. But that's why an enriched, well-cultivated soul is a must for us. What you had opened up and given yourself to will provide some form of mental safety net. The memories help you not to tilt too far into oblivion, despair and disorientation.
Whatever you are going through, go through it with your conscious mind taking it all in. Be fully aware. Take it all in. You'll acquire the rare skill of knowing where the ‘shoe pinches’ and how to help save others.
NOTE: If there's physical, emotional or psychological pain and you can't bear it, accept the pain management mechanisms offered. Not everyone can handle certain thresholds of pain. That's medical advice. Kindly use it.
Action Steps
1. Acknowledge what you're going through. Stop dwelling in denial city. It happened. Stop asking for a quick time travel to go change things so that the present will be different. This is the reality of things. The pain and meaningless and seeming absence of God's goodness and presence is part of it.
2. You don't have to take what they bring. People will offer ‘myrrh’ because it's routine or traditional or for it to ease your pain os so that it will satisfy their conscience that they tried to help. Just say no if you don't need it. If it is mandatory and you can't get out of it, please render to Caeser what is his - if you know what I mean.
3. Please, stay hopeful. Hope against hope that this will make sense somehow, some day soon or later. Salvation is come through you, even now, whether you believe it or not. That's where I stand. Join me.
