When healing hurts

Lately, I've been fascinated with the concept of strength vs. weakness. In my previous post, I talked about being strong during a trial. Today, I'm going to talk more about being weak. Honestly, I'm not really going to talk about the following verse...

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

...because I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet. So, I think I should just let my cat do the "talking." I heard a preacher say once that physical healing shouldn't be compared to emotional healing, but I say those processes can be pretty darn similar.

Reader, beware: I'm about to get kind of personal.

Last weekend, Macho had rather drastic surgery. After several days at the animal hospital and a couple of not-so-successful treatments, it got to the point where he couldn't urinate without a catheter. So, the only option was to surgically remove Macho's penis. "He will pee like a girl," the vet explained. Um, I don't know if your pet has ever had a major part of his or her anatomy removed, but at first I didn't really know whether to laugh or cry. It's a good thing I call my cat Macho, because that might be the only manly thing he has left. Stifled snicker.

But the healing process has been no laughing matter. The surgery was successful in that Macho can urinate on his own now. But since his little opening is larger, and since the urine has a shorter distance to travel, he has had to make some major adjustments.

Shucks -- we all have had to make some adjustments. My apartment has turned into a feline nursing home. Macho has been on two different antibiotics, and he bit me a couple of times while I administered his medicine. (You're welcome, cat.) Today, I followed both my babies around so that I could clean up pee, poop, hairballs, etc. Ever since I brought Macho home a few days ago, he has wet his bed, he has peed on the floor, and he has had to use a special type of litter in the litterbox. Choochie, of course, has had to use the special litter, too, and I'm very proud of her for adjusting (instead of protesting by making a mess on purpose).

A couple of summers ago, Macho had surgery to remove a couple of stones, and I blogged about how he had to make some adjustments to his life with the soft little satellite dish on his head.

However, this time around, the vet felt it necessary to upgrade Macho's post-operation gear to a hard lampshade (aka cone of shame). I recently noticed some abnormal-looking inflammation in his stitched-up area, and I emailed a photo of it to the vet, who said it didn't look infected but that Macho had probably been licking at it. Sure enough, I caught him in the act today, so I tightened up his little lampshade, and I've been keeping a closer eye on him.

Gosh. Even with that drastic of a boundary that was set so that his wound would heal properly, Macho still found a way to mess with his incision. But I do understand his deep desire for normalcy. His little lampshade kind of gets in the way of everything.

 

For example, it makes it impossible for him to crawl under the bed to take his morning naps.

 

Mealtimes have been difficult because his little lampshade won't let his head reach the bottom of his bowl. So, I put a saucer on top of his bowl so that his mouth could reach his food. That solution works well when he actually has an appetite (which shrunk for a little while, probably because of the medicine I've been forcing into his adorable little fanged mouth).

Today, I realized that exactly 15 years ago this week, I was nursing another kitty back to health: Choochie. I've mentioned here before that after she got spayed, she gave herself an infection from scrape-licking her stitched-up area. (I have no idea why her quack-shack discount-surgery clinic didn't give her any kind of protective collar to take home, and I'm kind of frustrated at myself now for being such a naive cat lady back then. But God's mercy and hand definitely kept her alive and helped her heal.)

Macho's instincts are powerful enough to cause him a great deal of harm. Yes, of course he reminds me of myself.

"Thus my heart was grieved, and I was vexed in my mind. I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You. Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." (Psalm 73:21-24)

I've never had anything drastic surgically removed (except wisdom teeth), but I've had all kinds of precious things cut out of my life: dreams, people, dignity, parts of my heart, etc. God has pruned me John-15 style, and He is continuing to do so. He's made all kinds of adjustments in my life to set me up for healing, restoration, and regrowth. It's been awesome, but it's also been gruesome.

I ain't gonna lie. I'm still bitter in some pretty big areas. Yesterday, I asked God to lance my bitterness like a boil. Later on while my heart was fuming, I was like, "Where the heck are all these thoughts coming from??" And God was like, "Well, you asked Me to lance it, so I lanced it." Oh. That would explain the icky thought-oozing.

One issue that has been in my face lately has been rejection -- like, the deep, intimate kind. For example, today is Valentine's Day. If you've read my blog for the past several years, you know how I feel about shmalentine's day. I think it's the worst holiday ever. Celebrating love? OK, but why only one day a year? If the people in my life don't already show me or tell me that they love me on a consistent basis (e.g., more than once a year), they can take a hike.

Come on. It's a holiday for couples (as if they don't already celebrate each other on their anniversaries). Who's that little cherub symbol with the bow and arrow? Cupid, aka Eros, aka the mythological character from whose name we derive the word "erotic." Shmalentine's fray is for couples. That's why we non-attached single people try to make peace with it and celebrate it as best we can. For me, that means not celebrating it at all. (As you can see from my icky thought-oozing, it's probably better that way.)

I am never going to get married. And I'm OK with that. I've accepted that.

Frankly, I don't want to get married anymore. The only thing I would want a husband for at this point in my life is sex. (And I don't even want that most of the time anymore.) I'm not called to be single. But I've accepted the fact that marriage isn't something God has in store for me anymore, and I'm OK with it.

But it's a recent realization, a recent pruning that's still in the process of healing. Metaphorically speaking, I'm still wearing my cone of shame so that I won't cause myself harm from obsessing over my still-healing wound. Most of the time, the scab is OK, the stitched-up area is clean, and I am at peace.

Then suddenly, something or someone will come along and start picking at my stitched-up area, and the wound will flare up all over again. Maybe someone who barely knows me will try to set me up on a blind date. Or maybe those feelings I still have for a certain guy will bounce around inside me and then fizzle away when Mr. Clueless won't even give me the time of day. Or maybe a national holiday will come along every 14th of February that will make every cashier in America ask you if you have any big plans for Valentine's Day. Yes. I plan on avoiding eye contact with chatty cashiers.

I am OK with my involuntary singlehood. However, I am not OK with being treated like an unused pair of ovaries. I don't think I've ever been OK with that.

I think whenever that gets flung in my face, I'm suddenly back in the fifth grade being humiliated in front of my entire class when a certain boy announced to everybody that he didn't like me the way I liked him. I'm suddenly reading an email from a guy who emotionally used me for 14 years, only for him to admit that he only thought of me as a sister. I'm suddenly dealing with family friends who thought my birth sister was older than me because she was already married. I'm suddenly back at my grandparents' house where my grandfather is having a warm, lengthy conversation with my sister, but he only talks to me for like 30 seconds and asks coldly, "Are you happy?" I'm suddenly at the park when I'm 4 or 5 years old, and my uncle is playing ball with me, and then he throws it to a perfect-stranger child instead, and I retreat to a nearby park bench and sulk because I'm feeling something that I don't know how to verbalize yet.

It's rejection. It's abandonment. It's shame. It's betrayal.

God saw all of it. He's been going to a lot of trouble to fix it. And He and I have been trying to work together to keep my stitched-up area clean.

If my heart/brain goes to a certain place and I start dreaming again about getting married, God is like, "You don't need to go there." If I ask Him if I'm ever going to get married someday, God is like, "Why do you need a husband? You have Me." OK, then. I'm good to go. I just need to wait for the healing process to run its course, because I don't want to mess any of it up.

Sometimes when I'm still enough, I can put together the pieces of what I've heard God say, and they all make sense: He's told me that my independence is His gift to me... He's told me that He wants me to channel my loneliness into songwriting... He's told me that He wants me to be strong...

Which is probably why lately I've just wanted to crawl into a cave, write songs, and dance with gypsies. Hey, an independent woman can do that, right?

Seriously, though, I want to be strong enough for other people. I want people to lean on me and receive wisdom, dignity, and courage from me -- like the big sister that I am -- without me feeding them the poison of my bitterness. I want people to look at me and think, "If she can make it, I can, too. Whatever helped her through her stuff -- I want that, too."

Well, I hope it's no secret that that "Whatever" is actually a "Whoever." It's God.

 

Today, I gave Macho a heart-to-heart and explained why he's had to wear his little lampshade and why it's important that he doesn't scrape-lick his adorable little stitched-up area. (Yeah, I know he's a cat, and he might not have understood a word I said, but I talked to him, anyway.) I think one nice side effect of the lampshade is that it forces Macho to give me his undivided attention. And it forces him to trust me to take care of the areas that he can't see.

It's the same way with me and my metaphorical lampshade, of course. Lately while I've been working through a deep emotional issue, God has let me just vent a lot of stuff to Him. And He's said, "You're always going to be Mine. That's all you need to know."

Indeed.