Reaching My Limit

I'm beginning to ask myself, "Where is my limit?"

Over the past year and half, I have been dealing with a major neurological disorder that causes excruciating pain throughout my extremities.  I used to deal with this same type of pain when I was a kid, but it only lasted for a total of three months before we found an answer and a solution.  It was a grave and painful solution (brain surgery at the age of 11 usually is), but it was over.  Or so I thought.

When this all started up again last March, I declared the following:

"But I will say this much:  I'm all in.  There are no questions about that. If this is where God wants me, what He wants me to go through, I'm here.  Yes, I never thought I'd have to go through this again.  Yes, it's thrown me for a gigantic loop.  But, no, I'm not angry or upset.  I'm just here.  All in."

I said this before I knew what was really going on.  And I'm now coming to realize that I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Since that first trip to the Johns Hopkins emergency room, I have been to emergency rooms across the country several times, been to dozens upon dozens of doctors appointments, and taken literally thousands of pills to try and moderate my symptoms.  After ruling out the initial theory (that my condition from when I was 11 was wreaking havoc again and so they would need to redo the original surgery), I was eventually diagnosed with elevated cerebrospinal fluid pressure  This elevated pressure is pressing against my spine, causing the aforementioned extremity pain.  The longer this goes untreated, the more the pressure on my spine increases and spreads, causing ever more excruciating pain from the tips of my fingers to my shoulders, from my hips down to my littlest toe, and, recently, into my torso and neck.

There simply aren't words to adequately describe what it's like to live in a state of near constant physical pain for 19 months and counting.  Sure, I get periodic relief from lumbar punctures, diuretics  nerve relaxants, and narcotics, but it doesn't completely go away.  At least not for long.  I don't even think I remember what it's like to walk without some degree of pain, to write an in-class exam without my hand feeling like it was dying from pain by the end, or to ride in some form of mass transportation without the alternately steady and jerking motions making my nerves go haywire.  I can't fully explain the physical, emotional, and mental toll it takes on me to have to bear this pain.

I'm surrounded by family members, friends, and even acquaintances telling me how sorry they are that I'm going through this and how much they wish they could take it all away.  Recently, it takes everything in me not to just scream at them, "Well you can't take it away, so why don't you shove your useless sympathy where the sun don't shine!!!!"

I know these people mean only to express love and solidarity through their platitudes.  I get it.  I've done the same thing when I'm in their shoes, witnessing someone forced to go through some horribly painful experience alone.

And that's just the thing: I am alone in this.  There's not a single person in the world that can actually lift the burden of this pain off of my shoulders.  No one else has to suffer under the crushing weight of having no guaranteed end in sight.  No one else knows what it's like to regret pursuing their own passion and calling in life because the burden they are carrying will almost certainly cause them to falter and fail.

Back before I declared myself "All in," I did attempt to contemplate the ramifications of that commitment.  I ended that blog post with this:

 "How much is required? He [God] answers: 'Everything, because I gave even more.'"


With everything that is happening to me, I've been contemplating human limits, and I've been wondering about my breaking point.  You see, what I'm afraid to admit to anyone is that I feel like I'm cracking.  Like after all of these many months, I'm finally breaking apart; I fear that I'm reaching my limit.

But here's the thing: Jesus came here as a man.  And the night before He was to be arrested, tried, and summarily and brutally executed, He was weak.  In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to His own Father to take this burden off of His shoulders.  Jesus thought that He was at His breaking point.  So He asked to get out.

God denied His Son's request.

So Jesus went forward.  And in those final moments, after enduring all of that brutality, after taking every ounce of physical, emotional, and mental pain the world (and God) could throw at Him, Jesus breathed His last.  And I can't help but ask, how did Jesus, instead of whispering, "Into Your hands I commit my Spirit," not scream, "Fuck you, God, you bastard!!"

But, no, Jesus did not scream obscenities at God.  Despite thinking that He was at His limit in Gethsemane, Jesus never reached His limit on Calvary.  He made it through, and thus saved us all.

And yet Jesus, despite being the Son of God, was completely human.  And every human has his or her limits.  So where was Jesus' limit, if not on Calvary?  Do limits only come through sin, because that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  But I digress...

Everyone has his or her limits.  I know that I have them.  I may not be completely self-aware as to where they lie, but I know that there are points past which I cannot be pushed without breaking, without cracking wide open and losing the wholeness of who I am.

Through all of this, I'm not doubting God's sovereignty, his love, or any of His other amazing qualities that I've grown ever more in love with over the years.  But I do doubt myself.  I doubt that I can last much longer, and I doubt that I'll be able to find any point in any of this if it ever does come to an end.

And I think what I hate most of all is that I am doubting that God will stop all of this before I truly have reached my limit.  I'm worried that, in the end, I'll be cursing the name of the very God that I love so much, having reached my limit, broken apart, and lost whole segments of who I am, including my faith.