Let pain be your guide.

On Thursday, I am going back to visit crazy Nurse Martha. And while I love a good reunion, this isn't one I was planning on.

I have to have disc fusion surgery in my neck. While it sounds grosser than it is, they basically open up my throat, put a bone spacer between two of my vertebrae, and then screw in a titanium plate to keep everything in place. Ok, it is pretty gross. 

Having two disc surgeries in one year is a bummer. And as I am mentally preparing for Thursday while recounting last December, it's amazing how different life is for me now. God has found a way to help me work through a lot of emotional pain and helped me to forgive myself and quit being so hard on myself.

They are going to put this on my
insides. Titanium. X-Men here I come.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but: do you ever find that you beat yourself up WAY more than you should? I think of it this way: I would NEVER let someone treat a friend the way I treat myself. 

I think we live in a place where it is expected to beat yourself up. It is frowned upon to be ok with who you are and where you are. Especially in Christian circles. We are the worst about this. We compare, we measure, we criticize, and we convince ourselves that we are not good enough. Never satisfied and never happy.

So what if we were able to accept ourselves no matter what? No matter what grade we got? No matter what someone says about us? No matter what weight we are?

I am dreading recovery because, I don't know how long it will be. "Let pain be your guide" is what my doctor says. I wish I could take this more seriously. If I let pain be my guide, maybe I would stop beating myself up after that open wound I create. If I let pain be my guide, I would be patient with myself when the timeline is not what I had planned. If I let pain be my guide, I would forgive myself as I forgive others.

What would you do differently if you let pain be your guide?