I have suffered with fibromyalgia since 2010. My back is pretty messed up too..osteoarthritis, bulging and extruded discs. While my fibro is better and controlled, my back still has flares every once in awhile. I've been in mod to severe pain for 8 days now. It's in the lumbar spine area.
I can sympathize. Because of lumbar damage to my spine, I haven't been able to sit down since January. In fact, I was pretty much bed-ridden 'til April of this year with back issues. I have three very cranky lumbar joints, one of which I blew out when I was in my early thirties. When my back flares up, I'm on the floor and nearly immobile for days, peeing in a bottle - the whole nine yards. Not fun.
I'm jut sitting here thinking...is physical pain brought on from sin more than living in a fallen world? I do ask for forgiveness, and even ask for forgiveness of sins that I might not be aware of.
I am 47, going through premenopause, and physical/emotional pain. I try to stay positive, but in the last few weeks I've been kinda grouchy.
Pain, disease and death are all features of a sin-sick world. One of the terrible things about our sin is that its effects can ripple out from our lives to touch others in very damaging ways that we can't anticipate. Adam's sin, for example, touches us all very profoundly to this day.
If you're a born-again child of God, you don't have to ask God to forgive you: He already has forgiven you in Christ, who atoned for all of your sin. If this wasn't true, you wouldn't be saved. It is
only because of Christ and
his perfect righteousness that God accepts any of us.
Have you ever read
1 John 1:9? Have you noticed the verse doesn't instruct us to plead for God's forgiveness? The apostle John, writing to Christians, tells them only to
confess their sin, that is,
agree with God that their sin was, in fact, sin. And when that agreement occurs, God applies the cleansing of our sin we obtain in Christ to what we have admitted to God is sin.
What about
Matthew 6:12? Doesn't Jesus teach us in the Lord's Prayer to ask for God's forgiveness? Well, when did Jesus make this prayer? Before or after he had atoned for our sin on the cross? And where, after Christ's atoning work at Calvary, are we ever commanded in Scripture
as born-again children of God to ask God for forgiveness? Nowhere. Because we already have His forgiveness through our faith in Christ, the Saviour.
God works in us His beautiful character as we live in daily surrender to Him (
Romans 6:13; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; James 4:7-10; 1 Peter 5:6). Surrender and divine transformation go hand-in-hand. You can't have the latter without the former. Oh, we can work to create our own corrupt human version of the life of Christ, but it will never truly be the work of God, deep, and holy, and joyful, as it is supposed to be.
God's way to inner stability in the midst of pain is to go low before Him, and to wait by faith upon His promise to fill you with Himself as you surrender yourself to His will and way throughout each day. This has been my experience through this last year, especially.
Physical pain can really take a toll on you mentally. If my back doesn't get better in another week, I guess I will request an xray to see if my discs are worse. Right now, I'm resting and im trying not to aggravate it anymore than I have
I was just wondering if it could be sin, or punishment.
Pain - especially chronic pain - is
exhausting, physically and mentally.
I was put on to a lower back rehab specialist a while ago whose rehab strategies have really helped a great deal to stabilize my back and reduce my pain. His name is Dr. Stuart McGill. He is world-renowned as a lumbar spine injury researcher, working with world-class athletes of all sorts who have sustained serious lower back injuries and want to return competition. He has a book out I would very highly recommend called "The Back Mechanic." There is a comprehensive self-diagnosis section in it that will help you tailor his rehab strategies to your particular back issue. He also explains how many of the stretches and exercises given to lumbar pain sufferers is actually very bad for them, increasing pain over the long term rather than relieving it. His strategies for relief of back pain come from many years of detailed examination of the tissues and joints of the lower spine in cadavers and of successful rehab work with many thousands of patients. Check his book out! I have, and it has helped a lot.
God's blessings upon you!