For the past several months, yes, months, I have been managing the pain of a frozen shoulder!
Nothing prepares you for the onset of frozen shoulder syndrome. I thought I had a plethora of other issues when the simple fact was that my shoulder had frozen.
Nine months later, I found myself in Physical Therapy with the kindest therapist, but she quickly let me know that the process of healing the shoulder was going to hurt a lot, but the final outcome was complete usage of my shoulder.
I thought, how bad can this possibly hurt….well, let me tell you! I was warned that it hurts worse than childbirth! Oh my goodness, they were CORRECT! YET!!!!….knowing that…I found myself willing to walk into an excruciating experience…Why? Because I knew that I would regain full mobility of my shoulder.
I knew that I would be healed.
In sharing this with a friend, I told her there is healing in the pain, and I immediately felt prompted to write this blog. I actually said…that’s a SERMON!!! And she said, write it, start writing it….so here I am.
As frail souls and tender bodies, we DO NOT enjoy pain unless we know the final outcome will deliver results that we are looking forward to. We avoid it as much as possible, I mean who enjoys pain of any kind? But the irony is that in the process of working out, walking through, and embracing the pain, the outcome is healing, wholeness, and full recovery, BUT the clincher is we must experience the pain first…Why?
My belief is that if we do not walk through, embrace, or work out any sort of unpleasant experience in our lives we will never know the price of anything…the joy of most things…and the appreciation of everything…
If you are a faith-filled person you understand the pain of the Cross, if you are agnostic, you understand the pain of labor and delivery, if you are an atheist you understand the pain of risk and reward.
All of our beliefs carry some sort of pain to gain benefit.
Healing hurts. It does not matter what the hurt may be…the healing will account for some kind of “ask” that we may not be prepared for physically (the stretching of my arm), emotionally (the stretching of my heart), mentally (the stretching of my mind), or spiritually (the stretching of my faith) and that is why it hurts.
So as I continue my PT to gain FULL mobility of my frozen arm and shoulder, the thawing-out process is the most rewarding.
Embrace the hurt if you want to heal.
There is healing in the hurting…