Where Were You?

I will be the first to admit that my life is not tragic or filled with devastating sorrow. I have never lost someone very close to me. I have never had a brush with death that I was aware of. I do not live day to day in endless, unbearable pain. So I do not claim to know the secrets of trusting God through the valleys of those challenges. I have an excellent imagination, and I can imagine the pain that those situations cause, but I have not personally walked through the fire myself.

There is one continuing trial that God has seen fit to allow in my life. The one thing that causes me to drop to my knees in defeat, look around with tears running down my face, and wonder where God went.

It happened yesterday, so it is fresh in my mind. It doesn't happen more than once every few months, usually. I have migraines. Now I have lost many of you. So what? Lots of people have migraines. They're headaches. What's the big deal? Why do people make so much out of something that isn't dangerous and doesn't last that long?

Let me take you on a little journey through a migraine attack. They are all different, and they vary considerably from person to person as well, so I can only speak for yesterday. It began in the evening, suddenly, from just a vague pressure in my head to a sharp, burning pain in the front and back of my neck and both sides and top of my head, all within the space of about an hour. Everything became very loud and bright and blurry. My husband talking in a normal voice seemed akin to a jet taking off. Imagine what my three year old screeching must have sounded like.

After we managed to get the children to bed and my husband went to work, I took two naproxen. Most of the time, this will do the trick, but every once in awhile, it doesn't work. This was to be one of those times. An hour later I was in the worst pain I could think of, starting to feel sick to my stomach, and I knew that I was going to lose the medicine I had taken, which I did. I then took a Phenergan, which is a drug to ease nausea. I lost that a couple hours later. I mananged to fall asleep with the relief the vomiting provided for about two hours, but when I woke up, the pain was unbearable. This is the worst place I've ever been. Pacing the floor, completely alone, sick, drugged, in pain, and wondering why God would allow this. And why He felt so far away.

Finally, my husband came home, I was able to take a strong narcotic that I have reserved for times such as this, and it allowed me to sleep through the rest of the horrible pain. But it was those hours, pacing, alone and in pain, that challenged me the most. What could I possibly learn from feeling so far away from God?

That's when something Jesus said while He was hanging on the cross comes to mind. "Why have you forsaken me?" That sounds a lot like my "Where were You?" And it draws me to Him. No, it's not the same context, and the theological answer to His question wasn't the same as the answer to mine, but He understands. He knows what it feels like to feel like God's not there. And He assures me that He is there, even if feelings don't show it.

So, once again, it's about sharing in the suffering of Christ. It's about Him, even when I thought it was about me. And when it becomes all about Him, then it becomes okay.

Because He was there, even when I thought He wasn't.