Miles to Go Before I Sleep

First thing you notice is becoming immobile. Your joints are stiff and getting around becomes increasingly difficult.

You don’t understand why this is happening, so the anxiety grips you, but you maintain hope.

Your legs begin to seize up in cramps and you begin asking the advice of your friends, but all they can really provide, bless them, are words of encouragement and hope.

And then, as your arms and legs become increasingly difficult to operate, you start noticing a strange sort of “growth,” for lack of a better word, forming on your skin. There’s a spot of it on your calf muscle and some on your elbow and a patch of it on your neck.

You start noticing these appear in various locations, and panick starts to set in.

You begin getting looks at the super market and in other public areas, so you begin to feel shunned and unwanted.

A doctor’s visit provides you no further information as to where this growth originated nor why your extremities are becoming harder to move with every passing day.

Fearful of what the world may think and facing pain in attempting to remain mobile, you begin staying home more often.

Your friends worry you’re potentially contagious and they keep their distance.

The small patches of rough, scaly growth begin to consume larger and larger areas of your body, even joining together in some spots and growing thicker and more sturdy in their girth.

Eventually, in a shockingly short amount of time, you’re confined to a couch or chair in the living room, barely able to make the walk to the kitchen in your condition.

You begin to keep food and water near your chair, because the pain of moving your arms or legs starts to be unbearable, and the growth that’s begun to consume the entire outer layer of your skin is growing more coarse and difficult to manage or function within.

After a bit of time, you can’t move at all. You’re in your chair unable to remove yourself as your limbs are bound to your sides and immovable and the growth has expanded with ever-thickening coats growing- one on top of the other- over your mouth, your eyes, your ears… you can’t slip much food in to eat, you can’t hear anything, and your vision begins to fail entirely.

Before you can even whimper a cry for mercy, you’re entirely consumed by paralysis and cocooned in a nest of dead, infectious skin with no one to turn to and no explanation given.

You’re very much conscious of what’s occurring, but you’re unable to combat the symptoms in any regard. You just sit, engulfed in flaming pain, tortured by your anxiety and psyche, and existing only in complete and utter depression and fear because none of it makes any sense and there’s nothing any one can do to help you.

That, I think, is more attune to the reality of the situation. If all of life tells us anything, it tells us that pain precedes growth…

So, I think this is more in tune to what a caterpillar feels before it turns into a butterfly.

I asked someone if they thought caterpillars experienced pain in their transformation, and they waved it off claiming there was no pain.

That didn’t sit with me well at all. I think that was a protective answer, biased to joy, and baseless in every other area of life how we know it.

I think the poor creature is terrified and in great amounts of pain. I think it doesn’t understand what’s happening to it and is gripped in fear and torture.

And then what? And then they transcend every obstacle in the realm of what once seemed impossible in the physical world. They defeat gravity with a twitch of their back- they sprout new and beautiful colors and see parts of the world they’d never dreamed they’d gain the vantage point to reach. Their transformation is miraculous!!! A miracle on earth! Some people don’t believe in them; miracles- but what else would you call that?

You’ve just been through the absolute scariest and most lonely time of your life with no hope in sight, and then BAM- you break free of the condition that wrapped you up and confined you to a chair, your arms and legs are fully operational and, on top of that, you’ve sprouted wings… you can FLY, where such a short time ago, you felt like you could barely walk!

That’s miraculous!

But I think it’s naive to say that isn’t preceded by the most brutal anguish, suffering, anxiety and immobility one could face.

I think pain is always a precursor to something outstanding and amazing, so it’s important to watch how you suffer. A time will come when you’re ready to sing the praises of your maker in their divine plan and knowledge of your journey, so be graceful and stand strong in the face of difficult times. We’re just transforming, ole’ sport.