Two weeks ago today, I laid on my bed in complete and total agony. My feeble attempts to stop the pulsing pain were almost pointless. My best efforts seeped out of my Ziploc bag as cold, icy water pouring down my head: my ice cubes were melting. I checked the clock routinely every 30 minutes as I hopelessly yearned for sleep. By 4:00 am, 8 hours into my ordeal, relief had still not come.
My migraine was taking its vicious toll.
Since the pain began, I had thrown up 3 times at various times during the night, waking up a couple of my roommates who sought to comfort me and make sure I wasn’t dying. One of them gave me a fruity drink at 1 am – I was so delirious, I couldn’t decide if it was apple or orange juice, but whatever it was I called it my “miracle drink” because it gave me the only relief I had found all night. That relief was cherished but soon lost as the pain came rushing back to my head.
I tried various things to get the pain to stop. Sometimes ice helps, sometimes pressure helps. Darkness typically helps. But this time, they all seemed to be in vain. I asked my roommate for a blessing, which he graciously gave. I felt great peace and relief in the moment, but very shortly after the pain came back even worse. I found myself mentally crying out in my battered brain, “is there no relief to be found? God, where are you?” I begged and begged and begged in silent, painful prayer for relief, for sleep, for ANYTHING, but it was not given to me.
At about 4:30 – I’m guessing – I fell asleep, waking up at 8 the next morning still delirious but feeling slightly better. The entire rest of that day was spent lying in bed trying not to aggravate my sensitive brain. Even a week later, the aftermath of that horrendous event stuck with me. I couldn’t focus for very long without everything getting blurry or my head starting to pulse. Finally, 2 weeks later, I think I can say I’m back to normal, though I’m still not sure.
I’ve gotten migraines before, typically about twice a year, and they hit hard, but none of them have hit as hard as that one. And none of them have taken so long to give way to relief or sleep. What then was the deal with this one?
In my religion class we are studying Paul. We read in Acts 9 as Luke, the author of the book of Acts, detailed Paul’s conversion in his own words. He says that for three days Paul was without sight, and he had to be guided by his companions to complete the journey to
Damascus (Acts 9:8-9). What was Paul going through during those three days? Was his soul “racked… with the pains of a damned soul” as was Alma’s? (Alma 36:16) Did he beg for mercy, once again like Alma eventually did? I’m sure he suffered spiritually; did he also suffer physically, perhaps with a migraine? If that’s what it was, poor Paul! I could hardly stand 8 hours, let alone 3 days, of that awful pain. What exactly was Paul feeling?
Perhaps Paul felt, in a way, something similar to Joseph Smith, who yearned for an answer to a passionate question, “O God, where art thou?”, after enduring months of awful torture in a cold, dark prison cell. Joseph surely felt abandoned at times. Paul may have felt abandoned as well. Perhaps both of them were eaten by guilt for things they had done or hadn’t done. Maybe they thought of their past and wanted to have done something differently. I’m sure they both made promises to God to improve themselves; “please, if you get me out of this situation, I will be the best disciple you’ve ever seen, I promise!”. I bet that Joseph got some pretty bad headaches in that damp cell, amongst other horrible physical and mental afflictions.
Why then did God give them these experiences?
Joseph Smith and Paul were both incredibly powerful witnesses of Jesus Christ. Both of them performed their greatest work AFTER these incidences. They were to them a preparation and steppingstone, enabling them to endure even greater persecution in the future and still proclaim the name of Christ. They were foundational and essential to the character of both of these men.
I in no way want to compare myself with these two champions of Christ; I humbly acknowledge that I am not to their level of faith, as much as I want to be. But in reflecting about my horrible migraine experience and pondering why God allowed me to suffer it, I thought of these two amazing men. They went through ordeals far worse than my migraine. And yet my ordeal had the same effect on me that theirs had on them.
Mine taught me that I need to take care of myself better. It showed me that I am doing many things right but need to improve in some very specific categories. It helped me straighten out my priorities and warned me to start doing certain things again – such as writing blog posts. In essence, it acted as an emergency brake, a forced stop, in which God told me what I needed to start doing and what I needed to stop doing. In my incredibly busy life of college and wedding planning, God needed me to slow down and listen to Him – and, it seems, the way He felt He needed to do that for me was to let me suffer a migraine.
He didn’t give relief because I didn’t need it. Oh, in the moment I thought I needed it, and I begged for it, but now that I’m recovered, I look back and know that everything is okay. I learned valuable lessons that are helping me to prepare for my future. Despite not achieving immediate relief, I eventually recovered.
I suggest now that trials, though not explicitly sent by a loving God, are allowed by Him to, at times, get our attention. We need to “hear Him”, and sometimes the only time for us to do that is amidst great pain and anguish. If our life needs redirecting, if we need to be prepared for something coming our way, if we need to start doing something and stop doing another, if we need to fix our priorities, or if we need to work on our spirituality, trials are perhaps the best way for God to get our attention.
If this is the case, then trials can and should be for our benefit – so long as we use them as a means of reconnecting with and strengthening our relationship to God.
So, amidst this all-encompassing global trial in the form of a pandemic, detailed with countless individual trials afflicting countries, states, cities, communities, and families, let us figure out what our lives lack. What can we do to better hear God? If we emerge from these trials – which will end – having a better relationship with God made possible by suffering, then it will all be worth it.
Let’s make it worth it in our lives.
Adam Simpson
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