Grey is beautiful

I have been holding all of you so dear in my heart.
Your present journey brings back so many memories to my life, I have no intention in writing to instruct you but just use you as a victim for me to reflect on what I have learned as an illness hobbyist.
Keeping company with the king can put you in some interesting hospital beds enduring times of weary grey pain.
In my experience , I fought and hated the grey weary pain. Then when the battle was so long, I realized grey was a color our Father created and it was "good" .
It is hard to believe that grey is a part of his glory until he reveals so much of himself through it, you change your value of the color.
Pain and endure never were virtues folk stuck on their refrigerator door to aspire to, but the journey of holding elongated pain is a part of living in Christ that pulls us deeper into who he is and who we are.
My journey discovering this started many years ago when I was a kid, Uncle Ted who of course had the same hobby as I do now was often sick.
He said "Ted , pain only lasts so long then it quits, look at the length of the pain and know that it will go away. Look at the intensity of the pain and know that it will go away eventually.
Well that did help psychologically, but boy, how I have been surprised by how long and how intense pain can be. What he really did was turn me toward the pain and not fight against it.The father then showed me latter that all this was the color of his glory.
Isn't it so like God to use what makes no sense and hurts so much for so many in so many ways to have value.
I think it was Bonhoeffer that said the reason sorrow hurts so much is that it reflects the incredible value of the loss.
I remember the many times seeing the pain of sorrow , my wife had for me when I was in so much pain,
I wished with all my heart I could prevent her from that experience but it is also so cherished a gift to me that she loved me so much.
It brings to mind the shared sufferings of Christ that Paul talks about that I was never really excited to embrace,I am sure that was on the bottom of my to do list.
Having the illness hobby is a full time job,in a bazaar type of way between the scratching of every one's head of what is wrong and how can we fix this person, to the actual body enduring the pains, to your body feeling like a test tube they pour chemicals into, to the constant int eruptions from needles, blood pressure cuffs to the whole feel of the environment,,It is exhausting ,
but there is also the LOVE,
The kindness of nurses and folk that visit , that so unselfishly battled their way down to the hospital found their parking place, found your room just to give you love. You might not be able to even handle their love because of what you are physically feeling, but it did leave an impression of the Father's love to you that is so deeply cherished.
For IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS LOVE prevails and continues to be life giving.
Co-looking at the loves he points me to see is about all I can handle when in pain my mind is only connecting about 3 dots. But in him,in his love is life and in love I am in the deepest part of who he is, and all my love ones can hold me there in him.

Isn't that connectedness so incredible, together we hold each other in deepest, richest, part of God. How many times has our Heavenly Papa gently cupped our face and turned our head to see his face to see how much he loves the person we love, to assure us that their isn't a molecule of any second that he isn't fully a part of being there with him.
No wonder we can trust him so much, he is so trustworthy!
Held in Love, in all, through all, above all, nothing exists that he isn't fully a part of, all of this by hanging onto his hand. Oh what a nail pierced hand of love for me, for us.
Love you, love you, love you,
Little petite teddy