Pain in the neck

I truly appreciate your continued prayers on my behalf, and I wanted to share with you my experience of the power of prayer in case it is helpful for you, too. Know that your prayers are just as if not more impactful!

Last week, I had intense pain in my right shoulder and neck. Last September, I injured that shoulder while carrying a large boat, and the pain periodically returns.

This time, I used all my pain management techniques. I tried to go to sleep at 9:30 p.m. to escape, hoping that the pain would just be gone when I woke, but I couldn’t sleep.

I tried focusing on the space between the bouts of pain, those moments where there was no pain at all. Often this follows the theory of “What you pay attention to will grow” and those spaces between the pain get larger and larger and the pain itself smaller and smaller. Didn’t work this time.

I tried breathing into the painful areas and observing them: What do they look like? What color are they? Spiky? Smooth? I got lots of information. I also continued to get lots of pain.

I tried tong ren (beating on an acupuncture doll with a metal hammer). That brought temporary relief but eventually the pain came roaring back.

I noticed that my shoulder felt better when I was sitting or standing. Bummer, because by now, it was 2:30 a.m. and all I wanted to do was sleep. And I prefer to do that lying down.

With all of my mental activity, my husband couldn’t sleep. He knows my aversion to drugs but suggested that I try an Aleve. I was so desperate that I agreed.

Over an hour later, the pain was even more intense, so I went downstairs to avoid bothering anyone. I sat on the sofa in the dark house and closed my eyes. Without thinking about it, I started to pray. Of course, always my last resort.

“Dear God and all the entities, I would really love to get some sleep right now. Could you just remove this pain? If I am supposed to have it for some reason, I’ll happily take it back in the morning. That would be awesome. Thank you.”

And then I sat. Only a few moments later, with my eyes still closed, I saw a bright light on my right side. And then, twinges in my shoulder and neck. With each twinge, the pain went away. They followed each other in rapid-fire, one after another, until all but one spot of pain was gone.

I added, half-joking, “I hate to be greedy, but can you get this one last spot?”

And the last spot of pain disappeared. I sat for another minute or so, briefly thinking, did that really happen? I need to figure out how to do that for the tumors.

Then I walked to bed, exhausted, and fell right to sleep.

At 8 a.m. I woke up with raging pain in my neck and shoulder and had to laugh with gratitude.