Some things can never be put back together . . . but the pieces remain.
Endearing Pain
Life Lessons from MS Afflictions
Colleen Peters
Foreword by Todd Sellick
Endearing Pain
Life Lessons from MS Afflictions
Copyright © 2016 Colleen Peters. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-3789-5
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-3791-8
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For those who know no purpose in their pain.
Foreword
What does it mean to suffer, except to perhaps come to the end of ourselves, or toward the end of ourselves. And maybe when we come to this spare and sometimes unspeakably lonely place, a new conversation, and a new journey begins. A death before a new life.
When feeling competent and strong with self-sufficiency, confidence and enthusiasm, we are full of great ideas for ourselves and others. We see things so clearly, we’re quite sure about our notions and methods, and that we know the way. Things we’d love to share and maybe to teach others. This mastery has its own thrill and excitement.
But when nearly everything is pulled out from beneath us, this certainty and the buoyancy and lightness that goes with it may dissolve in seconds, or more slowly over months or years.
Within a city block or two right now, there are many, young and old, grieving loss, living with sickness and in pain, anxious with fear, and with an aloneness and angst that is beyond words.
What can we begin to say to this? What can we do? Perhaps this is you right now.
In my work I meet with a handful of people each week who are wandering about in this frightening cul-de-sac. Suffering and the hopelessness that can accompany loss arrive in so many different ways in our lives, and each experience can come with a nearly unbearable and sometimes crushing weight of fear and loneliness. We know that hope is essential to life, but it can feel so quickly and so completely pulled out of our grasp. And then what?
In this book, my long-time and dear friend Colleen invites you to consider what she began to discover when her health and power began to leave her. My zaniest and liveliest of friends began to stumble, and then to fall, both figuratively and literally.
Colleen’s life has taken a very different path than expected. A road not romanticized here, but rather, a tough and honest recollecting, with practical and thoughtful observations. With her illness and a thousand limitations and losses, Colleen set off on a voyage, writing to us from time to time in these letters along her way; a travelogue.
In Endearing Pain Colleen hasn’t thought to indulge too much in the story of her particular life, perhaps having it clearly in mind that others have their own stories and lives to refer to. Instead, she has allowed her particular river of pain and loss to move her downstream at a pace not her own, but nevertheless showing her good and hopeful and even marvellous things along the canyon walls of her sometimes quiet and difficult days, always aware that God is directing the journey.
Through anxiety, uncertainly, loss and pain Colleen has experienced a kind of joy, and a life larger and more compelling and wonderful than we might imagine.
As you read, I hope you will be heartened and warmed, and challenged and encouraged. Colleen is a very good traveling companion.
Dr. Todd Sellick
Acknowledgements
Iam grateful to Len, Nicholas, Jackson, Renée and Victoria for their great forbearance with me as I grappled with the challenges of writing a book, and to the friends who spurred me on to its completion. A special thank you to Victoria for her drawing that appears on the frontispiece and to Jan Sellick for relieving me of the arduous task of formatting the bibliography.
Abbreviations
Hebrew Bible / Old Testament
Genesis—Gen
Samuel—Sam
Job—Job
Psalms—Ps ( pl. Pss)
Proverbs—Prov
Ecclesiastes—Eccl
New Testament
Mark—Mark
Luke—Luke
John—John
Romans—Rom
Corinthians—Cor
Philippians—Phil
Hebrews—Heb
John—John
Revelation—Rev
Introduction
“He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
—Phil 1:6
Since 2004, I have lived with a rare and progressive form of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and have long struggled with giving an adequate answer when people ask me how I’m doing. That question has always been difficult for me because there are many facets to the answer. Several years ago, to alleviate my frustration with giving an inadequate short answer to the question, I tried to explain in a letter what it was like to be in my skin and how my illness affected us as a family. I have continued to write letters several times a year, all of which collectively form the backbone of this book.
In my fifty-seven years,
