You want to be a downer at any party?  Bring up the issue of suffering and ask what it’s purpose is in the world.  This, I can guarantee, will make your party circle dissipate.  That, or a LOT of people will suddenly excuse themselves, muttering their need to use the rest room or half empty drink classes that need refilling.

Not only is suffering a dismal, darkening corner of any person’s life, it is also such that because it’s so widely mysterious.  There are as many theories about the function and role of suffering as there are theories about God.  The age old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people,” is a question that can quiet any soul.  Why?  Because no one knows.  The unanswerable question, the spiritual vacancy that begs to be filled remains vacant.  Is it God testing us?  Is it punishment for something we’ve done?  Is it an evil in the world that strikes as randomly as a roulette wheel?

Or is it that it can be as simple as trying to find goodness and life-giving moments in times of distress and despair?

I recently heard an explanation that one of the seven Catholic sacraments, Anointing of the Sick, was not so much about that a person’s physical health rebounds, but more of a prayer for someone’s spiritual health; that the person does not slip into despair and emotional destitution.

Yesterday morning, I had packed Isaiah up and was ready to run errands with him and decided to clear out the trunk so I could fill it with groceries.  Awkwardly positioned, one handed lifting with my right, I blew something in my lower back that felt like a pull in my lumbar region which quickly radiated into my sides.  I fell to the garage floor in pain while Isaiah, stuffed in his bear snow suit gazed wide eyed at his fallen Mama Bear.  With teeth grinding and groans of pain, I picked him up out of the cold and nearly fell onto the living room carpet with him as he cried in surprise.  I called anyone close by for help.  I couldn’t move and I was terrified that my lower back was numb to feeling.  After a few hours, after a coworker came by to help with Isaiah and Nick left his classes early to come home and tend to his downcast wife, I began wondering.  The cliche set in.  WHY ME?  I had just deeply sliced my left thumb open last week and it was still healing and periodically bleeding from overuse.  My body was just clearing itself from a nasty and debilitating cold that racked my body since Sunday.  Despite all of this, I had been on the healthiest run of my life since I was pregnant: regularly working out, lifting weights, and running.  I felt terrific.

Immobile and feeling sorry for myself, I turn to pillows and tears as I could barely pick up Isaiah and had to ask Nick for every little thing: picking up something on the ground, helping me up from the couch and even slicing a fruit.  Asking for help was never so humiliating, even if the person being asked was my spouse.   Needless to say, staying in bed or on a couch made things even worse.  I was in a foul, foul mood.

This morning my back was stiff and uncooperative.  As Nick emailed his professors explaining his absence and Isaiah looked at my with his puppy eyes wondering why I wouldn’t pick him up, I decided to feel sorry for myself and hang my head.  That is until Nick decided to show me a video of Cher’s, “If I Could Turn Back Time” on YouTube and implemented his own song lyrics to fit my back dilemma:

If you could turn back time

If you could find a way

you’d never pick up that stroller

and you wouldn’t sway

You shouldn’t reach for the stars

Cuz your back still hurts

And you’d love me, love me

Like you used to do

Whoever would have thought that the topic to get me out of my funk would be Cher.  Not the most poetic lyrical adaptation, but performed in our living room with Nick screeching high notes and Isaiah clapping like an enthused fan, a gigantic laugh erupted from Couch Misery.  The rest of the day unfolded similarly.  We made each other laugh and exchanged loving and comical glances during the day.  I remarked that it reminded me of our college days; the days we used to spend together with nothing but hours between us.  Lately, between job, classes, Isaiah-care, programs, meetings, family, holidays, and general life, neither Nick or I could remember the last time we were forced to stay home, just the three of us, and not go anywhere or do anything except spend time together.  I couldn’t do anything except lie down, sit up, and channel surf.  And Nick couldn’t do much except watch Isaiah tackle every wire and pillow in the house.

And suddenly, through the throbbing of my back, I felt grateful.  Grateful for a life that allowed to have my husband stay home with me and make me watch Cher on YouTube.  Grateful for a son that crawled into his toybox and waved from the other room.  Grateful for a warm home, deli meat in the fridge, and caring family members sending emails asking if I was better.  I was grateful, mostly, for Nick, and the time to just sit on the couch side by side for hours and talk while we watched Isaiah try to balance a block on his head (so adorable but unsuccessful).

And the reason why my pulled muscle happened to me suddenly didn’t matter as much as the good things that came out of it.  Yes it means I’m backed up in work, and will spend several more days recuperating and not doing what I want.  Yes it means that Nick will be behind in his school work and can’t miss any more classes the rest of the semester, but our house is a little more full of light-heartedness, a little more radiant with laughter at Isaiah pushing his toys all around the house and yelling DAH DAH DAH DEE!

And that kind of uplifting, in the midst of physical suffering, feels quite miraculous.

(Thanks, Cher.)