Holy Distractions

I shared with you all that there is a particular temptation I have been struggling with this past Lent. I know this struggle will bring about many graces for me and my family, but I have been really stressed out about this cross in my life.

Oh, but how God chooses to show me relief. Just when I began to get very discouraged with this struggle, going to Confession on Saturday thinking, "How am I ever going to prevail over this?", I awoke Sunday morning and did my exercises. Now, I have been recording some exercise programs off the FitTV channel since they are on at around 5 am Pacific time. So I did one of these recorded workouts Sunday morning, which included some trampoline exercises. OK, so I don't have a trampoline, so I just jumped around on the ground. Oh, and I wasn't wearing tennis shoes either. Needless to say, my back paid the price dearly.

So, this entire week I have spent putting heating pads on my back, resting, trying to find ways to sit down comfortably, attempting to resume into my routine but realizing that my back needed more pampering, and having my husband dig his fingers into my back to loosen me up. Yesterday was the first day my back felt better, and since I have been resting this entire week, my house is a disaster! So I have been frantically trying to get my household back to some kind of organized normalcy.

Where am I going with this? Well, in all this week of dealing with the cross of back-pain, I have had very little time to think about that "other" cross. I haven't had as strong of temptations, I haven't stumbled as much, and I haven't been as stressed about it either. I asked God for relief from this struggle, and it was just interesting in what form His relief came.

This happened a couple of months ago as well. I was struggling with this particular cross over the Christmas/New Year holidays. Many of you who know I was anticipating the premeire of Alias on January 5th and was going to have a huge bash for it. Well, I had to cancel that because of a severe throat infection that knocked me out for a week. Well, once again, I had asked God for help in dealing with my cross, and I became physically ill that week. But it worked. That week was a relief for me, of sorts. (By the way, Alias has nothing to do with my particular struggle. Heaven forbid!)

I am not quite sure what to think of our Lord's answers to my prayers. Does He just have a very odd sense of humor, or is there a lesson in this? I guess, if there was some deeper meaning, it would be that when we have crosses or stumbling blocks in our lives that come about and are completely out of our control, then we should focus on them and embrace them, because they could be holy crosses distracting us from more sinister temptations. I never thought that illness or injury would be a cause of joyful thanksgiving from me to my Father. He really does work in mysterious ways.