{"id":4145,"date":"2016-05-03T19:23:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T19:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/?p=4145"},"modified":"2016-05-03T19:24:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T19:24:27","slug":"gods-grace-prayer-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/2016\/05\/03\/gods-grace-prayer-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"God&#8217;s Grace, Prayer, Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have been in a lot of nerve pain, particularly at night, since treatment for my diabetes was started.\u00a0 Both my general practitioner and neurologist seemed clueless about this but I read on a national institute of health website concerning diabetes neuropathy that this sometimes happens.\u00a0 That when a patient starts treatment their symptoms initially get worse.\u00a0 But eventually, when their blood sugar is brought under control and stabilizes, the symptoms abate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The nerve pain had become intense, to the point where I felt I was being doused with gasoline and set on fire.\u00a0 And sometimes this would go all night.\u00a0 There were nights when I only got half hours sleep because of the pain.\u00a0 Gabapentin was prescribed but even at near maximum dosages it was at times ineffective or at least not sufficiently effective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I wanted to go back to exercising, I believed losing weight and putting on muscle mass would be the real answer to getting my blood sugar under control, pills were just a bandaid.\u00a0 But the doctor wanted me to take a treadmill test to make sure my heart was up to it.\u00a0 There were many factors to lead one to believe it wouldn&#8217;t be.\u00a0 I had a total cholesterol to HDL ratio of 7.8:1, they consider anything above 3.5:1 a risk for heart disease.\u00a0 I had triglycerides over 400.\u00a0 I had diabetes with fasting glucose of 352mg\/dL, about 3.5x what it would be, and I had seven years of sedentary lifestyle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I asked people for prayer on my behalf and a number of people did pray for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the 28th, I went in for my treadmill test.\u00a0 I had no heart problems, EKG was clean from resting to full max heart rate.\u00a0 No symptoms, no bad sounds, everything was good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I&#8217;ve gone in and done two workouts now.\u00a0 I was expecting that over time as I got my weight down and muscle mass up, the diabetes and nerve pain would improve.\u00a0 I was not expecting immediate relief but that is what I got!\u00a0 The first night after my first workout was pain free, and again last night after my second workout, only very mild pain and most of that was muscle soreness not the nerve pain I had.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For me this is a personal miracle because my suffering has been taken from me, and I am thankful to God, and to all of you who prayed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am a great believer in intercessory prayer.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve seen it work so many times in other peoples lives, and now in my own.\u00a0 When Jesus was asked, of all the commandments, which are the greatest, he answered,\u00a0 To love God with all your heart, mind, and spirit, and to love your neighbors as yourself.\u00a0 When we pray for someone else and do so out of love for them, I think God is particularly inclined to honor those prayers because we are doing his will.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000080;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So again I thank all of you for your prayers.\u00a0 And if you know someone who is hurting pray for them out of love.\u00a0 I am least worthy to receive God&#8217;s grace and yet I have so surely he will bless others even more.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have been in a lot of nerve pain, particularly at night, since treatment for my diabetes was started.\u00a0 Both my general practitioner and neurologist seemed clueless about this but I read on a national institute of health website &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/2016\/05\/03\/gods-grace-prayer-pain\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpautop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}