a blessing for if you are in pain

Blessed are you on this pain-filled day.
When getting out of bed deserves an award.
When you can’t remember what it feels like
not to be so aware of your own body.
When you arrange your weeks around limitations or side effects.

Or when you stop telling the truth altogether about how badly it hurts,
how scared you are of your own mind
or the boring details of another non-diagnosis
because you’re afraid people have stopped caring.

You speak a language of suffering
the world doesn’t try to understand.
So blessed are you whose world has shrunk to a space
so small it’s defined most by what is no longer possible.

You count dear one.
And so does your pain.
It does not and did not disqualify you from belonging.

When the world feels too full of everyone else’s possibilities,
God, remind me of mine.
This body.
This day.
These joys within reach.

For more on this topic, listen to this conversation with Dr. Haider Warraich on chronic pain.