The issue of pain

Three years ago today, I came home from school with a pounding headache scared to even drive and went to bed promptly at 4:30.  To this day, that headache has never left.  Now I realize that there are so many greater ailments than headaches.  I know people that have suffered for years with pain that has debilitated them so they can't work, can't walk, can't drive, can't function....the list goes on and my heart goes out to them!  I understand their pain in going to doctor after doctor to only arrive at nothing.  I understand the frustration of realizing the life you had pre-pain is different.  I understand the struggles to understand God's sovereignty in all of this.  But I also understand realizing that pain is pain and life must go on! I realize how blessed I am that I can still function in my everyday life. I realize that maybe someday they will go away and I hold onto the hope that there may be that day.  But for now I realize that this is how my life is- with headaches.  I am thankful for doctors that have helped me identify some triggers to those big headaches and how to deal when they come.  Three years has been a long time, but I've come so far in understand the brain and diet and health and coping with everyday pain, and though the journey has been time consuming and difficult at times, I feel like I have learned so much.
A song that I always go to when I am feeling overwhelmed is the song by Laura Story called "Blessings" that was written after she found out her husband had brain tumors.  This is a song that I hold on to- though I don't understand why I was allowed to have this pain for three years, I know that in the midst of this God is teaching me and walking me through every step of the way and I need to find those blessings!

Laura Story's Blessings

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights 
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights 
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise