Something God said.

My butt is ticklish.
There, I said it.
Weird? I know.
Some people have ticklish feet, sides, necks. Me? I have a ticklish butt. I don't mean the kid of tickles that you can fight, like back tickles, that send shivers up your spine, I mean the ones that make my body flip and flop around, anything to get me away from whoever is tickling me.
As a side note, said tickler touching my butt, is always my husband, just in case you had burning questions.

Moving on, I also have lower back problems. They started for me when I was pregnant with Jonah. After I had her, I remember laying on the floor on my stomach in pain, while my dad rubbed my lower back. He pressed hard on my tail bone, and the noise that came out made my dad jump across the room in fear. No, I didn't fart. My back popped. My dad said he wasn't going to touch my back again, until I saw some sort of doctor or chiropractor to find out what was wrong.

So, 5 years later, many chiropractic appointments later, I get pregnant with my son. The pain started right at conception, and didn't end until his body left mine. Desperate to find answers, I visited doctors, chiropractors, physio therapists, and even acupuncture. No one seemed to know what was wrong or how to fix it. Some said it was my tail bone, some said my sciatic nerve, some, my hip flexers, and some, admitted they had idea, and gave me pain killers.

Shortly after Daniel was born, I booked myself in to see my brother in laws sister who's a massage therapist. I had thrown my back out, and chalked it up to, my typical back problems, that were acting up, still not knowing how or why or what. She worked on my back, and found the problem.
My butt.

Yes, my butt. My glutes were as tight as a rubber band stretched around the earth. She worked on them for an hour, as I layed there gritting through the pain and tears.

After that, she showed me some stretches to do when my glutes get tight, and explained that when my glutes are tight, they pull on my lower back, creating copious amounts of strain in the tail bone area.

Since then, when I get a sore back, from either sitting in a car for a long time, or using my glutes more that usual, I stretch my glutes, and voila, my back feels better.
It's unfortunate that doctors appointments upon doctors appointments later, I finally find the answer in a massage therapist.

My glutes are my problem area. I will always struggle with this. I need to be stretching them everyday, and when they get really bad, I will need to get them manually stretched and worked on. This I can deal with, because I know the problem, and can actually attack it, instead of band-aiding it.

Now this takes me back to my tickles. As I layed there at my massage yesterday, in pain and strain, my bros sister moves to my problem area, and laughs when she hears me giggle and squirm, forgetting that I'm the only one she's ever encountered who has a ticklish butt.
But as always, once she pressed through the tickles, and hit the pain, there was no more laughing. All signs of tickles were gone, and replaced with the real pain underneath it all.

Then, I heard a word from God. I don't remember always being ticklish there. In fact, before Jonah, I don't remember being ticklish there at all. My nervous system is confused, it doesn't know what to do with the pain, so it self protects, and tries to make itself feel good, to mask the pain. Obviously, since the pain is there, and very real, you will always find it if you press through.
This made me think of me. I have pain, lots of it, hidden underneath a confused exterior. I don't know what to do with it, I don't know how to cope, I don't want to face what's really there, so, I hide it, mask it underneath a self protection, that is very hard to penetrate because, my initial reaction is to flip and flop, until I'm removed from the source trying to get to my pain.
I've developed many self protection mechanisms over the years. And for the first time ever, I'm being forced to face them for what they are. Something in place to prevent God from working on my pain.

I don't want to live like this. I want to be free from this pain. Just as I lay on the massage table saying, it's ok, just press harder and it won't tickle, it's ok, you can hurt me, I can take it, it's good pain. I can only say these things because I know it's worth it.
I want to say these things to God, I want him to press through my self protective and confused nervous system, so that I can be free.

So God, if you're listening, I may wake up today feeling ticklish, and I may wake up feeling pain and strain, either way, remind me that,

You've got my back......

and, my butt.