Lenten Journal Day 40

This morning, right as I sat down to write for the last time of my 40 day journey, I received a phone call. From my husband. He had fallen off an obstacle course station in the woods near my parents' home and injured his leg to the point that he wasn't sure if he could walk back out. And the kids were with him. He did make it out, and I rushed him to the emergency room, where he fainted in the doorway of the hospital and had to be put on a stretcher. He had a gash in his leg that peeled his shin like you would a piece of fruit, and they had to cut his sock off. The doctor sewed his skin back down, and he is on crutches for awhile. Glory be to God that he will be okay.

I held it together when I needed to. But once I passed Michael over to the nurses and doctors, I almost fainted. So the professionals kindly sent me to the waiting room. During my deep breathing exercises, a young man showed up holding a bloody towel and missing the top part of his finger from a weed whacker accident. He started sobbing about a girl while holding his finger. I had to get up and move away from this man. I didn't want to move. I didn't want to seem rude. But I was already struggling to breath from my own husband's accident and seeing this young man in obvious agony almost sent me right over the edge. One of the nurses saw me move, so she came out to check on me. To make sure my meditative breathing was working. Other people, support people, laughed, which helped the man also laugh through his sobs when he realized I was only moving so that I myself did not pass out. They mercifully took him back immediately to sew his finger together.

My father came to sit with Michael so that I could leave for an hour to get lunch with the kids and so I could have a little fresh air. I made the statement about medicine not being my gift from God, and my children readily agreed. When it comes to trauma I am cool and collected until there is such a time I can lose it, but at some point I will lose it. I will need away. Which brings me to the point of Christ.

The Paschal lamb. All during his time on this Earth, he healed people. He would not have left Michael's side or turned away from the hurting man. He would have moved towards them in their hurt and in their pain. He would have done what I was not capaable of doing today. He was radical in a transforming kind of way. Not mean or judgemental. Radically lovely, loving. And then. For all that, we killed Him. Yet through Christ's death, His Spirit was released to live amongst us, to fill us up with gifts. To be as Kelly often asks, His hands and His feet. Today those medical people did what I could not. And they did it with compassion and love towards not only Michael, but me as well. They embodied Jesus's hands and feet and heart. So, though medicine may not be my gift, it obviously is theirs. On this resurrection weekend, the night before Christ rises, the eve of His Spirit birthed in us, I am filled. And I am grateful. For all of it.

On my first day, I wrote about us being Jesus to each other between the dustings, and today I witnessed Him at work. And it was transforming - radically lovely, loving.

Amen.