Another entry on this day...

Well, in many ways, I think I would say that my day, my weekend got worse. This afternoon, the biopsy incision ripped open.

Now, I mentioned to the surgeon I saw on Monday that I felt as if it was tearing beneath the surface each time I bent over. She offered to take the stitches out this week while my doctor was out of town should she agree to leave them in for a while longer. I tried to explain how I felt to the doctor on Thursday. Perhaps the news I received about the results hindered my attempt to explain. Still, I tried to trust that she knew more than I did. I believe, that in this case, I knew better.

When I pulled off the bandage to try and see what was there, it was a mess. Taking a deep breath, I stuck my camera behind my back and took a snapshot. Looking at the gaping hole there, I actually threw up and then fainted, hitting my head rather sharply on the table on the way down. I would never have thought I would be so squeamish!

When I came to, with Kashi licking my face, I picked myself up and crawled up the stairs for a shower. Since the doctor had put steri strips over the wound when she pulled out the stitches, I had not showered in hopes of helping the thing remained closed. Having hot, soapy water running over an open wound is not pleasant.

When I finished, I sat on the edge of the tub trying to decide what to do. Do I go to the ER, spend $100, only to learn that since someone soon will be cutting out more of my back that stitching it up is not necessary? Or will I not be able to have those remaining awful cells removed until this heals?

I decided to stuff the thing with gauze, tape it down, and wait until tomorrow, to see if I could reach that surgeon by phone. I had left a message on Thursday to see if she could do the additional tissue removal, but did not hear back. If she cannot, I thought perhaps she could tell me what to do.

Casting about for something to do, I went ahead and called J (the pregnant lady from the Wednesday nooner bible study) to ask what she would prefer I do about missing the fill-the-freezer today (bring something later or send a gift certificate so they could have pizza or something). I had asked Pastor his thoughts in an email, but I think he had already gone to his conference.

I am glad I called for she received many, many pizzas today and would be grateful for more variety. Since my writing student K is actually going to be cooking by proxy for me, I suggested K's AMAZING chicken cordon bleu. Let me tell you, J's interest in that particular option was nearly palpable over the phone!

I am glad I called for I learned that Pastor is at least partly correct about his flock: he believes that should I ask anyone of them for help, he/she would if it were at all possible.

J and I ended up talking for over 3 hours. Yes, I know, I am the woman of long phone calls. However, I only know her from bible study! It was strange and wonderful and sobering and joyful. I know that sounds confusing, but I know no other way to describe it.

We talked of babies, mothers, teaching, and, of course, Lutheranism. What took me by surprise, is that during the conversation, when I mentioned the incision and trying to figure out what to do and having something else looming and wondering how it will be trying to recover in my house with my bedroom and the bathroom on one floor and Kashi needing to go out from another floor, she promptly, very, very promptly, suggested that I just pack up the birds and Kashi and come stay in this room that has a bathroom attached. I about near fell off the couch. I don't even know her!

I stumbled and bumbled my way through the conversation that followed for a while, struggling not to cry.

One of the things we discussed was one of the same topics of that disastrous meeting with Pastor yesterday: honoring your father and mother. J had one thing to say that I thought was so obvious I am even more colossally stupid than I think. I also thought that Christ was standing in the room with me as she spoke.

What was it? Well..."You know, Patricia, you are forgiven for struggling to honor your parents." Oh, my, was that a balm after yesterday! I needed to hear that. It was interesting to hear her struggles with that same commandment. They are different from mine. Yet the struggle is the same. It is that Lutheran absolute of standing under objective grace that shone through the moment. Yes, I am forgiven! It didn't change the struggle, didn't change my desire to somehow fulfill this commandment as best I can. It did remove the great burden my failings at doing so had become to me. Grace.

She also said something else I particularly savored.

We were talking about the difference I see between saying you are justified by faith and saying that God's grace and faith are objective. The former, while seemingly the same, opens the door to how great your faith is or how much you are doing with it, bring in the subjective. The latter leaves absolutely no room for subjectivity.

I had told her that I wondered if the reason why there were so many churches, so many Christians out there preaching justification by faith, but judging on justification by works was because so many people struggled with the notion that their own works were not great enough, i.e., there faith was not great enough, and tore others down so as to lessen their own unworthiness, to lessen the desperation they felt in their faith but could not voice for what that failings would represent to them. Supposition, I know.

J's response was couched in several repeats of the caveat that I might have heard what she was going to say and that she was sorry for repeating. I stopped her then to tell her that since I have such a cheese-hole brain, we could have discussed what she said just last Wednesday at the nooner and it could still be "new" to me.

Here is basically what she said: People often get trapped into believing that their good works is what makes them sanctified; they are essentially working harder and harder to be better. We cannot be better. Period. Else why did Christ need to die such a horrible death if it were within our capacity to mitigate our sin? When in reality, the more we understand our wretchedness and our absolute need for a Saviour, the more we are sanctified.

So, here I sit, on my third bandage and wondering at that earlier decision, yet thinking more about the Word and Grace I received this day than how I feel holding Fancy and my worries about the next steps for dealing with all that is on my plate.