One of those scary things...

Sometimes I wish for days simply not to have happened.  This was one of them.

You see, I sort of have this deal with my body.  The writhing and such ends come morning.  Sometimes not until 7:00, but it ends.  That's the deal.  Only sometimes my body renigs on the deal.  Sometimes come morning the pain, the nausea, the misery does not end.  Today was one of those days.

Being a rather poor puppy momma, I ran out of Amos' food.  Of course, I have had it on my shopping app for a few weeks.  I have chanted that I needed it as I drove over to Jefferson Pointe.  I have "remembered" that I needed it while shopping in Target and in Wal-mart, both oh so terribly close to Petsmart.  Yet I forgot on the way to the car. I forgot while driving through the parking lot.  I forgot while passing by Petsmart.

So, even though I had been up all night and could not find any clothing that did not heighten my agony further with its weight against my abdomen, out I went to fetch some puppy dog food...and accomplish two other errands.  Sometimes, when I am most miserable, I am desperate to have something positive to which I can point, something, anything, to make me feel less useless.

While going through the organizing, reducing, and recycling, I have set out a few things that I did not want to just donate.  Some are things I would sort of  rather keep.  And some were presents I have had on hand for a while hoping for the recipient to visit me.  So, I have been wrapping up "gifts" for people to let them know that I was thinking of them.  Even if they would rather pass the gifts to someone else, even if I missed the mark on thinking that they would like what I chose, I wanted to send them out.  A pile of packages have been collecting upon the deacon's bench--all wrapped, of course, with recycled mailing materials.

So, I went to the post office, utilizing the lower cost of media mail for most of the packages. Then I drove to Petsmart to fetch Amos' food.  And then I stopped at the grocery store because I needed cheese and sour cream for the bowls of Santa Fe soup I have been eating nearly every day.  Only when I got there, I knew that there was simply no way that I could walk around inside...especially since the dairy section is always the furthest from the door.  My legs were too weak.  The point of no return was swiftly approaching.

Well, I did it.  I got on one of those infernal power wheelchair shopping carts.  I have avoided them like the plague, certain I would run down little old ladies and knock over displays.  Trembling the entire time, I drove myself to the diary section, through the check out, and back to the door to leave.  I did nearly run over two shoppers whilst backing up trying to go around a corner, but no blood was spilt, nor were cans rolling about an aisle.

I still hated it.

I feel as if I should be used to this. I feel as if I should be more resigned.  I feel as if I should not rage against what is happening to me.

On days like these, I feel useless.
On days like these, I feel hopeless.
On days like these, I feel faithless.

When I was having a migraine the other day, I posted the following on Facebook, the first bit as a post and the second as a comment:

Trapped within the throes of a migraine, I become irascible, insensible, and utterly hopeless. I ache in sympathy and empathy for anyone who has ever had or ever will have to endure the violence of pain and sensory assault. And I wonder how in the world Jesus endured the passion of the cross...endured the physicality of a body that exists in a fallen world and all the ramifications thereof during such a wretched experience. 

I am counting the minutes until the second round of medicine and had been shutting out all sight and sound, but I wanted to capture the moment because I really do wonder...actually become awed at the fact..about a GOD willing to endure our existence in this fallen world.

I do think about Jesus living in a human body quite often of late.  I mean, no wonder the Jews did not believe He was God.  What kind of a god would willingly allow himself to be held hostage to a body in a fallen world?  It makes no sense.  It makes no sense to anyone who has to live in this world with illness, pain, heartache, and all the myriad miseries unending that sin has ravaged on the perfect creation of the human body.

For a long, long while...even before I found the true doctrine, I have savored the 14th verse of the first chapter of John.  I savor it not merely because it tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  I savor it because, along the way, some pastor explained that the Greek word used for "dwelt" actually means  "tabernacled."  

To me, tabernacle brings to mind the holiness of God and the refuge one can find in Him.  So, there among us, come to us, is a living breathing tabernacle.  I still savor that understanding.  In fact, any time I hear someone read the verse, I automatically correct the reader, if only in my head.  That Jesus tabernacled among us brings me peace.

That Jesus did so in a human body is astounding.  I should not have overlooked the wonder of the bit about the Word becoming flesh.  

We do not know much of His life, but He could not have had a perfect body.  Were that the case, He would have felt pain and been injured and died during the passion of the cross.  Which means, along the way, Jesus most likely suffered the agony of a scraped knee, of sore muscles, of writhing guts.  When talking to Fred about this, he pointed out that if Jesus had not suffered in body, then the Word would be a lie when it stated that He faced every temptation common to man.

Jesus faced the misery, the doubt, the despair of a body broken by existing in this fallen world.  For me.  He did this for me.  In a way, that He did so willingly, knowingly, confirms He was/is a god.  For only a god could choose such a thing.

There were no motorized wheelchair shopping carts when Jesus lived.  But surely there were things, new things, unknown things, things that represented weakness and hopelessness, things that were a reminder of death, things that held fear and dread in the life He lived, things He had to face in a fallen body.

For me, the Garden of Gethsemane, has become unfathomable, ineffable.  How could this be for me?  For one felled time and time and time again by misery that is a mere fraction of what Jesus chose to endure so that one day mine would end?

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!