Death and browned butter...

I honestly thought I might die last night.  I watched a movie with Maggie Smith that had a subject matter the description did not mention at all.  A subject matter I simply cannot watch at the moment.  A migraine followed.

After finishing some work, I took the first dose of Immitrex and my other medications, turned off the lights and suffered in darkness and silence.  I finally dozed a bit, but when I awoke right at the time for the second dose of Immitrex, my head exploded in a pain level I did not think was possible to survive.  I swallowed the pills and whimpered to God.  I fell asleep again and awoke blessedly pain free.  Only something was seriously wrong.

My body was wracked with violent tremors.  I was sweating and dizzy and nauseous.  My blood pressure plummeted.  Despite the financial abyss I would fall into, I seriously wanted to go to the hospital.  Only ... I don't have a plan for Amos.

I called two different local women I thought I could awake.  Neither answered.  Terrified and trying so desperately to remain calm as I grew sicker and sicker, I waited two hours before trying again.  And anyone I could think of to read the Bible to me, including my pastor.  Two the calls I made were in part because I wanted to ask forgiveness.  Deeply.

It is sort of a wry kind of joke within me that I do not understand forgiveness.  I truly do not.  By this I mean I grew up in a family where things that you did decades ago are still trotted out and counted against you.  And my experience with Christian forgiveness, even as a Lutheran, has not been all that different ... only there are no decades that passed.  I do not write that lightly.

I have had those who have spoken forgiveness even though they felt it was not needed.  I find that confusing because I have been reluctant to speak forgiveness when someone feels he wronged me and I  disagree.  Until today, until my anguish and terror and agony of both body and mind, I did not understand just how important it is to give forgiveness even if you do not understand why it is desired or requested.

Truly what I just wrote is a pale representation of what dawned over me about forgiveness, but it was the first of many lessons and ... utterly surprising to me ... blessings.  Yes, facing such physical, mental, and spiritual misery was a blessing.

Bettina read me Psalm 113 and opened up the Pray Now app to read me from the Gospel.  I did not know, as she started, if she was reading from the Old or New Testament.  A part of me rejoiced when finally realized she was reading to me about the naming of John the Baptism.  That reading, the seemingly random choice she made to use the app as opposed to the bible, the LSB she owns to help me, or the Lutheran Prayer Book I also sent her (more to help me than her, I must admit).  But it was not random.  It was the Living Word of our triune God spoken directly to me, the Living Word for Myrtle.

All day this bit of Gospel has clung to me, wrapping itself around my body and mind and soul.  God was specific and involved and invested in even the naming of John the Baptist.  His name mattered.  His name mattered because John is God's created.  Slowly, throughout the day, that bit of Gospel made its way to the other Living Word spoken to me by my pastor when he came to visit recently:

But now, thus says the Lord,
your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, Oh Israel,
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.

    ~Isaiah 43:1-3a

Some time after I hung up with Bettina, as the pain and nausea was getting worse, I again was calling and calling and trying to find someone local to help and someone to read the Living Word to me. Just as I finally made a connection, my pastor called.

The message I left for him was that I was really ill and that I had to admit just how terrified I was of dying. I asked if he would read me a psalm and talk to me about dying. So, the Word of God he spoke to me was spoken directly to my fear.

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Oh let Israel say,
“His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
Oh let the house of Aaron say,
“His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
Oh let those who fear the Lord say,
“His lovingkindness is everlasting.”

From my distress I called upon the Lord;
The Lord answered me and set me in a large place.
The Lord is for me; I will not fear;
What can man do to me?
The Lord is for me among those who help me;
Therefore I shall look with satisfaction on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
Than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
Than to trust in princes.

All nations surround me;
In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off,
They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me;
In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off.
They surrounded me like bees;
They were extinguished as a fire of thorns;
In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off.
You pushed me violently so that I was falling.
But the Lord helped me.
The Lord is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.

The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
I shall not die, but live,
And tell of the works of the Lord.
The Lord has disciplined me severely,
But he has not given me over to death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
The righteous will enter through it.
I shall give thanks to Thee, Thou hast answered me;
And Thou hast become my salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief corner stone.
This is the Lord’s doing;
It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
O Lord, do save, we beseech Thee;
O Lord, we beseech Thee, do send prosperity!
Blessed is the one who come in the name of the Lord;
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God, and He has given us light;
Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
Thou art my God, and I give thanks to Thee;
Thou art my God, I extol Thee.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
          ~Psalm 118
            (NASB 1977)

After speaking this bit of Living Word into my ears that the Holy Spirit might strengthen and sustain my faith, my pastor took a few moments to teach me.  He pointed out the following:

• The first part of the psalm repeats for a very good reason:  the chief work of God, the way He approaches us, is through steadfast love ... not anger, not punishment.
• One way we know this is that God did not leave His son to perish in hell, but raised Him from the dead.  Just as He did not leave Jesus in grip of death then, nor will He leave the very body and blood of Jesus Christ that has been placed within my body in the grip of death.
• Because of this, I, too can claim:  I shall not die, but live...Therefore, my pastor stopped and had me repeat these Words after him.
• One way to look at death is not an ending but as a doorway to God, the gate of righteousness we pass through to live in glory.

I know these bits of lessoning because I typed fragments of what he said as he spoke them, giving thanks for the technology in my hand that allowed me to both hear the Living Word and capture its truth so that I might remember it later.

My pastor also talked to me a bit about Luther's sermon for the dying.  In it, Luther teaches how, often, when death approaches, even the Christian sees first sin, our foe, and hell.  Sees these.  Thinks of them.  Dwells on them.  It is what the old Adam does.  So, my fears, born of those very thoughts, was a fear shared not only today, but all the way back in the 1500s and before.  It is okay to be afraid of death; it is normal and of the natural man.  So, he suggested that all I do, in my fear, is look at the crucifix next to my bed, to simply look at Jesus.  To let the truth of His death and victory seep into me, not by my work but just to put my eyes there.  My death is Christ's.  Look how His turned out!

He then prayed for me the Apostle's Creed, prayed specifically for my body, mind, and soul, and then lead me in the Lord's Prayer, pausing for me to repeat the parts I could not remember.  When he was finished praying, my pastor sang to me the hymn Abide with Me, reminding me at the end that Jesus was, at that very moment, abiding with me.

Often, the calming of the Living Word can be a bit delayed with me. I have learned not to fret or worry if after someone finishes reading to me I am still feeling afraid or lost.  I know the Holy Spirit will work the Word spoken to me, for me, in His perfect timing.  Today, though, the peace that surpasses all understanding ... especially Myrtle's ... calmed me, soothed me, before it was finished being given to me.

I hung up the phone and waited, trying again to reach someone local.  Just as the nausea and pain grew--rather unbelievably to me--greater, my friend Mary called.  And God finished the Word He had for me today.  Mary offered to read to me because she knows that is what I long for most.  When she asked me what I wanted to hear, I offered Psalm 118, because I wanted to hear it again, having been taught a bit more about this wonderful psalm, this now new favorite psalm amongst my favorite 150 psalms.

But Mary also gave me the Gospel in a way that I could hear apart from the Living Word.  She provided imagery I could grasp and that would, in turn, cling to me.  She told me that Jesus was my knight in shining armor come to save me from the dragon.  Death, being a dragon, is something rightly to fear.  I mean, one would actually have to be crazy not to fear a dragon.  So, Jesus as my knight in shining armor would come to slay the dragon and rescue me.  THAT I could understand, being a reader of modern high fantasy!!

Mary, being Mary, was not done.  That was because, I believe, God knows His created Myrtle.  And so He caused Mary to remind me of two very important points about my knight.  My knight would not come because of my desire to come.  I did not have to work at wanting Him to come enough.  He would come because He is a knight, my knight.  The word she didn't use but my mind added was because it was His vocation to slay dragons and rescue those beneath His care.  

Mary also pointed out that my knight would not come or would not not come because of my feelings.  Oh, how my heart sang in that moment!  Yes, Myrtle, remember that feelings do not matter in matters of faith.  He would come not because of desire and not because of feelings.  He would come because He is a knight, Myrtle's knight.

Mary had a few other gems for me to ponder.  One of them was to remind me that in looking at the crucifix remembering was not a work that I would do but one that Jesus would do for me, through the Holy Spirit.  She also talked with me about how faith is not bound up in our remembering God, but in His remembering us.  So were I to fall into a coma and thus ceased to remember God, remembering would still be taking place.  He remembered Abraham.  He remembered Elizabeth.  He remembered Joseph.  In remembering them He remembered His creation.  I, Myrtle,  am His created.  He remembers me.

I have called you by name; you are Mine!

Mary also asked if I wanted to hear about other things, because she remembered that sometimes I call and ask her to just talk to me about things so I can step outside of the things in my head at the moment.  So, I heard bits and pieces about her life.  It was a gift of time.  A gift of mercy.  Another blessing, even though as she was talking I was wondering just how much longer I could bear the agony of my body.

Before hanging up, she walked downstairs with me whilst I fetched some Gingerale that I started sipping at a very slow rate, having maxed out on my dosage of Zofran.  

I writhed and sipped and whimpered and pondered the Word given to me.  Then I heard that the seminary grad student was willing to pack up his world and come back here early so that I would have a safety net for Amos.  He said he would leave around 1:00.  That meant if I could hang on until 4:00 isn, I could then go to the hospital.

Somewhere around noon or something, this DUNCE was hit by a bolt of lightening and I remembered that while I had taken Tums and the gas medicine and Zofran, I had not tried activated charcoal.  With my belches growing ever more fetid, it couldn't hurt to try.

After a couple of hours, the nausea began to ease.  An ending was in sight.  And, frankly, I rejoiced that, at least for the moment, I was spared the financial abyss of an uninsured hospital visit.  

As 4:00 neared, I texted the grad student to see if he was here, because I thought I heard him.  He was very close.  So, I worked my way downstairs to make an egg, the one guaranteed-to-be-digested-by-Myrtle food, with plenty of salt, since my blood pressure was still very much an issue.

I fed Amos, popping a piece of my homemade beef jerky in my mouth as I pulled out the milk for Amos' meal, and sank to the floor by the back door to try and get Amos to at least do his minor business out of doors without me.  While sitting there, I rehearsed what I had learned with the seminary grad student.  [He's going to be such a pastoral pastor!]  

As I sat there, I started to feel significantly better.  Suddenly, I was struck by how much sodium there must be in my beef jerky marinade of teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, smoke sauce, black pepper, and sea salt.  It was almost as I imagine drinking a Red Bull might be for a caffeine addict.  That spurred me to make my fried eggs.

Well, therein lies another blessing of the day.  I FINALLY made a proper fried egg!  My fried eggs finally looked like fried eggs are supposed to look like and tasted like fried eggs are supposed to taste like.  How did this great accomplishment come about?  Well, I forgot that I was cooking the eggs!

I put the butter in the pan and waited for it to heat, once again resting on the floor.  And I forgot it was heating until I smelled it.  Strongly.  Brown butter!  Brown butter is the signal that the pan is hot enough to properly fry an egg!

See how merciful and gracious is my good Shepherd?  He literally led me through the valley of the shadow of death (at one point my blood pressure was 51/30; the highest reading was 176/87), helped to both lesson and absolve my fear of death, and revealed to me the elusive secret to a properly cooked fried egg!

Bettina called this evening to check on me and gift me with a long, newsy chat.  And then Mary just sent me an email with proof texts and notes of all the bits of Gospel for Myrtle she shared with me today.  Such mercy.  Such great mercy!

Might I also note that Amos, that fluffy white ever over-flowing fountain of the Father's goodness toward me, though clearly scared of my state, worked very hard to comfort me.  This entailed a distressingly long period of attempting to climb atop my mid-section and then curl up next to it--both equally excruciating forms of comfort--before resorting to place his front paws below and atop my right forearm and rest his face upon my upward turned palm, slathering it with kisses from time to time.

But now, thus says the Lord,
your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, Oh Israel,
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!