Post Surgery and Pre Easter

This post has the potential to be incomprehensible.  But I hope not.  We'll blame it on the leftover amnesia.  I mean anesthesia.

I don't like surgery.  There, I said it.  I really don't like taking off my clothes to put on a thin gown that is really impossible to tie by yourself.  I don't like telling my husband goodbye wondering if I will see him again.  I don't like being woken up, rushed it seemed, wondering what on earth had happened to me and clueless as to how much time had passed.  I don't like the feeling of being cold and out of control and them having to shove a giant warm air blower up my lap so I will stop shaking.  I don't like coming home and throwing up for 7 hours.  I don't like pain meds and how they make me feel.  I don't like having four stab wounds on my abdomen.  I don't like wanting to sleep all the time combined with brain fog.  I don't like referred pain and bowels that forget how to do their thing.

But, I did like my souvenir.  A gallstone the size of a small grape or an acorn, you take your pick.  It was the only one they sent home with me, and it isn't as fun as a newborn baby, but at least I now know why gallstone attacks feel so horrendous.

I am also thankful for friends who checked up on me and friends who brought meals.  I am thankful for a mother in law who was able to watch the boys during the surgery and prepare us a meal.  I am thankful for a husband who kept the household going which is never an easy task.  I am thankful for a God who was with me during surgery even though I was out cold.  I don't even remember them wheeling me back, people. I told Eli that God would be with me during the surgery.  He said, "Just like God is with you when you are eating chocolate?" Yes, Eli.  It is God alone who keeps me from overdosing on chocolate.

It's the stab wounds that have me thinking about Easter.  Aside from cellulite, stretch marks, and a couple of fat rolls, my body has been free from any major alterations like being cut on.  I see the particular wound in my side, and even though it is only about half an inch long, I can't help but think of Jesus.

While on the cross, the flesh in Jesus's side was pierced by the soldier's spear.

"But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed."
Isaiah 53:5

I reread the story of His crucifixion today and let the tears fall fresh.  I looked up the Greek word for crucify and remained stunned when I saw this definition of stauroo:

I fix to the cross.
I destroy.
I mortify.

I want to scream and tell the printers to remove the "I."  But, I know it is true.  I am the one who fixed Him there. I am the one who impaled Him and drove down the giant stake.  I am the one who put the King on a tree.

My sin did all these things.

He was pierced from head to toe really.  From the crown of thorns all the way down to the spike in his feet. He was pierced for my rebellion.

And yet, in all of my vileness, I could not extinguish his love or his passion and desire to restore me to the Father.

It's this understanding of grace that I want to grow in. Drown in.

This week before Easter, I don't want to take my sin lightly.  I want to remember what freedom cost.  I want to look on the one that I pierced.

I think one day, we will see for ourselves the wounds of Jesus.  I believe with all my heart He keeps them.  Spurgeon says they are His trophies:

"Now, Jesus Christ has scars of honor in his flesh and glory in his eyes, He has other trophies He has divided the spoil with the strong: he has taken the captive away from his tyrant master; he has redeemed for himself a host that no man can number, who are all the trophies of his victories: but these scars, these are the memorials of the fight, and these the trophies, too."

His scars are a memorial to the fight.  A testament to His love that willingly walks to the cross.  All for a vile people in need of grace.

Look to the One that you have pierced.