Being Like Christ

Sometimes emotion hits unexpectedly, welling up inside, becoming a big tight ball of tension behind the eyes and throat. And then, the pressure becomes too great, and the dam bursts, no longer able to hold back the torrent of pain and heartache flooding forth in constricted and unwilling tears.

Tonight that happened to me as I stood in front of my mantle looking at the picture of my baby’s marker. I was listening to Josh Groban’s version of “Noel” and the power of that song mixed with the stress of the last month and a half was simply too much.

I felt the poignant ache of loss and love and hope and loss.

I don’t even know exactly what it was that set me off. I had been merrily listening to Christmas music while folding clean laundry luxuriating in the peace that follows the certainty of sleep from the preschool corridor, and then, BOOM, there I was, a pretty mess.

Maybe it simply was a need to release the stress of the last month…or maybe it’s more. I don’t know. I had surgery on the first of November. You know all that excruciating pain I was in? I thought it was hemorrhoids, a boil, an abscess or something. Well, it wasn’t. It was a fissure (a tear) in my anal canal.

I was in tremendous pain for 3 straight weeks. Every time I had diarrhea, and you know that’s quite often, I would scream in pain. Ladies, take yourselves back to the labor and delivery room if you chose to go natural…and you will understand when I say that it felt like I was pushing razors out of my rear end while they were simultaneously ripping all the way up my colon. I would scream and moan all the way to the bathtub, in tears, and I even frightened my children. Imagine pouring hot rancid acid over a deep fresh gash and then you can imagine the kind of anguish I was in.

Once the pain would somewhat subside into a dull throbbing, I’d sit in the bathtub and cry out to God that I wasn’t strong enough to handle this kind of pain every single day of my life. Even after the surgery, when it still hurt and bled, I began to despair and I became incredibly discouraged with my future, so much so, that as I lay on the sofa one evening tormented with grief and in agony, I admitted to Jeff that I believed it would have been better if I had died on that operating table last year.

This was the first time I’d ever let that thought become more than a flitting wisp; I genuinely wanted to be out of this human shell and into heaven where there’d be no more suffering or sorrow.

Before this latest obstacle, I was able to see with spiritual eyes beyond my immediate infirmities, but at this point, I became spiritually crippled by the unbelievable torture of that fissure. I didn’t want to eat because eating caused more diarrhea. I didn’t want to hook up to my TPN because that caused diarrhea.

The worst part was that my diarrhea was almost out of control. One night, I tried to eat three crackers and I was running to the toilet. I tried to take three tiny sips of lukewarm water and bite off a sliver of ice and I was running to the bathroom. That’s the night I wished I had died. I cried and cried with utter and complete desolation of mind and soul. Jeff tried to comfort me, but all I could say was “I’m just so thirsty, and I can’t even take a drink of water. I just want a drink. Why can’t I just have one drink?”

Have you ever been that thirsty and not able to quench the thirst? Or even partially satiate it? All I could do was swish water around in my mouth and spit it out and that did nothing but depress me. It was the lowest of lows. I just wanted a drink, a sip, a swallow, a taste to ease that arid dehydrated feeling, and I couldn’t.

So, I curled up on the sofa with my head on Jeff’s lap and cried heart-wrenching sobs of hopelessness and despair wishing for things that couldn’t be undone and wondering how I was going to make it through another day.

And then Jeff, in an unusual moment of quiet and sensitivity, said to me, “You know, you’re a lot like Christ.” Well, that got my attention as I was slobbering and snotting all over him because he has NEVER ever equated me to Christ before, at least, not directly.

He proceeded to talk about Christ’s sacrifice of his own life, voluntarily giving himself to be scorned, spit upon, beaten, and finally, crucified in a barbaric way to assuage the wrath of God. This I knew so I tried to jump ahead and figure out where Jeff was heading, but then he said something that I’d not thought about before that jerked my concentration back to him.

“If Christ had not gone willingly to the cross, think about how much worse it would have been for humanity to have had to suffer the full wrath of God for our sins. It would have been better for Jesus because He never would have had to suffer these earthly evils, but it would have been worse for humanity.”

Pulled from reveling in self-pity, I was merely sniveling by now, I had to agree.

So I briefly thought about what Jeff was saying. Instead of giving us, those who are merely the created, what we deserve….death….because we’ve idolized ourselves, set ourselves up to be greater than God, have revolted against His goodness, and have flauntingly disobeyed Him, we have thus created the impossible chasm of sin. In spite of that, in spite of our flagrant disregard for who God is, in spite of every wicked, wretched, evil thing we have ever done or thought, and even in spite of the fact that I know Him intimately and still choose sin, God still chose to pour out His holy wrath upon His own Son (sent to earth for that very purpose) and that atonement was enough to appease His wrath. It was the greatest gift of loving sacrifice, so tell me. What other religion in all of history can boast a god like that, one who would allow his own Son to die for your sins so that you can be reconciled and brought back into a right relationship with Him by no act of your own?

Well, then. Back to my story.

Jeff then told me, “Like Christ, it would have been better for you if you had died, for your body would be perfect in heaven and you’d not need your bowel and you wouldn't suffer in pain, but for us, for me, for the children, it would have been so much worse. God was gracious to us to allow you to stay alive, even though your body is damaged. We would rather have you damaged than not at all.”

When I heard that the slow hiccups and sniveling turned back into full blown tears and I was wholly convicted of the selfishness of wanting to escape my daily struggles by wishing my life away.

I love my husband, and I love my children, and haven’t I always told myself that I would sacrifice anything for them, including my life? I didn’t realize that I was (and am) sacrificing for them every day with my physical health. I thought giving my life would have been the ultimate sacrifice, but it seems giving my intestine was the more priceless commodity.

Though blinded by the rivers of tears, I managed to kiss Jeff’s cheek and whisper “thank you.” And the balm he applied to my heart that night was the beginning to restoring the hope in my salvation of which I'd lost sight.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that this journey of mine will miraculously end (though let us all continue to pray in that vein), and it doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to have bouts of despair, but what it does mean is that I’m not alone in this journey. God has gifted me with a man who, in spite of what I may have believed in the past, actually does understand me and understands how to encourage and build my faith, who loves me damaged body and all, who values me, and who was able to help me at this pivotal moment begin to see again the worth that my life has in Christ, and for that I will be eternally grateful.