(note the fabulous El Salvadorian handmade boots)I woke up that morning feeling a shift of some sort. It
wasn’t one of those birthdays that I’d wake up and feel the exact same as the
day before. I felt different. The difference wasn’t really visceral or material…it
felt like it was crawling all over my skin almost.
I walked down the stairs of our hostel here in Antigua,
Guatemala, ready to face the mirror. This was the morning I was supposed to
take out my stitches. I grabbed my scissors and tweezers and alcohol swabs.
Here I go. Get ready to look at what you’ll look at for the rest of your life.
8 days earlier I had been at an elementary/ jr.high playing
softball with the school’s best players. El Salvadorians vs. Americans. I had
been feeling bad all week due to a parasite that was causing a mysterious rash
all over my body. Tons of Benadryl. Steroid shots. Lots of grogginess. The
World Race takes a toll on your body. Rashes. Amoebas. Malaria. Gaining ten pounds. Weird pains in
your chest that won’t seem to go away. You never know what you might wake up
and find on your body. But on this particular morning, I was just sort of over
the whole thing. My rash. Finding myself in yet another awkward situation.
Playing softball like I was some sort of pro in front of, no joke, several
hundreds of students. They were even charging for admission at the gate! We
were celebrities! But I was tired. Exhausted even. Itchy and wanting to get
back in bed. I had tried to hide in the pastor’s van and take a nap, but pastor
slowly kept creeping up the volume on the radio until it was deafening so I
would get out and join the group. There I sat, at second base. Glove in hand.
Sun beating down on me. The fifth inning rolled around. The score was 12 to 11,
us. Steph pitched once. Foul ball. Twice. Strike. Three times, a swing and the
ball hit the ground and struck my chin hard. I instantly fell to the ground,
heard a ringing in my ears, and saw blood everywhere. I was balling. Hundreds
of children were crowding around me. “Get me out of here!” I cried.
I spent the whole day in hospitals, being skipped to the
front of every hospital line by our very connected pastor. Thank the Lord for free
El Salvadorian health care and the maxillo-facial specialist who happened to be
in that day.
But on my 25th birthday, I saw for the first
time, the scar that I’ll carry for the rest of my life. Maybe I got this scar
to remind me that my attitude, like the terrible attitude that I had that
morning, always has consequences. That I always need to be looking up. Paying
attention to the game at hand, rather than wallowing in the pain of my current
skin disorder. Or maybe it was just an unfortunate event, as there are many of
those in life. Crap happens. Deal with it. No lesson involved. Just-pay-attention
kind of thing. Not everything is cosmically spiritual all the time (all my
blogs might lead you to believe I think otherwise, I might guess : ) Physical
laws are physical laws. One must mind them.
I watched the “Passion of the Christ” again tonight. I’d
seen it before in the movie theaters when it first came out. But tonight, with my body aching in all sorts
of old lady ways I would have never expected at this point in life, I paid very
close attention to the torture and wounds of Christ. His skin was torn to pieces.
He was wounded, had his ribs exposed, had nails go from one side of his flesh
to the other.
He knows pain like nobody else. Skin pain, to be specific.
And so I look at my scar each morning, hoping it will go
away soon, but knowing that it might not. That’s okay though. (Granted I’ve got
nothing on people with leprosy or burn victims. I just didn’t expect the race
to do such a visible number on my body). I hope that it reminds me daily about
my attitude. That I need to love more intensely. About my constant need for
grace. About how my suffering is not only completely related to by my Savior,
but immensely surpassed by His. He empathizes and conquers. He feels it when we
feel it, because He was left to feel everything, in its full amount.
have a ton of stuff figured out by the end of it. Here, three weeks from the
end of it, I find that I am merely more aware of my wretched state, and how
much I actually need Jesus.
After the initial impact.
Day 3 of stitches
My scar today, Good Friday
