Sunday, bloody Sunday

After I'd gotten up twice with John in the night, Sunday morning got off to an ideal start: the smell of bacon woke me up at 7:30. Michael's cousin Rich, his wife Lisa and their baby Sophia were visiting us, and Michael always makes pancakes when we are with them. I went to the kitchen to join them at the table. We have four chairs at the table, one broken, which I was using since we had guests. The seat is separated from the chair frame, and when I pulled the chair up to the table and sat in it, I got a finger caught between the seat and frame. My fingernail immediately turned purple. It was incredibly painful.

I put an icepack on my finger and sat back down. The icepack didn't help. Michael brought me a pancake and bacon. I started feeling sick to my stomach and couldn't eat them. Then I started feeling lightheaded and decided to lie down on the sofa in the living room. I thought it would be a good idea for someone to help me, but I didn't say anything.

The next thing I knew there were loud voices waking me up. I was bleeding and disoriented; Michael was holding me, and he was as scared as I was. I had fainted on my way to the sofa and fallen face-first into the window over the sofa. I had cuts on my forehead and nose and a huge gash in my chin. Someone called 911, and a couple of paramedics came and bandaged my face. Michael took me to the ER, where I got a tetanus shot and 24 stitches -- six on my nose, the rest on my chin (4 internal). (Rich and Lisa, God bless them, not only stayed home with John, but they also cleaned up the kitchen and cleaned up the glass and all the blood off the sofa while we were gone!)

I am very grateful that I didn't suffer any serious harm from this accident. While my finger, cuts and other minor injuries (bruised knee, sore neck) are painful, the worst thing about this accident was how quickly and unexpectedly things went from normal to traumatic. It is easy to forget how fragile and vulnerable I am as a human being. But God used this accident to remind me of how great was Jesus' sacrifice for us.

After I got home from the hospital, I read that day's reading in the devotional "Pursuit of Joy": "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil. 2:8). It struck me deeply that Jesus willingly took on fragile, vulnerable, human flesh in order to save us. The small trauma that I experienced on Sunday morning, as horrific as it felt, was nothing compared to the pain Jesus experienced in his crucifixion. "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" -- my accident reminded me that shedding blood is invariably painful. Thank you, Jesus, for choosing to die on the cross for me.