Norfords' Ramblings

Good Friday April 10, 2009

I usually provide a scripture at the head of these blogs, taken from the Bible League’s yearly diary. However, while the Bible League diary acknowledges today as Good Friday, it has the most inappropriate text for the day which I hesitate to display. Instead, it is far more important to give some thought once again to the meaning of the cross. But a lifetime of Easters narrows down the amount of unused ideas I have left, in addition to the thoughts about Easter from the universal church over the last two millennia.

Yet the events of life that we pass through continually offer fresh insights into the crucifixion. Particularly, my own surgery adds real meaning to the cross. You may remember that at my pre-op a couple of weeks before surgery, I was given an armband with name and barcode on it—with dire warnings not to remove it or “you’ll get no blood transfusions, nothin’ if you don’t have it on for surgery.” My surgeon told me I a lost a lot of blood during the extended surgery time and transfusions were needed. I’m just glad I kept that armband on!

It feels a little peculiar to think that I have someone else’s blood flowing through my arteries and veins. Although I have been a blood donor most of my life, I am particularly grateful for that one who donated blood for me. The parallel is all too clear. I am eternally grateful for the blood that was given for me at the cross. Human blood gives me existence, but the only life that has meaning is the transcendent life gained through acquiring the blood of Jesus Christ. Because his blood was real, purpose for this life and assurance for the next is also real.

To come back to the mundane, on Wednesday the doctor removed the hemovac line draining the wound and staples holding my stomach together—it’s still holding!—as promised. Life is still hampered by a catheter, but I’m learning how to cope with it until April 20th when it will be removed. Meantime, ablutions and a shower plus the shenanigans necessary to survive my post surgery world take an hour or so each morning. Then I need time to rest! Returning strength will take time, but progresses—after all, God is the real healer.

You can’t keep a good woman down. It is three days since Ann’s foot surgery, but the fine weather has called her into the garden where she is happily pottering. That after a morning littering the kitchen as she cooks up a storm. My appetite isn’t taking too long to return!