Bring me your sick

I had a recent tangle with a dull knife and came out on the short end of the stick. 6 stitches and a tetanus shot later, I am released back into the world to try and function with only one hand for 10 days. And of course, there are things that need to be done like laundry, dishes, trash being taken out and....grocery shopping.

Now, while I was at Patient First getting sewn back together, the doctor who performed the procedure was telling me all about that one time when he sliced his hand open in the exact same place I did, on the side of a metal collander, of all things. 

The nurse who gave me my tetanus shot had no injury story to share (poor her) but she was very interested in how I had managed to cut myself in such a way. (My cut is diagonal, deep, and vaugly resembles a candy cane or hook. I am not posting a picture here because I doubt anyone really wants to see it. I imagine I will be getting a lot of questions as soon as it heals a bit more and I don't have to keep it wrapped up.) 

The radiologist who came in to wrap some gauze around my hand after I had been stitched up told me about a whole plethora of injuries including, but not limited to, shattering her wrist falling off her own x-ray table while changing a light bulb. 

The cashier at Kroger (where I went when I was forced to leave the house because there was no food) told me about her heart attack, broken ribs and several other injuries, adding that she should probably just wrap herself in bubble wrap before leaving the house. 

The lady behind me in line had a story about an injury to tell me as well.

So did the cashier across from us.

So have some of my coworkers.

The list is, quite literally, endless. I have had this injury for barely three days and already I have heard many stories of injury, stories of pain and loss. It's like the gauze wound around my hand is a homing beacon, like people see it and think There is someone I can share my story with. There is someone who will understand me. But only the physical. And that really got me thinking.

I will admit, leaving Kroger yesterday, I had a moment where I was really annoyed people kept telling me their gross, detailed injury stories. Call me a sissy but I don't enjoy gory details. I don't enjoy gore in movies either, for that matter. Anyways, I was frustrated leaving Kroger because I knew over the next seven days, people would keep seeing my hand and keep coming up to me and telling me of their aches and pains. - and I would not just have to listen, but I would have to sympathize, to empathize. Could I do it? Even as the words I can't crossed my mind, I knew they felt all wrong. It was the wrong response. I could. And I would. And then I had an AHA moment, right there in the Kroger parking lot and almost got hit by a car because I stopped in the middle of the road.

I pray in my daily offering, in my rosary, in any spare moment throughout the day for Jesus to draw me close to Him and make my heart like His.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine! 

Jesus doesn't shy away from people's physical deformities or injuries. Heck, He's kind of got this habit of hanging out on a cross, broken and bruised and exactly like a homing beacon, His arms stretched wide with love. People look at Him on that cross (at least, I know I have) and think, There is someone I can share my story with. There is someone who will understand me. There is someone who knows both physical and spiritual discomfort, someone who can relate to me. I was being cranky about people treating me the way they treat Jesus. I was being irritated with people for seeing Jesus in me, when this is what I pray for every. single. day. Wowwwww. Um, I'm sorry God? Sorry for being so darn ungrateful when You answered my prayers because I was too caught up in myself to see how perfectly and beautifully they were being answered. I felt like a fool.

I know I do the same thing with people's spiritual aches and pains. I am impatient with people. Selfish, even. I wish they wouldn't tell me the things they do because I can't help but to take their own spiritual aches and pains on as my own; I can't help but to take them to prayer with me and ask God to heal these people. About seventy percent of the time when I request prayers from y'all, it is for someone else's troubles that are weighing heavily on my heart. Troubles I know I can't fix (where the heaviness comes from for me because I want to be able to fix them!) but Jesus can and I know the more people that bring these troubles to His attention, the better the chance they have of being resolved and the person we are praying for gaining some modicum of peace.

I am newly resolved as of yesterday to be a little less offended and a lot more grateful when people mistake me for Jesus in day to day life. It is an honor, one I don't deserve but that doesn't mean I can't try to be worthy.