He Noticed the Thief

It's amazing how fast the walls close in mentally when you're in pain.

This past month has been quite possibly the worst physical pain I have ever had in my life.  My lower back muscles decided to go on strike over a month ago and it wasn't until this week that I felt remotely normal.  I've missed about a week's worth of work and I have been canceling plans left and right because I can barely function and all I want to do is lie flat on my bed.

The pain has been a consuming thought.  I would wake up and think about the pain.  I would drive and think about the pain.  I would sit at my desk and think about the pain.  I would go to bed at night and think about the pain.  I would (attempt) to walk and think about the pain.  I would breathe and think about the pain.  Every waking moment was spent thinking about myself and this hurt and how to escape it.  I lost track of the number of mental and emotional breakdowns I had, which usually resulted in me flat on my bedroom floor sobbing and barely able to breathe.

I just wanted it all to go away.

Ultimately, all I have done for this past month is think about myself.

I forgot that a world around me existed or that anyone else around me might be in worse shape.  I've done nothing but live in my own little bubble, inside my own little head, unable to see past the end of my own nose.

And as I've thought about the timing of all this - here in the midst of this season when all things point to the single greatest pain ever experienced by one man in the history of the world - I nearly missed the lesson.

I keep thinking about Jesus, hanging on the cross, in sheer agony and suffering, in the kind of pain that makes mine look like a bucketful of sunshine and rainbows.  And the one fact I simply cannot escape is this:

Even in the face of his impending mortal death, even in his deepest moment of torture and agony, Jesus still noticed the thief next to him.  

I mean, really. Stop and think about this.  Think about the worst pain you ever have been in - mental, emotional, physical.  Now let's multiply that times ten.  I'm pretty sure you didn't care about the rest of the world at that moment. I know I sure haven't cared a whole heck of a lot about the rest of the world either here lately.

But then there's Jesus. Pure selflessness even while in agony.  Spikes driven into his hands, spear drawn through his side, a crown of thorns mashed onto his head, blood freely pouring out from seven places.  His back looks like hamburger meat.  His lungs are failing because he can't lift himself up enough to get a breath.  And somehow he still manages to notice the man crucified next to him.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at [Jesus]: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him.  "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong."   

Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 

Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." 

[Luke 23:39-43]

Jesus noticed the thief.

And that just blows my mind.

Because in this moment, when in his humanity he could have easily ignored either man hanging beside him, when he could have easily said, "Just get me off this cross and make it all go away," he turns to the thief and says, "I notice you.  This is the very reason why I came - was to notice you.  You are not forgotten.  And today you will be with me in paradise."

How many moments have I missed along the way in the midst of all this pain?  How often have I let it eclipse all thought of others around me and their own sorrowing and suffering, or even their joy and gladness?  Here in this season of Lent and Passover, here in this season of giving up in order to gain, here in this season of turning our eyes to the cross - how often did I miss the person next to me?

Jesus knew even on the cross, even in his worst pain, that the pain really was never about him.

It was about the thief next to him.

And the miracle of miracles is that Jesus still notices the thief and the criminal in me today, the girl who wants to rob the world in order to escape her own pain, the girl who is far too often so very self-absorbed.  And he still turns to me and says, "Today - today I notice you."

I want to be like Jesus.  I want to turn and notice the world around me, no matter my own pain, no matter my own heartache.  I don't want to get so myopic that all I do is focus on what's right in front me - and forget that this pain is temporary.  I don't want to forget that someday I'll get to trade it all in, and stand in the light of God's glory, right next to the thief Jesus noticed on the cross next to him over 2,000 years ago.

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:16-18
  

Severe Mercies and Graceful Exits

I suppose in life this is where severe mercies and graceful exits collide.  Severe mercies - those things that need to happen for our own good (or for reasons that make sense only to God) but bring their fair share of pain in the process.  And the graceful exits - when you figure out how to let go and move on.

If you caught the last post then you know that my pony was very sick.

When I called the vet out to our house over a week ago, shortly after Bud started to show obvious symptoms, we started her on drugs and I held out hope they would have an impact.  Her symptoms didn't seem to get worse, but they never got better either.  Last Friday, the symptoms finally took a turn for the worse and I was anticipating that I would need to be making a decision that night about putting her down.  The vet thought she still had a fighting chance because she was fairly responsive mentally even though other parts of her movement weren't faring so well.  We tried a treatment of an anti-inflammatory drugs the next day via IV to see if that would maybe help ease things.

When I came out Sunday morning, she was a mess.  Her coat was soaked and she just kept pacing in circles, the most energy she had exerted in awhile.  I likewise became a mess.  I've still been in some pretty miserable back pain, and being acutely aware of the possible decision I would probably need to make about whether to put her down or not just sent me over the edge mentally.  I brought a halt to my Sunday and cancelled all my plans and even ditched church.  I was supposed to teach the 4 year-olds but I didn't see that going over very well.  I just wanted to sit in a dark corner and cry my eyes out, which I ended up doing for the most part.

I checked on her periodically throughout the day and every time I went out, she would be laying down in her stall, something she hadn't been doing since she had been sick.  She just wasn't getting up anymore.

I texted the vet and told her I think it's time.

God bless this vet, Dr. Marylou Rings. I don't know what I would have done without her compassion and patience.  She is the best person I could have called.  She came out later last Sunday afternoon and by the time she arrived, it was abundantly clear that we had reached the end.

I don't ever want to have to make that kind of decision again in my life, the decision to bring an end to life.  One of the hardest things I have had to do in a very long time.

But I couldn't watch her suffer anymore.  I couldn't stand to watch her flail around, trying to get up and finding out that her body just isn't cooperating, that her neurological system is completely failing.

And I wanted to feel guilty in some sort of irrational way, like I wished this on her somehow.  That because I wanted to find her a new home and a new owner, that I inadvertently brought this on.  I know that's crazy, but my emotions have run the gamut in the last two weeks.  Guilt.  Relief. Worry.  Fear.  Hope.  Believe me, I have thought all sorts of crazy things.  Pain will do that to you. (And maybe just being a girl will do that to you.)

But it was this weird moment - that moment when it really was this graceful exit, when the decision was made and her heart stopped beating, it was like a release.  It was time to move on with life.  And I don't mean that in calloused, cold-hearted, unfeeling, detached sort of way.  Death is simply a reality of life this side of heaven.  It's like in 2 Samuel 12 after David has an affair with Bathsheba.  They have a child together, but the child ends up getting sick and dying.  All while the child was alive, David fasted and prayed and wept.  Then when the child died, he got up, he worshiped and he ate.  The servants were ranting at him, wondering why on earth he was now eating and going on with life when his child had just died.  David simply said, "Can I bring him back again?"  The answer was simply no.  And while the loss of a child is vastly different from merely losing a 19-year old pony, the concept still applies.  There's nothing I can do to bring her back again.  I did all that I could to keep her alive and it simply wasn't enough to fend off this disease.  So now I get up, I worship and I eat again, so to speak.  Life goes on.

And it is in this moving on process that I have to reconcile the severe mercies of life and the graceful exits.  No doubt, there will be some changes to life - no more buying feed or running up to the grain mill to get bedding.  No more calling the farrier to come trim her feet.  No more nights juggling a schedule and making sure somehow the pony gets fed.  No more having my parents feed her while I'm off to some corner of the world.  No more text messages from my dad saying he fed "the mule" for me whenever I had a late night. No more winters spent getting up and paving a way to the barn in the below zero temperatures to make sure she gets fed.  Nineteen years of habits undone in just a few moments.

Both the letting go and holding on, all wrapped up at once.  Severe mercies - the disguised graces.  And the graceful exits, when we move on and find that in the end it is all just as God planned.        

Two Lame Peas in a Pod

My pony Bud and I have decided to be invalids together.

She staggers around like she's drunk and I sometimes just wish I was drunk.  

We make a great pair.

Bud, on one of her less drunk days.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that her breathing was not quite right.  It was just real raspy and hollow-sounding.  I found it odd because she's never been sick a day in her life, but I thought it would eventually pass.  Then she started acting slightly lethargic, just not her usual self.  I would watch her and it's like she would tilt her head slightly cockeyed and stare off into space.  I was out of town over the weekend and I told my parents to keep an eye on her, just make sure she's still eating and drinking water like normal.  By the time I got home Sunday afternoon, I went to check on her and found her staggering around so much it was startling.

I've never had a vet out to see her before - how we have gone 19 years without ever having a vet out is beyond me.  But we never needed one and I'm not going to vaccinate a pony that lives by herself and isn't around any other animals, so in my mind it was never necessary.  Either way, I'm now googling large animal vets in the area to see who I can find.  Luckily, I find one just down the road from us so I give her a call and ask her to make an emergency visit out to our barn.  I probably could have waited until usual business hours on Monday, but I had no clue what my pony was dealing with so I thought it best to be proactive and get answers sooner rather than later.

The vet comes out and does the exam.  The poor thing - at one point the vet is leading her around to check her gait and mobility and Bud nearly falls over.  Her muscles just refused to cooperate. She really does act like she's drunk, like a little baby foal just learning to stand up, all wobbly.

The short version of it all is that the vet suspects she has EPM - equine protozoal myeloencephalitis.  It's a neurological disease spread by guess what?  Possums.  Yes, possums.  They are the sole carrier of the disease and they most likely were in Bud's pasture area and contaminated the grass she was eating.  I started her on a drug treatment the next day, but it will take about a week to see any results.  The vet is not optimistic that she'll survive.

But if I know this pony and the long line of bullheaded owners she comes from, she'll probably not only defy the odds, she'll bounce back and live for another decade.  How is it in the same month that I try to find her a new home, she tries to stage a coup and die on me?  Oh my stars, I did not think this through when I was nine-years old and asked my parents for a pony.  I didn't look down the road to 20 years later and think I would still be taking care of this little stinker when I'm almost thirty years old.  I do not want to be 40 and still have her hanging out in my backyard.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not saying I want her dead.  I just want her to be someone else's lawnmower on four legs.  Don't judge me.  There's a big difference so please don't take me for a heartless pony hater.  I love her dearly and she's a good little pony.  I would just like to move her on down the road so I can do the same.

So while Bud is walking around like a drunk, I'm just not walking around.  My lower back has decided to pitch a fit and has been doing so for almost a month now.  It's miserable.  I can barely walk some days and the thought of sitting upright in a desk chair nearly sends me over the edge so I've been missing work as well.  Ice packs and stretching have become my new best friends.

Maybe one of these days you'll just find both Bud and me passed out in her stall next to each other because we have collectively decided that standing or moving is not worth the effort.  Just somebody make sure to bring her some hay and me some Cheez-its.