This Little Stiggy

I just got hit with the most random realisation ever.

The places I hurt the worst and most frequently are my hands and feet–thanks to arthritis–and my abdomen on the upper & lower left quadrants.

It’s been this way for years but just now it occurs to me that I have a sort of bloodless stigmata. A constant reminder of just exactly what Jesus went through and why he went through it.

Over at Mike Duran’s blog yesterday the topic was the general unfairness of life. Given the fact that I’ve been on both the winning and losing sides of the fairness game I tend not to participate in those kinds of things. It isn’t perhaps seeming fair that I couldnt have children but some other person who seems unsuitable can. And it doesn’t seem fair that I live in a nice house while others are in the street. Trying to weigh a life’s inequities is an exercise in futile frustration.

My mother’s response when we would complain about this or that not being fair was always to tell us that in a fair world Jesus wouldn’t have died on the cross.

Now as I think about the excruciating pain in my hands and feet and belly I realise how incredibly lucky I am. I carry reminders inside of the price that was paid. It’s sort of like God saying “I AM. You are. It is finished. Taste the pain; drink the Grace.”

When I posted a photo of our spectacular sunset earlier in the week I rhetorically asked whom I should thank for it if there were no God. One of my friends asked back why I couldn’t just “be thankful” without needing to thank anyone in particular.

Now with hands and feet throbbing I think of the nails; with side clenched and aching I think of the Centurion’s spear. I need to thank someone in particular because there is someone in particular. Someone who chose this for my sake.