Stitches out

I was so close to making it through the two weeks without an issue. Tomorrow the stitches were to come out. Yesterday they got infected. Oozing pus and all that.  In another hour I see the doctor. I’m quite placid about this right now because I don’t know any better. Perhaps when I finish writing this later in the day and have the rest of the process to look forward to, I might not be so sanguine. I’m very brave…just until the first needle goes in.

I think about this: how in ignorance I’m so sure I could tackle anything, but when it comes down to real pain, I can’t. My BSF group is finishing Revelation. We’re in the part where the beheaded martyrs come to life again and reign a thousand years with Jesus, and those who aren’t signed in to Life are thrown into a lake of fire. This scene is worrisome to me, because I don’t trust my courage. It’s easy for you to say, “Oh God will get you through it.” But history proves it’s not that simple.

I think of the martyrs who made it to death without betrayal and those that didn’t (I’ve been reading a book called The History of Christian Thought by Justo Gonzalez, which I highly recommend). There’s this story of the English archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was imprisoned for holding Reformation beliefs. After three years he was released into sudden sumptuous living, and the unexpected kindness caught him off guard (ancient version of good cop/bad cop strategy). He recanted and signed away his newfound beliefs. Soon after, he repented of his repentance and was condemned to burn at the stake. He reached out his hand to the fire, the hand that had signed his betrayal, until it burnt to a crisp, saying, “This unworthy right hand; this unworthy right hand.” And I’m worried about stitches.

I think of Shusaku Endo’s missionary in Silence, who during the persecution of Catholic believers of Japan in the seventeenth century, was taken into a room where Christians were hung upside down over a pit with tiny cuts on their bodies draining their blood. They were beyond agony. He asked why the sufferers didn’t recant. “Oh, they recanted long ago,” said the missionary’s jailor. “They have already spit on the face of Christ. They are kept here now to make you recant to ease their suffering.” Read the book. We as safe, secure North Americans do not wrestle much with the silence of God in other parts of our world. We say we’re staunch believers, but we’re not even up for the risk and bother of being Good Samaritan to some Muslim refugees. How brave is that?

I’m back from the doctor, queasy, but relieved, and with the stories of martyrs still in my head, our own version of Christian horror. If Dawnelle were listening to this post, she would be holding her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, muttering, “Puppies, puppies, puppies. I’m thinking of cute, cuddly puppies.” It’s too much to take in. No, it’s impossible to take in. I know brothers and sisters and children of martyrs. Do you? I’ve been at the graves of Mixtec martyrs shot down for their faith. How can I predict what I would do in their shoes? I can’t. My trust can’t be in my courage. I’ve seen enough pus and needles and embedded stitches to know that much. For me now it’s just one needle at a time. God has to figure out the rest somehow, whether I turn out to be courageous or not.