Hello,
Saturday morning at 4:00 I woke myself from sleep when I rolled over and
I found my world swirling around as if I had been swept up in a tornado. When I opened my eyes my ceiling looked
as if it was a record spinning on a turntable, and I could feel the gastric
juices in my stomach churning and swelling with volcanic potential.
This had happened to me once before when out of nowhere I was overcome
with dizziness and nausea accompanied with a full body cold sweat. The cause of my distress was plugged
ear tubes that put a computer crash on my balancing mechanisms behind my ear
drums. This time as with the
previous time even the slightest motion would speed up the swirling and
increase the pressure building in my belly. So, learning from my previous experience, I tried to lie
perfectly still in hopes that it would still everything down. I pinched my nose and blew it thinking
that I could dislodge whatever was plugging my tubes, and although I could hear
a “pop”, no relief.
Having tried to resolve the problem myself, I determined my only hope
would be in waking my wife….at 4:00 in the morning. “Dear,” I said a couple of times before I broke her slumber,
“I can’t move. If I do, I get so
dizzy that I feel sick. Could you
get me a decongestant to clear my head out?”
Graciously, she got out of bed and went to the medicine cabinet,
returning with the decongestant that had helped before. I slowly lifted my head, took the pill,
and put my head back on my pillow, trying not to move a muscle. I lay there a while unable to return to
sleep, but after some passage of time I dozed off. When dawn arrived and I opened my eyes again the swirling
had abated some, but not completely gone. So, I took another decongestant hoping that a second
shelling of the blockage would do the trick….which in about a half an hour I
was pleased to find out that it did.
Have you ever woke up, not from sleep, but maybe from a slumbering life,
only to find the world swirling around you with nauseating power? Your head clogged and pressure
building? Pressure from
overwhelming expectations at work…from disappointment with failure….from guilt
over something you have done….from sorrow over a loved one gone from your life….from
fear as you face powers far greater than you…from despair over a sink hole you
have fallen into and is too deep for you to climb out? Dizzying?
Well, if so, so have I, and I have found that I need something to clear
my head out and relieve the pressure.
The thing that has done the trick for me is a good dose of the grace of
God: God’s love for me in Jesus that requires nothing of me, God’s promise of
shepherding presence even when I wander, God’s unrelenting forgiveness that is
given even when I sin 70 x 70 times, God’s hand that lifts me up from my
failures giving me hope to try again, and God’s embrace from which “nothing in
all creation” can separate me.
That is what going to church is all about for me, getting a good dose of
God’s grace to clear out my head.
Away from the noise of the world, splashed awake with the waters of
Baptism, lifted up by the Word of God, strengthened by Jesus’ uniting with me
at his table, and recharged to face the struggles of life….that’s the dose of
God’s grace that I receive every Sunday when I worship. It’s the dose of grace that also awaits
you.
Feeling a bit dizzy? See
you in church!
Have a great week,
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
No comments:
Post a Comment