What Needs To Be Done

I lay awake in the middle of the night, worrying.  The next day I had to go to the hospital.  And I really, really didn't want to.

It was a routine procedure, one done many times a day to all sorts of people in complete safety, and I had been told that it wasn't scary at all.  But as I lay in darkness, all I could think was that I didn't want to go.

We have all been there.  We know that we must undertake the task that lies before us, but our hearts clench and our stomachs knot and our mind drags its feet and says no, no, no, I don't want to, I don't want to.

Opening wide for the dentist's drill.  Cleaning up after a sick child.  Admitting fault. Walking into the dialysis center...the cancer clinic...the funeral parlor.

We don't want to hurt.  We don't want to suffer.  However brave we want to be, however warriorlike we feel, still we tremble and shrink and shudder inside at the threatening prospect before us. 

It is human, this fear, this trembling.  It is a part of who we are. With the higher-level thinking of our greater-than-animal brains we understand that we can be hurt. That it hurts to hurt. We look to the future and see hurt lying within it, and we strain backward against the leash of time and try to keep ourselves from having to step over to that place in which lies the ugly thing that is going to cause us unhappiness.

But, trembling humans though we be, as much as we don't don't don't want to...yet, we do.

We walk in the door.  We open our mouths.  We bend to our task, accepting that as much as we don't want to, we must. Though our hearts shriek in terror, still, we do what must be done.

It is a beautiful thing, this human courage, made all the more beautiful by the knowledge of the fear that came before it.  If we did not have that moment of I don't want to, life would be easy.  But it isn't easy, and we face it anyway.  There is great loveliness in the indomitable strength of the resolute human spirit.

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In a quiet garden on a Thursday night a man cried out in anguish.  I don't want to . . . I don't want to.  Please, isn't there some other way?  I know what's coming and I don't, I don't, I don't want to.

But then He did.

Jesus, God but also man, knew what lay ahead. He would face unendurable suffering of body, mind and heart.  The next day was going to be so very hard.

And He was human.  So He trembled. And He cried. And He didn't want to do it.

Somehow, it seems to me, knowing how much He didn't want to do it makes it mean so much more that He did it anyway.

The glory of Easter morning, the smell of lilies and the white cloths and pastel dresses and pretty eggs, does the heart good.  I love the joy of that precious day.  But it is so much sweeter with the knowledge of what came before.  A man, trembling in a garden.  And then, a raised chin.  Straightened shoulders. The decision that took all the strength in the world . . . to do what needed to be done.

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That routine procedure I was so worried about?  It was a colonoscopy.

Those of you who have had one will nod sagely and smile a bit when I mention prep day.  The colonoscopy itself is a breeze; the day before, not so much.  It's not THAT bad, really, but it's also no fun.  Not the way you would ordinarily choose to spend your time.

I requested the procedure because my mom died of colon cancer.  I really don't want the same thing to happen to me.  Not for my own sake so much, but because I have kids.  I want them to have their mom for as long as possible.  As I held the bottle of Miralax-laced Gatorade in my hand on prep day, thinking I don't want to I don't want to, I thought of my loved ones, and how they needed me to do this.  I needed to face the scary stuff because I didn't want to die because I needed to live for them.

My Jesus didn't want to die. But His love was stronger than His I don't want to. He stepped forward, toward the arresting soldiers, toward the cross, toward the terror of what the next day held.  He needed to die so that He could live for us, so that we could live in Him.

In the face of life's trials, with the knowledge of my Savior's sacrifice for me, my heart falls to its knees and lifts its voice in prayer.  Father, not my will but thine be done.  Let me live with courage.  Help me to march forth in faith and offer my life to the service of my fellow man.  Fill me with the strength to know that no matter what trials I face, because You did, I can.

First published in The Alpena News on March 5, 2016