Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 13, 2022
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Sick day
Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the Lord of hosts.
A week ago I was sick all night, visiting the bathroom over and over. Yesterday I was sick all day, visiting the bathroom over and over, even more often than my night of woe a week ago.
Yesterday started out great. I took a shower and cut my fingernails, watched Daytripper with Margaret, read our devotion, prayed and sang, and reviewed our wonderful time with the Tomitas Friday night at Mozart’s Christmas Show on the Lake. The weather turned cold and wet, but nobody seemed to mind. We loved watched our grandkids happy together, hugging each other, laughing, drinking s’mores hot chocolate, and singing along with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
It was Miles’ birthday, which he told the pianist. The pianist’s birthday was on Thursday! Miles’ birthday gifts were musical: a keyboard and a set of electric drums. He told Ben, the piano player, he got a keyboard for his birthday. Both of them wanted to celebrate.
Sing praise to the Lord with harp and song, with trumpets and the sound of the horn. Sing joyfully before the King, the Lord.
As the morning progressed I wanted to go back to sleep, before the Illini played Purdue, a game they unexpectedly eventually lost. Sleep was impossible; before long I knew I needed to get to the bathroom quickly, and that happened again and again all afternoon. I tried drinking a little water, but it wouldn’t stay down. I tried a few sips of 7-Up, but that wouldn’t stay down. I tried some of Margaret’s just-made chicken broth, and a few saltines.
Over a few hours I had a few sips of the chicken broth, and that stayed down. Hallelujah!
But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.
I have to say, sitting here before the computer screen, that writing is much easier when I am not completely weak and throwing up every few minutes. I guess I am recovering from whatever it is that plagued me on Fridays and Saturdays the last two weeks. Because I just wrote that sentence, and now I am writing another one. God is good.
We instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.
Well, here I am working again. But the last thing I plan to do right now is eat. Save that for tomorrow. Today has enough trouble of its own.
Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.
(Malachi 3, Psalm 98, 2 Thessalonians 3, Luke 21)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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