My friend recently bought me a book of 400(!!!) writing prompts; thanks, Alyssa. I started it and was instantly drawn in by the self-discovery that was taking place. I always used my gut-response answers and some of them were different than what I thought I would have said.
One prompt read: "Who is your rock?"
Easy answer: Jesus. But I wanted to think who my earthly rock would be. Surely it would be my dad, since he is my primary caregiver concerning everything Bipolar, but, to my surprise, I wrote, "mom."
Don't get me wrong. My mom is one of the kindest, most loving people you will ever meet. It's just that she's not a part of as much of my day-to-day life as my dad is (although she would be if she could... she lives about an hour away).
I pondered this, curious. Then, an image, a visceral feeling surfaced in me. I was a scared, young 18-year-old girl with NO clue what was to come in the next days, months, years, but the anesthesiologists had to get me ready for surgery by inserting the spinal catheter that would theoretically provide the nerve-block that would allow surgery to happen. (I say theoretically since my main anesthetist told me that sometimes this kind doesn't work, depending on how it goes in... not meaning to scare you, but IT DIDN'T WORK. But that's a story for another time).
I distinctly remember my dad pacing back and forth in the pre-op area; I think he was holding a bottle of water practically squeezing it to death.
I was very confused with several doctors/nurses working on me at the same time.
But there stood my mom like a caryatid: regal, sure, steadfast, calm.
Then, my biggest pre-op fear had to happen: the inserting of the catheter into my spine. I panicked and looked around, hoping for any escape from this fear; "Wouldn't the meds from my hand I.V. work just fine?" I said to the doctor. Then, regal, sure, steadfast, calm, came my mother. They turned me around and my mom gripped both my upper arms, steadying me; I held onto her for dear life. I whimpered to her... "It's okay; I know it's scary, but it's okay." She repeated in the special voice with which only a mother can calm her child's fear. I jumped as I felt the long needle go in and she steadied me still. Then, blessed then, they told me that it was in and I had to lie down as it was time to go to the operating room.
I was recalling this exact story to my mom on the phone tonight when I finally understood the Scripture in Hebrews about Jesus, our High Priest, having to become human and suffer our frailties and temptations in order to be able to minister to us at all, let alone save us.
The reason my mom can be compared (in limited, human terms) to the Rock that is Christ is because, being older than me and a woman of the same demographic as me, she's been through all I'm going through. In that moment that the epidural was inserted, I didn't want my dad to hold me because he had no idea what it's like. I needed someone who'd been there before, and, after having four babies, it was safe to say that my mother had.
On the phone call to my mom, I began to realize a new way that I love Jesus. He didn't just die for me; he suffered for me. Hebrews 5:7-9 (NASB) reads, "In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation..." These verses along with Heb. 4:14-16, having to do with Jesus, the Great High Priest, who sympathizes with our weaknesses and whom we can approach freely in our time of need came to my mind.
I want nothing to do with a Celestial Dictator who has never felt what we feel (hello, Enneagram 4).
My mom and Jesus are rocks because they have already suffered what I am and will suffer and have come back in time with a postcard saying, "It will be okay."
To you, the sufferer, I say: It will be okay.
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