MERCY, NOT SACRIFICE

I sincerely fear waking up and getting out of bed in the mornings. For an entire week I've woken up feeling half-paralyzed, the other half aching in every joint in my body, particularly my knees and my ankles. I can't even sit to pee in the mornings (sorry for the visual), let alone get back up to finish, which makes me take peeing in a bowl for granted, something I used to joke about after my stays at the hospital. I've gotten the hang of this routine of waking up, feeling it, crying for a bit, finally getting up after trying for half an hour, going to the kitchen to get something to eat before popping ibuprofen pills, attempting to get back into bed and lay down with the least amount of pain possible, then falling back asleep, hoping to wake up to the healing power of over-the-counter medicine. Last night I was in bed for 19 hours. After 12 hours, I got up for meds and fell back asleep for another 7. That's almost an entire day. Then usually by nightfall, I have the fattest ankles but I feel okay until the next morning. I'm quite proud of myself to be doing it alone... only four days ago I was waking my roommate up, begging in tears to help me do something about it. Anyways, to keep this short, this post was really written with the intent on sharing these next set of words from the books of Matthew and Luke. If everything happens for a reason, then this past week has been (and after three ER visits and countless meds, needles, bloodwork, urine samples, you-name-it, this past year has been...) so I can better relate to Christ's perfect work here on earth for our brokenness:

"As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." 

— Matthew 9:9-13

How good is He who is faithful enough to beat humility down into our bodies and mind until we understand it in our hearts:

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." 

— Luke 18:9-14