May Day! ... for Me!

So I woke up on May 1st like any other day. While half of America is still battling large snowstorms, we are blessed here to have sunny, pleasant spring-like days. I am thinking to myself about all the terrible things I am seeing surrounding me at this time. The economy sinking, terrorism growing, politicians failing us, families disintegrating, nations crumbling, wars and rumors of wars. The list goes on.

I think about it. Maybe I could post about May Day. Yes, that might be catchy. Yes, for I knew that it meant distress in some way. I checked again the definition online at the Free Dictionary by Farlex.


The first definition that came up was:

"An international radiotelephone signal word used by aircraft and ships in distress signal"

How appropriate, hmmm, little old writer me, I'll use it. But I do get sidetracked. I was going to get a haircut after dinner and do a couple errands at our little shopping plaza. I sat down to eat with my husband, and I had two Very Important Things that I just had to tell him right then.

The problem is, I talk and eat at the same time and then I start coughing and choking. Sometimes it can be awful. Like last night. When I experienced my very own little May Day. Wait a minute, Lord, I was going to write about that...

Suddenly, when my husband and I realized I could not get a sip of water or any beverage down and I felt like a big air bubble was trapped inside my stomach but I could not release it, my husband, who had worked in a GI lab, said we needed to go to the Emergency Room right away.

May Day! It is a panicky feeling when your saliva gets backed up and it starts to make you sick. I started hyperventilating, and by the time we reached the ER, my blood pressure had risen higher from its normal low.

They took me right away, just as my husband predicted. They gave me some meds in my IV to help the sphincter relax. It did respond a bit, but definitely did not clear. It was kind of humorous to me (if you could be laughing at a time like that!)but the nurse called the attending ER Physician and said:
"I have a food bolus in Room 14"

Now I have worn many different hats in my life, but being called a "food bolus in room 14" was never one of them. We did manage a laugh or two between my spit up sessions.

Everyone on the GI team assembled. All we needed was my doc. Please, what was taking him so long?

May Day! I am still gagging.

While all this is happening, I think, "God are you showing me that Iam the one who is in distress?"

I have to admit that I have a painful situation that I have carried for many years. It has not resolved, and it probably never will, this side of heaven. It is a person close to me that I deeply love, that I have sought to reach, to restore a relationship with. That person does not want to requite my affection in any way. I am hurt beyond words. I am grieving and it manifests itself in illness that is leaking out in various parts of my body.

By the end of the evening, I have an upper GI. My husband is present and doesn't like what he sees.

I have to deal with this.

I love this person.

But I have to get over the pain that hurts me.

Then I think about the ONE MAN who knew this suffering a trillion times more than I ever could. He knew billions of years ago, when He looked down the corridors of history, that this very thing would happen, even though He did not cause it.
He was looking down in love at all of us involved. He saw every part of it. I believe He felt every anguishing tear that we shed. He is not just a God that is way off somewhere, watching us groan and squirm down here.(Matt. 28:20)

Yet I am on a path, I want to count all things loss if only I will gain Christ at the end. (Phil. 3:7)

It says in Isaiah 52:14: "So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men."

Well, I can't say I have suffered like that or what Jesus did in Hebrews 2:9:

"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone."

My suffering is probably caused a lot by my own failures to receive and apply grace in my own situation. So the Lord allowed me to suffer my own little May Day distress signal.

I was at the doc's mercy then. Who knows what would have happened if I didn't get treatment.

All I can say to my Gracious Heavenly Father today is:

Psalm 25:4 Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths

25:5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You [are] the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.

One last note, this post was about suffering distress. If you have not personally believed in Jesus Christ, the most horrid distress of all is awaiting you, ending up in a place the Bible calls the Lake of Fire.(Rev. 20:15) But Wait! You DO NOT have to go there! For Jesus has also heard the distress call of everyone on this planet. He awaits your positive consent to the facts of the gospel:
Jesus came as your substitute and died as the perfect God-Man upon the cross, bearing every sin you ever will or ever did commit.(Romans 3: 10-17) He completely satisfied God's wrath against all the sins of mankind.(Isaiah 53:10-11) God proved His satisfaction by raising Christ from the dead. You can be a fresh, BRAND new creature forever and be rescued eternally from the Lake of Fire by receiving God's gracious gift given through His Son.(II Cor. 5:17) If you believe this is in your heart, you will be saved from the wrath to come.(John 3:16, Romans 4:5) I beg you, do not put it off.