Grieving

I had surgery just two weeks ago.  According to my clock it was six months going on five years.  I was feeling better last week and persuaded my lovely to go to the Azalea festival.  Wilmington is known for it.  It's a big deal and we'd never been.  So we went.  Had a great time.  That night I started to bleed again and had to take a pain pill.  It set me back a mile. 
Now, I'm raging against the limitations and the realities of a six to eight week recuperation.  What do you mean I can't mow the lawn.  The visiting nurse smiles like the Mona Lisa and rolls her eyes at my wife.
But it occurred to me that there's more going on here than pain and weakness.  It's Holy Week and I'm not in the center of a community's remembrance of Jesus' passion.  It has been my normality for forty-one years and suddenly I'm an innocent bystander.  I'm grieving.
Retirement has bumps, and no matter how you plan and carefully consider the edges that will be difficult.  No matter how you empathize with the others you've helped through their change of life times, you get ambushed. 
It's not a plan, it's life.  Tis what it Tis.  The gift is given and whether it is what you wanted or not, it's the one you've got. 
I've had trouble with my body before but I was bluntly reminded by one of the wise visiting nurses that I'd never had gut surgery.  So there noobie, sit down and shut up and give your body a chance to heal.  It won't be pretty and it won't be fun, but you can either help or hurt yourself.  Choose.
I never knew they were trained in the martial arts.
And here I am in Holy Week, closely resembling a slug.  But.....  But......
None of us can really understand someone else's pain or anguish.  And that includes our own when we haven't been there yet. 
My protestations to no avail, I will endeavor to learn, even at my advanced age and wonder in my learning if Jesus expected the extent of the pain he endured. 
But then, he didn't have a visiting nurse and .....
And he went ahead and gave himself to the pain. 

On another tack, the local pastor asked me to preach twice this week at two noon services.  I got it done.  The homilies are included, for better or worse.