A Gift of Resurrection

As I type this it is Easter morning. I hadn’t planned on writing this blog. But when I awoke this morning the kernel of an idea was forming in my mind and I find that is the best time to write

It doesn’t always make the writing quick or easy… but I guess the creative engine runs best when there is actual fuel in the proverbial tank. Which today that fuel is the idea of resurrection.

Now I’m sure the Christian’s ears are perking up at that while less religious folk might be rolling their eyes or clicking the back button. This isn’t an attempt to proselytize anyone.

This is simply me, talking about my thoughts, and Hoping it helps you. Free will means you can do with my ideas as you will. Though regardless of whether or not you agree with me on a theological level. I pray you get something positive from my words.

So here goes. When you have pulmonary fibrosis, be it idiopathic or non-idiopathic, it feels like you are dying. Oh it may not feel that way at first. When your not yet on supplemental oxygen or only on very small amount.

Yet as time goes by, for some blissfully slowly for others rapidly, things get harder. Somethings even impossible to do. Have you ever run all out as hard as you can for as long as you can? Know that achy, can’t catch your breath feeling you get as you push yourself?

That felling in your throat when you stop with Chest heaving? If your throat would just open a little wider or your ribs expand just a couple inches…  You’d get that much needed air. That’d stop the joint aches, the stabbing pains, the shakiness.

Now imagine that feeling slowly walking across the room. Imagine that feeling trying to put on your socks, grab something from the top shelf, bath yourself, or any number of other mundane daily tasks.

That is what pulmonary fibrosis begins to feels like as it progresses. Now imagine that feeling as you lay in bed doing nothing. Your not sitting up, your not rolling over… Just laying there… that’s what it feels like at the end.

Now here’s where the part of resurrection comes in. Whether you believe in his deviating or not… He is a recognized historical figure who died on a cross believing it was for the sake of others.

People often seem to focus on the being nailed to across part here. But what actually kills a crucified person is asphyxiation… Asphyxiation is basically oxygen deprivation taken to the point where a person passes out, vital systems can begin to shut down, and if not remedied every thing shuts off.

On a cross a person is hung in such a way that they can not breath without raising themselves up. But they cant move their arms or legs. Making this is very difficult. So they struggle to lift themselves. Gasp for air. Slump back down. Repeating over and over until their strength gives out and they suffocate.

There is no cross involved, but pulmonary fibrosis kills through asphyxiation also. By scarring the lungs so badly that the sufferer’s struggle for air becomes more and more difficult…

However there is no lifting yourself up for air. There is supplemental oxygen and there is exercises to help your body use the oxygen more efficiently. But eventually the air runs out.

Now before anyone gets to depressed from the down and gloom I’ve just spouted out across the internet via my keyboard… this is Easter.

So what got me thinking about all this was the idea that Jesus suffered so much and in the end… he suffocated. Then after three days in the dark he awoke and all the pain and suffering had been overcome. He was breathing again. The pain and the aching was gone. It wasn’t the end after all.

What an amazing feeling that must have been. Even if you are not a believer just use your imagination. Imagine how amazing it would feel to awaking after a few days… dead to the world. To discover you could breath again after suffocating to death.

I’m not comparing my suffering Jesus’s, but I can tell you I don’t have to imagine what that feeling of awaking and being able to breath again feels like. It is a feeling like no other.

I can not put it into words that would do it justice. But I am sure there are other lung transplant recipients that would agree with me. Both in the suffering before hand and the feeling afterward.

Here is hopefully where I tie all this together in a neat little bow. Ultimately the story of Jesus Christ is about a man’s death making it possible for others to live… All of us have the opportunity in this day and age to make it possible for others to live when we die.

I am still alive… I awoke after my suffering because a brave woman named Ja’Lynne died. But she didn’t simply pass away. She had made the discussion to be an organ donor. She died, without ever knowing it on this side of things, so that I might live.

That is very humbling to me and I truly hope that I am correct in my faith so that I may thank her profusely one day.

Please, regardless of your thoughts or beliefs on resurrection, register to be an organ donor.There are many many more people out there just like me. Waiting for their transplant miracle.

The feeling that one’s body has been restored to some sense of health. That life has been “resurrected” to some semblance of normality… is an amazing gift to receive.

It’s a gift all of us can offer to give.