M is for Mend

M is for Mend…I am on the Mend! Last week I was felled by a wicked stomach virus. I was truly knocked out. Is there anything worse than stomach stuff? Well of course, but seems like not when you are in the throes of such an illness.  My poor husband got it the week before while I was out of town. The illness is why I skipped the letter L in this meme series and hopped onto M.  We think the culprit was one of our peanut sized grand-nieces who came over one evening and promptly informed us that the night before she “spitted up a lot!” Thanks for sharing Dani!

For as miserable as I felt ( I am not a good sickie, just ask my husband), the feeling of joy was even greater at the moment when I realized I had turned the corner, when I reached that point in time when I realized that I was in fact  on-the-mend! With a little help from a prescription my wretched stomach had calmed itself enough to begin the process of mending. I couldn’t have been happier though tired, wiped out even, but indeed grateful that the worst was now behind me.  I was on the mend to being made whole again.

We spend a lot of time as human beings on-the-mend, though I am not sure we realize it. We spend much of our time healing from the small and not small tears in the fabric of our well-being. Those scrapes and bruises that come from daily contact with other human beings.  We bristle at the coworker’s indifference, get irate at being cut off on the highway, frustrated by the young person’s teenage eye rolls, or whatever happens to get under our skin. For the most part we are able to release these things and not even realize that our bodies processed pain, released it, then, even on a cellular level, began to repair the damage that the stress has caused. We are in a state of constant mending.

Marriage is filled with times of being on the mend. Not major events of some consequence but rather moments filled with simple opportunities to mend. We tick each other off only to realize that  we were wrong, by our action, inaction, or reaction, then apologize and begin the mending process. A simple heartfelt apology sets in motion momentous mending.  Most often it’s something so inconsequential that it doesn’t even warrant a discussion but the mending process is no less real. 

Marriage isn’t a series of negotiations but rather an ongoing recognition of the need to mend. It’s the recognition that both partners are fragile, easily torn but that with each tear, the person and the marriage become stronger by the opportunity to strengthen the binding. Of course some of the tears are deep, but fortunately rarely so permanent that love’s binding qualities can’t repair. I am not saying the repairs are always instantaneous; the tear may stay torn for awhile. No doubt about, we are not perfect, just people on-the-mend.

This Palm Sunday (actually every Palm Sunday) the Passion was read. At the moment of Christ’s death we learn that the curtain in the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. This is the curtain which separated the Holiest section of the temple from the rest of the sanctuary. Prior to this only the High Priest was allowed to enter this area and he only once a year.   The tear of course symbolizes the end of the old ways of keeping the people from accessing God. Christ’s death opens a pathway to the Father. HE IS the pathway. Although it is symbolized as a tear, Christ’s death and resurrection actually heals, binds, mends.  His resurrection sets in motion the process by which we continually seek healing from our often self inflicted tears because we are people always on the mend. Fortunately, we believe in the great tailor who is capable of mending whatever shredded garments we bring His way.