It was a different kind of birthday experience I had this year.
You see, this past weekend, just a day before my birthday, I admitted myself last Sunday in the wee hours (2am/3am 1st day of DST that day, too) of the morning to the ER because of stomach pain since Friday night. The ER were jam-packed. Spent all Sunday morning and better part of the afternoon in the ER hallway waiting (my own version of "no rooms in the inn" misfortune).
It was diagnosed that I have an acute appendicitis. And to think this all happened during Lent—somehow, and fittingly, an opportunity opened up to deepen both me and my wife's Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving during my ordeal in the hospital.
I got to offer up my pain and suffering, and an opportunity to pray quietly for the healing of all the sick I saw in the ER, as well as all the current patients at that hospital while waiting almost 15 hours before to getting a room; I also got to fast for more than 24-36 hours without food and water. I'm also especially grateful to my wife, who has been by my side through it all, offering her own form of almsgiving—driving, washing, and dressing me, even assisting an adjacent patient and their family while waiting for a room—despite her exhaustion and lack of sleep. At the culmination, when surgery was about to perform that evening, funny enough, I found myself positioned in a crucified pose during my surgery, just before being put to sleep.
They kept me in the hospital overnight and was finally able to go home on my birthday. Indeed my special day this year was different, it was different because the gift of life our heavenly Father has continue to blessed me feel even more profound, literal and real especially after coming so close to the cusp of mortality on the eve of my birthday and and this season of lent. I got to sense and experience all in one, God's love, healing mercy and saving grace on my birthday.
All blessings, honor, praise, and thanksgiving unto Him for allowing me to see another year with cherished family and friends.
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