At the cross

Today, I'm going to set the stage for a future post, because I know that for me, if blog posts are longer than a page or two, I say "forget it" and never read them, so I'm cutting this one up so you'll actually read it :-).
Four weeks ago, I went to Church in the Park in a wheelchair. My convulsions had gotten pretty bad by that point and I was regularly losing the use of my legs, hence the need for the wheelchair. During that time, if a convulsion was about to come on, I would get an "aura" of sorts, warning me of what was to come, and I could lay down and get into a safe position before my body decided to take on a mind of its own. That Sunday, I had sat through the service and someone brought me lunch so I didn't have to go through the line. I was sitting in the back, near the sound table. People were lined up within a few feet of us, waiting to get their food when I felt the "aura". I told Jason and Sonja who were standing next to me to get me out of there because with 200 people standing around, I knew someone was bound to call the medics whether we asked them to or not and the last thing Church in the Park needed was an ambulance trying to squeeze its way into the parking lot at lunch time. The problem was, I knew I only had about a minute before I couldn't control my body anymore and when Sonja turned the chair to get me out of there, she headed TOWARD the line of people. I knew there was no way we would make it past everyone before our time ran out, so I yelled at her "No! The Cross! Take me to the Cross!" She whipped the wheelchair around and headed down the hill, away from the crowd. We made it to the foot of CITP's portable cross right as my convulsion hit and I lay in the mud (it had been raining all week) until my convulsions stopped long enough to get me into the car and on my way home.
I didn't think much of the significance of what had happened until days later, when life got even more difficult and the reality of my illness hit home. I now had a vivid image in my brain of Sonja dumping me at the foot of the cross, and when the fear and the anger and the pain of my situation all rained down on me at once, I was reminded that I had been dumped at the foot of His cross and that the blood that He shed while upon that cross covered me utterly and completely. Even though that particular cross meant nothing in and of itself, the symbolism of it helped remind me of where I lay, each and every day, at the foot of the cross of the One Who gave His life for me.