Through all the unbearable pain, visionary clouds appeared and slowly parted left and right. In full living color, between them I could see the bloody head, shoulders, and arms of Christ crucified on Calvary.
His head hung limp to his right side, crowned with long, protruding, jagged thorns, and oh, so bloody! He, like me, bore still more terrible pain. The sight felt gruesome.
Slowly, he turned his head toward me and looked at me. From amidst his disheveled, blood-knotted hair and beard, he looked at me with piercing eyes. A small, delicate smile came across his lips.
Christ smiled at me!
It was then I noticed how round swollen appeared his face and head, like the size of a painful watermelon. My heart cried out for him. No art had ever pictured the swollen head I could see! The vision disappeared.
“Offer your pain to Jesus on the cross.”
My daddy always said this as I went through my years of casts and braces. Now, a nine year-old boy, the pain was excruciating as the white-jacketed orderlies attempted to use a burning electric saw to cut through my leg-bound cast.
I told them my vision. One believed and one didn't. I refused the lollipop he attempted to give me as a bribe. The other reached for a nonelectric hand saw and proceeded to cut open my cast painlessly. Gently, he unwrapped the stained cotton around my leg.
