Like the last time and the time before, I’m struck by how routine all this has become and by how strong my wife is in the face of chronic pain and constant medical procedures with uncertain outcomes. The girl just doesn’t give up. Sure, she gets scared, but she refuses to lose her sense of humor. Besides the time we spent praying together, we quite literally cracked jokes until the moment the nurse banished me to the waiting area. I, of course, revisited all of our running gags developed over the last eleven years:

1. Mocking the flight attendant-style speech I get about the waiting area that, by now, I can repeat verbatim: “To your left is the bathroom and in the back alcove is the coffee machine. Your beeper signal extends to the cafe. . .blah blah blah.”
2. Telling Kerry to swing around the IV pole and singing Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion while she prepares to change into her hospital gown 
3. Demanding that she make me a sandwich after she puts on the cafeteria-style surgery hairnet.
4. Asking Kerry if she remembers whether the radius of my beeper signal extends to the cafe (my wife loves a good call-back joke).

Also part of the routine: we invariably get placed next to someone much worse off than us, and that person is invariably incredibly flatulent. And they never have any shame about it either. Based on the robustness and clarity of sound, our pre-surgery neighbor this time around was clearly pushing. And I’m pretty sure he lied about not eating since midnight because those were eggs and home fry farts if I’ve ever heard them–and I have.

That’s when the shaving started. After enduring about 10 minutes of the constant hum from an electric razor, Kerry asked just loud enough that she was probably overheard, “what the hell are they shaving over there?” Because the thin pre-surgery pod drapes offer little privacy, we then clearly heard a doctor discussing the patient’s 3rd bypass surgery. Apparently the flatulent sasquatch has a bum ticker, which makes some sense since he’s a known Jack Link’s beef jerky addict. All kidding aside, this news quickly sobered us up and stopped the steady stream of hilarity, which is really too bad because I didn’t even get the chance to refer to our neighbor as “Farty McPoopypants” before feeling too sorry for him to continue.

Wait what? If I felt bad, why am I still making fun of him? Because besides making her comfortable and keeping her meds on a tight schedule, I consider it my most important duty to make her laugh both before and after her surgeries.

I guess instead of cracking jokes, I could tell you how much my head hurts from unconsciously grinding my teeth while imagining my fragile little wife passed out on a cold operating table. I guess I could tell you how much I’ve hated seeing the hope build in her that maybe, just maybe, this one will be different, only to be disappointed 16 consecutive times. I guess I could tell you how much I love her and how willing I would be to share her burden. I’d say “share” instead of “take” because I don’t know if I’m as strong as she is. I guess I could tell you how lucky I am to have married a woman who gives endometriosis the stink-eye and vows to never stop fighting–she’ll never give in and let the pain prevent her from being the wife, mother, and teacher she wants to be. While I could have said all of those things, I chose to instead focus on fart jokes because frankly, it’s easier, and they’ll make Kerry laugh when she reads this.

Here’s to hoping this surgery will be different. Lucky number 17–it was my baseball jersey number in high school, so at least that’s something. I am officially accepting positive thoughts and new-agey good vibes pointed in Kerry’s direction, but I’d prefer actual prayers. Please pray for my wife. Pray for the end of her pain, and don’t you dare water it down to “less pain” or “a little relief”. If this surgery doesn’t do it, I’ll keep fighting right along side her. Mark my words, faithful readers–that heating pad is getting torched in glorious, cleansing fire if it’s the last thing I do.

Now, I know why I’m uncomfortable doing this. Partly because I’m writing on a blog with a tagline stolen from a Notorious B.I.G song, but mostly because I have more questions than I have answers. Those of you who know me well, know that I don’t usually put myself in that situation. I don’t even profess to be a particularly good Christian, so it should come as no surprise that I feel vastly unqualified for the job of “witness”. However, it is Easter, so I’ll step into the batter’s box. For those of you who just groaned, I promise to include an extra fart joke in my next post.

Here I go: while I certainly don’t believe the world is black and white, I do believe in a real moral law that is wholly independent from ourselves. I think at base level, we all know how we ought to behave, but we rationalize doing the other thing all the time. It’s easy to make excuses for ourselves, but the fact remains that we still feel like we need to make the excuses, even when nobody else knows about it.

When discussing this belief with my friends, most disagree with me. Generally their argument goes something like this: society has simply passed down the moral law from generation to generation, therefore no law independent of ourselves is necessary to explain it. I don’t disagree with the premise of their argument. Any parent of a three year-old has to acknowledge that we do pass down a moral code to our children. Without parental intervention, many a play-date would quickly devolve into The Lord of the Flies. I’m just not convinced that my friends’ conclusion necessarily follows.

If Mrs. Robinson, of Rushwood Elementary fame, didn’t teach me that 9×9=81, would it be any less true? Just like I can’t imagine a world where 9×9=137, I can’t imagine a world where cruelty is exalted as a virtue. Please don’t misunderstand me–I admit that people, including me, can be cruel. Incidentally, I also admit that multiplying anything beyond 12×12 in my head is slow going. What interests me is the fact that I feel like both situations have some fundamental truth that I’m measuring my results against.

Unlike Mrs. Robinson, I don’t believe that God is measuring us against a standardized test. Thankfully, I do believe He gives partial credit, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m still a million miles away from how the idea of a moral code leads to the God of Christianity and the importance of Jesus’ resurrection. For now, I will just say plainly that I believe it can. I’m going to refrain from walking you through a deep theological discussion, partly because it’s 11:57 and I’m exhausted, but mostly because it wouldn’t be much of a “discussion” without the interaction. I like sharing ideas and understanding how other people approach their belief system, not talking at people like I have it all figured out. I’m happy to have a real discussion with you about what I believe if you’d like. Just know that I will probably diverge from the topic at hand long enough to recommend that you watch the first season of The Walking Dead.

In the meantime, here are some books that helped shape my beliefs:

• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins
• What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey