You are getting sleepy...sleepy...sleepy... (think deep creepy voice)

Worked late yesterday in the OR. Then had to go to the lab to do some work only to find that a few of the things that I needed were missing AFTER I started what I needed to do. Sufficed to say, I was not happy. Really, I wasn't!!! You can ask R. I was complaining and cussing at myself. I was tired and hungry....and here I was wasting my time because there were no test tubes!!! The closest analogy would be...cooking. It's as if I had started with all the raw ingredients, starting making a meal, and then half-way into it realizing that I was missing 2 key ingredients. AND THEN...(this is where the analogy falls apart) undoing it all and ending up with the raw ingredients...and having to throw away some of the most expensive ingredients because it's been used. It's as if I had done nothing for 3 hours except waste time and resources. I guess my own stupidity. But it never occurred to me that we might be out of test tubes!!!

As I complained to myself, I began to think about Passion week and just what Jesus was going through. I thought to myself that this must be about the time when Jesus must have been praying in Gethsemane. (Later, I realized that I must be a day off...but anyway...) I started to pray and ask for forgiveness. Only a few minutes later, I'd get mad and irritated about how something else I needed was missing. And then I'd think and pray more. I'm such a wretch...ruled by my body and my desires.

But hey, this morning I started to read...and I realized that I was in pretty good company. Ha! Nonetheless, I started thinking all the more how I need to be like Paul in overcoming my own body and its desires. He says that he was like an athlete, training for a race. He would train his body so that he could master it...literally, beat it into submission.

R and I attended a retreat last month where the speaker likened us all to people who take their huge dogs out for walks. Sometimes, when they have unruly dogs, the dogs pretty much drag their owners everywhere they want to go. I mean, really, it's like the dog is walking the owner, eh? And we're the same way with our bodies. We are supposedly masters over our own bodies, and yet it drags us everywhere it wants to go. Hungry? I eat. Sleepy? I sleep. Wanna watch some TV? I do it.

But, I mean, really, who is taking whom for a walk? (I'm talking about the dog again). God, help us.

I bet the disciples were thinking the same thing when they looked back on this scene....

Gethsemane

36Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

40Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. 41"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

42He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

43When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

45Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"