Isaiah 53 - new living translation Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD revealed his powerful arm?2 My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.3 He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrowst that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins!5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.10 But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the LORD’s good plan will prosper in his hands.11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins.12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
Whether you are a bible reader or not, if you have a child, you will understand this...
God is portrayed in the bible as being a perfect heavenly father and so for some people that makes sense and for others it does not. Some of us have had great fathers and some of us have had less than great fathers and so sometimes when God is described as a father there is a disconnect. But my God is a perfect heavenly father that created, maintains and blesses my life and so for me as an earthly father, I have and try to do the same things for Charlotte.
Charlotte just had her 1 year check up last week and everything went great. She's growing and healthy and all of that good stuff, but part of the one year check up included some blood work to check for lead because we live in an older house and to check things out in general. Don't worry nothing's wrong, it's normal stuff. Our insurance required that we go to an offsite lab and so yesterday we did. I looked at the order the doctor had handed us and it said "venous" a few times. Now I've never seen a baby give blood, but I am smart enough to know what venous means. Unfortunately, I'm not the best at giving blood. I don't pass out or anything, it's just that my veins like to hide a bit.
Surprise, surprise, appearantly I passed that gene onto Charlotte. The two ladies there explained that one of us would hold Charlotte, one of them would hold her arm very still and the other lady would draw the blood. Sounds easy enough, but remember she has hiding veins like me. So they put the blue latex thing around her little arm and staring to feel around. At this point Charlotte is just interested. They found a small vein, but then tried the other arm to see if anything more robust appeared. Do you want to guess? Yep no veins. They applied an infant size heating pad to her arm to try to get her veins to raise up a bit.
They then called in another staff member and he checked out some of the same things, but you could tell he was a little more experienced. He asked for a smaller needle and then gave it a go. Left arm first...and nothing. After about a minute they gave up, applied some gauze and tape and moved to her right arm. Like her dad I usually have better luck with my right arm, and after a bit of navigating around, a small flow began. They needed two tubes worth and rightly so, he only filled them up to the minimum line on the tube.
That's the general story, but in the back of my mind there was a background story happening as well. See Melissa was the one holding Charlotte when we walked in so she was the one that sat down in the chair to hold Charlotte during all of this leaving me pretty much helpless and useless. Sure I could offer comforting words, but that doesn't mean much to a 1 year old who had no idea what was happening. I also would put her pacifier in but that wouldn't last long. So I stood there and watched and like loud speaker God said, "does it make more sense now"?
Again I don't know how much you know about the bible, but basically because of our sin a price had to be paid and so God decided to send Jesus, his perfect son to earth not only so that we could see what God was like, but so that ultimately Jesus could take our place. There's a lot of deep history and meaning to God's people as far as a perfect sacrifice being made for sin that I can't get into right now, but when it all boils down, we are sinners and Jesus was perfect and when he was beaten, mocked, spit on, put on a cross, stabbed with a spear and died, he took on the sin of the world. All past sin, current sin and future sin. And that's a lot of sin. But the horrible part was that God had to look on and watch his son bleed and die and just watch.
It was the only way we could be made right with God. And so while its different, its the same. As a father I watched my daughter be pierced and bleed and I couldn't do anything to help or stop it. It had to happen and there was only one way it could happen. Does it make more sense now? While God's experience and pain was exponentially greater than mine that day, I got a glimpse of his love for me and in turn my love for Charlotte. God and Jesus went to great lengths just so that I could have a relationship with God and experience his love and grace and an eternity with him.
I'm thankful for experiences that God lets me go through that illustrate who is he and how he loves me as my perfect heavenly father. So....they got their blood, Charlotte survived and we celebrated the evening away at our favorite neighborhood park. Enjoy the pictures!
I'm sitting here on the couch. Charlotte is upstairs down for a nap and Melissa is downstairs in our bed also taking a nap. 365 days ago both of the girls in my life deserved a long nice nap after what they went through. See these posts if you want to catch up 
