Cupped

Last night my beautiful Ginny again helped me research and transcribe Short’s 1854 Diary.

Wow! But we had fun… Er, at least one of us did.

The woman is crazy about me!

Picture a teenage girl hanging out under a shade tree while her boyfriend works on the exhaust manifold of his jalopy. Know how fascinated she is with the intricacies of the exhaust manifold? Then why is she hanging around there for hours?

When you picture that girl and you have a pretty good picture of Ginny helping me research and transcribe a 155-year-old diary.

It fascinates me—and I fascinate her.

Ain’t love grand!

It thrilled me to run across this passage in the diary:

Sunday, October 22, 1854

This has been a very gloomy day. Attended S. School. Dr. Klepper preached at night. Retired feeling perfectly well but at twelve awoke a sore throat that approached almost to sufferation.

Monday, October 23, 1854

Sent for Dr. McFarland. He cupped me and left medicine. At night felt some better.

Tuesday, October 24, 1854

My throat continues very painful. Did not leave my bed during the day.

Wednesday, October 25, 1854

Felt some better to-day. Was up a little. Took medicine. Hope to well soon again. My duties are very urgent.

Thursday, October 26, 1854

My throat is much better to-day . Did not get to prayer meeting. I hope soon to be able to attend to my duties.

Yes. The physician cupped his strep throat—that means the doctor bled him.

In museums I’ve seen old medical kits which contained cups for bleeding patients. The glass or metal cups look like little whisky shot glasses to me. The doctor would make an incision over the afflicted area, press the right-sized cup over the wound, and drain off that amount of blood.

I hope my doctor doesn’t read this. He might try that treatment on me. You wouldn’t believe some of the things he’s wanted to do to me in the past!

But being cupped must have worked for William Short because he lived at least another 52 years after this. Yes, being cupped made him feel better.

Speaking of feeling better, at 7 this morning, my friend Barbara White called. Although feeling bad sick from cancer and chemo Tuesday, she is feeling so much better that she felt like driving over here herself and going to breakfast at Dave’s Diner—where the staff hugged and greeted her enthusiastically.

When Barbara arrived at our house, she told me that the physical therapist at the retirement home where she lives had brought her a gel cushion for her chair. “It was miraculous,” she said. “I was so miserable with bone pain—absolute agony—that I couldn’t get comfortable in any position. Then I fell asleep and woke up feeling fine. That cushion worked wonders”.

Barbara said she felt relief from her pain suddenly. One minute it was there, the next minute it wasn’t.

Isn’t that odd.

I asked Barbara if she had read my blog entry for July 8^th (An Odd Bit Of Prayer). She said she has not turned on her computer for a week or so.

She feels so much better. You’d think she’d been cupped.

At Dave’s she said that with her hair falling out in patches and tuffs, she must look weird.

I comforted her saying, “Barbara, you don’t look any weirder now than you’ve always looked”.

See, I do spread Christian light and joy wherever I go.

After talking about her chemo treatments and symptoms for a few minutes, Barbara said, “That’s enough of that. I am not my cancer. There’s more to me than cancer. I don’t want to talk about that all through breakfast”.

So I talked about my diary project and she told me about a novel by Josephine Tey, Daughter Of Time, a mystery involving a museum researcher.

And we talked about Christ being the propitiation for sin.

I don’t run across the word propitiation in everyday conversation often.

My dictionary says it means to regain the lost favor or goodwill of an offended party.

Paul uses that word in his letter to the Romans:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,

The Apostle John uses that same word referring to Jesus:

He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world…Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The Son of God dying on the cross for us regains the lost favor and goodwill of God.

But aren’t we God’s favorites? Isn’t He just tickled pink that we do what we do?

Not necessarily.

The Scripture also says the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness.

We are what we are and we do what we do, and as Paul said above, everyone of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory God intended us for.

Unrighteousness generates wrath.

The white-hot purity of our holy God does not co-exist with degrading sin.

Not only have we done wrong, unrighteous, wicked, sneaky, low-down, sinful, nasty things, we relish them. As a dog returns to his vomit to lick it up again, we go back and do the same things over and over again—that’s Paul’s image, not mine.

We fester with sin.

We need to be cupped.

Well, if that’s what it takes… “Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood”.

God loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

We lost it.

The Lord Christ came to earth so we can regain what we lost.

Didn’t mean to get to preaching, but this good news is thrilling.

Oh, speaking of getting cupped, how much blood did it take for Christ to take on our sin and be our propitiation?

All of it.

He held back nothing that would benefit us.

Yes, being God in the flesh and Lord of life, Christ rose from the dead. But that resurrection came later.

He hurt first.

After breakfast, Barbara hung around in our garden talking for a couple of hours. That gel cushion must have indeed worked wonders because she’s feeling so much better.

I told her one of Donald’s jokes:

Anthropologists found this tribe in the Amazon who worship the numeral Zero… That answers the age-old question, “Is nothing sacred”?

Barbara groaned.

Do you suppose that’s her pain coming back again?