Tuesday, June 6, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
The waiting game
I went to see some doctors for a cure but the more they anointed my eyes with various salves, the worse the cataracts became, until I could see no more.
I guess, in the saga of my heart repair, this is my week of waiting. Nothing happens till 6 am on Monday June 12, when I report to the hospital surgery for my heart cath. That gives me a whole week to worry. I remember worrying like this before my US Army physical, when my draft number (166) was low enough to make me draftable in the next few months, and my efforts at conscientious objection, supported by several pastors from my home town, were going nowhere. I thought, well, I might have a wool allergy, since my socks made my feet itch.
I went to Chicago for my physical, surrounded by other guys like me and very different from me. We all looked about the same to the draft doctors, though. We were in the hundreds that day, and shunted through the lines very quickly. They did not take my wool allergy seriously, nor did I did not make it Arlo Guthrie’s Group W bench. That’s because I had never been arrested, although I did spend the night in jail with a friend because he was speeding and I was riding on the back of his motorcycle and I guess the police thought I had nowhere else to go. The next day our Valparaiso freshman comp teacher came over to Hammond Indiana and bailed us out.
I waited an hour yesterday for a vehicle safety inspection. I waited a few minutes longer than I thought fair at a stoplight on the way home. I waited for our Sunday School potluck line to shorten on Sunday. But those were not tense waitings. I read a book. I listened to “Palisades Park” on the radio. I was in no hurry, and nobody expected anything of me. I wasn’t going on stage, or into the army, or … into the hospital for a heart cath. I thought those days of tense waiting were over, but I guess not.
When I am waiting and get nervous, I start to cough. That’s my cue that I need to pray, so I do, and I say the name of Jesus over and over, and I pray, “Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” That often feels like an accurate accusation, but I don’t think God hears it the way I do. I think he hears it like the song on yesterday’s Pray as You Go: “my sweet Jesus, look with mercy on my soul … this is not a prayer of the proud, but of someone aware of their sins and willing to say so.
An evil report he shall not fear; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steadfast; he shall not fear. The heart of the just one is firm, trusting in the Lord.
Come, Lord Jesus. I don’t receive your love and forgiveness like you want me to, but I want to learn. I think I am learning. Day by day.
(Tobit 2, Psalm 112, Ephesians 1, Mark 12)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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