The Real Work

Its easy to fall into the trap of being so consumed with battling cancer that I forget about other things that are important too. I don't wish to become like athletes who spend so much time training for a sport that they don't do anything else, or a musician who practices to the exclusion of living. I don't want to ignore the important by merely focusing on the immediate.



I found myself unable to sleep last night, and realizing I hadn't done a thorough praying of my list of loved ones for a few days because of the tyranny of symptoms. Immediately guilty, I began at the very beginning (where else?) and started praying up a storm for my friends and family. My mind twisted and turned, trying to jump off track and I was frustrated at my inability to concentrate.



After repeated attempts to pray like a good Christian, I felt the Lord gently nudging me. Pay attention. There are things you need to take care of. Uh-oh. I quieted myself, emptied my mind and just lay still, feeling a bit like Samuel of old and hoping I would "get it" OK. I know full well I am not the nicest of persons and have done or left undone lots of inappropriate stuff. I'd like to take care of any sins now, please, before I find myself unable to clear up any overdue accounts.



Patiently, the Lord walked me through several situations that had always puzzled and frustrated me, times when I just didn't understand the dynamics of the events unfolding. He showed me things I had never realized, not in a condemning way, but helping me gain more insight.



It reminded me of when I was a girl playing in the back yard and got my long hair tangled up in burdock. We kids were playing hide and seek, and I found a marvelous hiding spot underneath a tangle of wide leaves and undergrowth next to an old oak tree on the path by the garden. As I sat still, my tummy tingled with delight thinking how I was outwitting them all and that they would never in a million years find me!

Little did I realize that I had backed up into a tall burdock plant that towered over my head. A dozen spiny brown pods had reached out to caress my brown hair, barely brushing against my head. As I turned my head this way and that looking for seekers running right past my stellar hiding spot, they became entangled deeper and deeper in a wadded mass. What a mess. When I went to stand up at the call of "allee, allee, oxen free," I was so webbed in by the burrs that they yanked me backwards, tangling more burdocks into my hair.

I tried to pull the spiny round burrs out to no avail. They were too matted. I started crying and tearing out strands to loosen myself from the tyrant plant. The more I tried to untangle the burrs, the worse they held on. In desperation I ran screaming into the kitchen holding the mess as best I could. I was hysterical, convinced that I would never be free of the horrid seeds and that I would have to cut my long tresses off.

Dad saw the problem and picked up a comb from the counter. He sat me on a stool and ran the comb straight down my head toward the tangles. I howled and pulled away. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Stop! He stepped back, laughing a bit at my predicament, knowing there was no other way to undo the damage.

Thank goodness Mom intervened. She wrapped a towel about my shoulders, and holding my hair up near my hairline to prevent pressure on my scalp from yanking of the comb, carefully wriggled fine black teeth down through my hair, sometimes stopping to untangle a strand, other times taking a small scissors to release a particularly obstinate snarl.

It took her hours of patient work to finally remove all the burrs and soothe my hair into place. That's a labor of love not soon forgotten! Just in the same way, thinking myself to be clever and witty, I entangle myself with sticky and tenacious problems in life, not even realizing the pain they will cause. Then I try to untangle them myself and end up desperate because I cannot figure out how to do so without doing more damage.

Thank goodness God is waiting to patiently work on us, taking care to inflict as little pain as possible while working through the knots and only cutting when absolutely necessary. All I have to do is sit still and cooperate, not pulling away until He is able to soothe my trouble soul and restore some measure of beauty. Now that's the REAL work I dare not suspend just because I have some physical issues to tend to! After all, I am so much more than just a body.