There are times in our lives, when we will suffer for what we have done.
This is difficult to accept and more difficult to absorb. Too often, we feel that we are punished for no reason at all, particularly when we are doing something nice for another person.
On Good Friday night, I was returning after serving at church; I spoke with my wife, Linda, telling her to pour the wine. It was about 8:45. When I exited my car, my wife called me from the middle of the front lawn. I didn’t see her at first, due to the darkness. In other words, I was listening to my inner voice, ignoring what was happening around me.
When I became aware of the situation, I saw Linda sitting on the lawn with my daughter’s Chocolate Lab by her side. She could not get up; she immediately told me that we had to go to the hospital, because she thought she broke her arm. She did!
After a week of dancing around emergency rooms and inattentive appointment personnel, we saw an orthopedic surgeon, and she had a plate placed in her arm to stabilize her seriously damaged elbow. She is recovering nicely, except for the discomfort and itching that goes along with having a splint from her shoulder to her wrist. Aloe and Betadine seems to have calmed the itch temporarily.
This is not the punishment that I mention; the true punishment is the lack of mobility. Linda cannot drive; she cannot continue leading the volunteers at The Table at St. George’s, the feeding ministry that she leads. Wonder Woman has been sidelined due to injuries. The disappointment and frustration is the punishment Linda is realizing; and for what? Walking our daughter’s Lab, that we were watching for the weekend?
John Belushi used to say that Life is a bitch and then you die. How and why is it necessary for people, such as Linda, to suffer for doing a good deed? God seems to be punishing her for being a good mother.
We cannot know the answer to this. However, I look at this as a partial blessing. I have been praying that Linda step back from the grueling leadership position at the feeding ministry and let others do the long tedious minute-by-minute planning and adjusting the layout as the market day unfolds.
With this unfortunate broken elbow and our 50th anniversary trip to Alaska and Western Canada later this month, Linda will have been sidelined for over two months. Perhaps, when she returns to The Table, she will let others do the tedious work, while she begins to spend more time planning for the future of feeding our neighbors.
I doubt this seriously; Wonder Woman never quits. Secretly, I am very happy about this. We are both in our 70s; keeping busy, serving others, and doing God’s work is a blessing that keeps both of us young and healthy.
Even if we can’t keep pace with a hundred-pound Lab chasing an Easter Bunny.
God bless!
Meditating to Heal 