Joyful Transformation

I was pleasantly surprised with my Mother when she came out of recovery yesterday. I expected the worst; the Doctor had told us she would hate him and us for at least three weeks. However, with the help of the morphine pump she was actually quite funny. My Dad is always a big cut-up so I was really enjoying watching them spar. My Mom was cracking me up especially when Daddy and I were trying to feed her. Anyway, it was good to be surprised in a pleasant way. I think she has lived with so much pain for so long that she was just glad to know that “this pain” would make her better.

As she lay there in the fashionable hospital gown I noticed that she has perfect creamy white skin on and around her collar bone. This skin has been untouched by the ravages of the sun and wind. I felt a little jealous at first. That area on my body is very tan, but that tan has come at a price. I am freckled and perhaps a little wrinkled due to exposure to the sun. But as I thought about it I knew that I would not trade the experiences that have marked my skin for the creamy perfection of missing them. Sure when I was younger I abused sun-exposure thinking the darker my tan the better I looked. But in the last several years the only sun exposure I have comes from “doing” something. I have an “X” on my back from wearing racer back tops when I play tennis. I am too hot natured to wear a sleeve! I currently look funny when I wear sandals (all the time) because my feet are white. Most of the sun I get is on the tennis courts. The other sun exposure comes from playing on the lake. Yeah, I will keep my slightly damaged skin to enjoy the things that I love to do. Now don’t misunderstand my point, my Mother would be perfectly miserable doing the things that I love! I am not implying that she has not enjoyed her life, I believe that she has.

Are we this way with other things in our lives? Do we have something that is beautiful and special so we are afraid to use it? Do we think by using it we will destroy its beauty or its worth? Don’t get me wrong, I think we should protect things within reason (and I do wear sunscreen when I am going to be out more than a couple of hours), but if we forget the reason that we are given gifts of all kind is to use them, we are cheating ourselves. We can be guilty with our looks, our homes, our church buildings, our cars even our physical safety at times. We can sit on the sidelines, we can keep an immaculate home, we can forbid eating or drinking in our church buildings and our cars or we can use what we have. Sometimes we may need to go to “that” part of town, maybe sometimes we are supposed to pick up the hitch-hiker or stop and see if we can help someone on the side of the road.

Life is extremely short, that point becomes clearer to me with each passing birthday. What exactly are we saving ourselves for? In the end we are going to get a NEW BODY!! We might as well use this one up in service and in living our lives for him.