Several weeks ago I found this graphic on the Internet and at first I chuckled, and then realized I needed to take it more seriously. To say these words hit close to home for me, is an understatement. For much of my life, but especially this past year, I sure haven’t been the one holding the eraser. But that hasn’t been because I’ve been compliant and obedient to God. Trust me, my plans have been written in ink as far as I was concerned, and so I haven’t been very happy when they were erased and replaced with plans I didn’t want.
As many of you know, I had my fifth back surgery last September and I was told beforehand that it would be a relatively “easy” surgery with a fairly “fast” recovery. This wasn’t the case with the first four surgeries, so I was excited to hopefully have a short interruption to my plans. Enter the eraser. After opening up my back, it didn’t take long for the surgeon to realize that things were much worse than expected. The disc that they thought was just herniated, turned out to be completely loose in my spinal column. As a result, they had to put a cage in the area, chisel away 16 years of bones to remove old rods and screws from a prior fusion, and then put new ones in. By the time the doctor showed up in my room after surgery, it was obvious that he didn’t have good news. He told me that he was sorry that it was so much worse than expected, and that he had no idea how long my recovery would be…but it would be long.
This sure wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I still hoped I would bounce back more quickly than expected. Enter the eraser. For some reason, after this surgery I had terrible pain in my groin area and as a result, I couldn’t sit upright. Tests were done and different therapies tried, but five months later, I still was unable to sit more than just 10 minutes at a time. As you can imagine, this put a huge halt to many of my plans.
Finally, by the end of March, my “sit-ability” was improving and things were looking up. I started making plans for the spring and summer and really felt like the worst was over.
Enter the eraser. I started having severe pain in my left knee. I have had pain in both of my knees for several years due to arthritis, but it hasn’t had a big affect on my day-to-day living. This new pain though, was different. With every step the pain seemed to worsen and so as a result, I found myself sitting in another surgeon’s office to see what was wrong. I was told that I had meniscus tears on both sides of my knee and that I was almost bone-on-bone. But the doctor said that he didn’t feel I was at the point yet of needing surgery and I wholeheartedly agreed. My response to him went something like this, “Oh I do not want surgery. I just had a major one in September and I’m still healing from it…so you won’t see me back in your office for a very long time. I won’t return until I can’t walk.”
Enter the eraser. Within 9 weeks I was once again in his office, telling him that I was finding it very difficult to walk and the pain was much worse. Much to his surprise, after checking my knee over, he said that it was in a very rapid, downhill spiral and I didn’t have any choice but to have a complete knee replacement. Surgery was scheduled for August 20th.
We took off on June 20thto spend 12 days in North Carolina. I was really looking forward to this trip because I felt I needed some rest and relaxation before going through another surgery and recovery. Just two days into our trip…enter the eraser. My surgeon’s office called and said they wanted to move up my knee replacement to today, July 9th. That was the good news; the bad news was that they needed me back home by the next Monday to begin pre-surgery testing. So our vacation was cancelled and we headed back home. Lord willing, later this morning I will be the owner of a brand new knee.
I’ll be honest…I hate erasers. I really dislike having my plans changed, especially when they involve more pain and times of recovery. I wish I could say that I have always handled this past year with grace and a sweet spirit towards the One who has been holding the eraser, but I can’t. There have been times when I have been really ticked at God. There have been times when I have cried and begged Him to reconsider the new change of plans and just immediately heal me.
Maybe you can understand my feelings because you also find yourself with many eraser marks on your life. You, like me, may be wondering what in the world God is trying to teach you through all of this, and wish you would learn it so the erasing would stop. You may be angry, discouraged and really, really frustrated at times…just like me.
This past Saturday was a day filled with lots of pain and I was experiencing a troubled spirit as I tucked in my four-year-old grandson. We were praying and he said he wanted to pray for his cousin, Reece, who wasn’t feeling well. He then said this, “Help Reece to feel better and have him just touch Jesus’ coat, because that will make him all better.”
Child-like faith. Matthew 18:3 says, “Then he said, ‘I tell you the truth,unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will neverget into the Kingdom of Heaven.” I think that through this precious little boy, God was reminding me to go back to having child-like faith. He wants me to just trust Him, knowing that He will only use the eraser when it is best for me and will bring the most glory and honor to Him. He wants me to have enough faith to reach out and touch His coat, fully expecting Him to take care of me. Maybe that’s what He is trying to tell you too. Maybe He just wants us to willingly let Him hold our eraser because He can see our tomorrow and knows what we will need and what we won’tneed. I guess if He created the universe…He can surely take care of me…and you!
Until next week…when we look at our final beatitude, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Oh my…I think I better ask my grandson to explain this one to me J
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