Numbering Your Days
So teach us to number
our days,
that we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom.
— Psalm 90:12
We have a very special, artistic relative named Robbie. She recently
celebrated her 72nd birthday by climbing high atop the mast of the 1913
schooner Adventuress in the waters off
the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound. She had a magnificent view of miles of
color and beauty, while her husband, the crew and other passengers sang "Happy
Birthday" from 50 feet below.
The French writer Marcel Proust said the real
voyage of discovery is not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes
with which to see. Robbie is an inspiration that way: as an artist, she's
always looking for a new perspective, and that keeps her young and vibrant.
Well, I had something happen to me this past
week that gave me a little of that, too, kind of like Robbie's experience, only
nowhere near as cool:
I thought I was having a heart attack . . . and
though I was wrong, the episode was a real eye-opener and life-changer.
See, some very nice people had flattered me by
asking me to apply for a certain political position that has come open in our
state. It would be important work, very prestigious, in an area in which I had
a lot of knowledge and experience. I would have to neglect my husband and
9-year-old daughter a little bit, deal with some boring bureaucracy, and pile
still more obligations onto my plate, but. . . .
My chest puffed out with pride, just to be
asked. It was an ego boost. I was leaning toward doing it.
But only because I thought I "should." Not
because I particularly wanted to or thought I was very well suited for it;
actually, I thought it would be rather boring and frustrating. That was a red
flag.
Also, my Beloved didn't want me to. That was
another red flag. He didn't want to listen to my griping about all the unsolvable
issues at the dinner table every night. Who could blame him? Now that he's
getting near retirement, he finally has a little more time to travel and do fun
things. So it would be crazy for me to suddenly get tied down, while he's
getting loosened up.
My Christian mentor didn't want me to take the
job, either. God, family, friends and writing should be my focus, not
frustrating entanglements with bureaucratic systems I could do little to
change. She was probably right.
What should I do? I was torn.
The Lord spoke to me, as He sometimes does, in a
goofy way: a prestige license plate. I was pondering what to do as I drove
about town, and I saw this plate:
GIDEON 2
Now, Gideon was the Old Testament leader in
Judges 6:36-40 who wanted to make sure what God wanted him to do (bonk the bad
guys who threatened Israel), so he put a fleece of wool on the floor not once,
but twice. The first time, following Gideon's entreaties for guidance, God let
the dew fall on the fleece but not on the floor. Just to make double-dog sure,
Gideon asked him the next night to keep the fleece dry and make the dew wet the
floor, which God also did. So Gideon went out and bonked the bad guys in a
miraculous way, and put himself in position to let God use him where He wanted
to.
In my private little license-plate encounters with
God, whenever I see a "2," I take that to mean "Sue." So I figured He was reminding
me, quite personally, that all I had to do was ask Him.
"OK. Just show me what to do, Lord," I
whispered.
Well, my Beloved had left for a week of fishing
in Canada. He had been mucking the two horse stalls for months. Now it was up
to me. I forgot how much a full muck bucket weighs. It took me several tries
and all my strength to overturn it into the dumpster. Finally!
I had been back inside in the air conditioning
for over an hour when suddenly, my face broke out into a cold sweat . . . and
my left shoulder started to ache and throb.
For some reason, I didn't connect that with the
muck bucket struggle, and the fact that I'd dislocated my shoulder several
years ago whitewater kayaking, and it bothers me from time to time. Soon, the
pain was so bad, I was doing my Lamaze breathing . . . and remembered that arm
pain and unexplained sweating could be signs of a heart attack!!!
I did that thing that always makes you convinced
you're about to die - I "googled" it.
Yep! Heart attack! Those are the symptoms! Going
to die! Any minute now!
Oh, no! And the HOUSE was a MESS!
It runs in the family, though. My dad had a
heart attack when he was five years younger than I am now! I've got a pot like
his, and I eat just as many Hershey bars as he did! AAAIIIEEE!!!
I had just been to my annual health screening
earlier in the week; my blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride reports
were bad. The nurse had been frowny-bird about it. I planned to see my doctor .
. . mañana. Always mañana!
AAAIIIEEE!!! Mañana had come! But my Beloved was
in Canada, incommunicado! Would my last words to him on Earth be, "Did you pack
your deodorant?!?!?" What a thing to remember me by!
AAAIIIEEE!!! Maddy's only 9! Who's going to
drive me to the hospital, and get her to soccer practice tomorrow morning?!?
But I didn't have any chest pain or jaw pain,
and my heart wasn't racing. Hmm. Maybe it's only a minor heart attack. If it
doesn't get any worse, I'll wait and see. I took four ibuprophen, prayed to God
to spare my life, slept like a rock, and the next morning, the shoulder felt
100% better.
Hunh?!? What about my heart attack?
Only then I remembered wrenching it when I
dumped the muck bucket. Must just be some middle-aged tendonitis. Whew!
That's when it happened. Minutes later, I was
driving Maddy to soccer practice, and saw one of those church signs with a
pithy mesage:
WHAT IF YOU ONLY HAD ONE
MONTH TO LIVE?
What would you do? How would your priorities
change? Funny thing! Last night, I thought I had less time than that! And it
made me realize:
When I had talked myself into thinking I was
minutes away from cardiac arrest . . . started planning my funeral . . . morbidly
imagined who would cry and how hard . . . when I really thought my number might
be up . . .
. . . my thoughts were of God, my Beloved, our
kids, our family, our friends, our pets, my garden, my writing, the fact that I
never did master the banjo . . . all kinds of things . . .
. . . BUT NOT A SINGLE BLIP ABOUT THE "IMPORTANT,"
EGO-SATISFYING POLITICAL APPOINTMENT THAT HAD BEEN CONSUMING ALL MY ATTENTION
LAST WEEK!
That's it!
That's my fleece!
I should turn it down!
It's not God's best for me. It's not how He
wants to use me.
Maybe it would be a top priority for somebody
else. But not for me.
It was as if I was up there with
Robbie, on top of that tall ship, looking out over my life, seeing that I had
some time left, after all . . . but that I needed to spend it wisely, the way
God wants me to, on the things that I love, the things that matter the most to
both of us.
Number your days, people. Be wise in
heart.
Thank You, O Giver of guidance, for that special vantage
point, that fresh perspective . . . for sending me a special kind of fleece and
helping me see how pride was pulling the wool over my eyes . . . for helping me
not get mired down in horse manure in more ways than one . . . and most of all,
for giving me new eyes to see. †
