I glanced at the sheet the doctor had just handed me. There were a lot of things circled on it. Getting it looked after would involve a trip to the health lab and obviously quite a number of vials of blood. I don’t mind needles but by the time the nurse was finished with me I knew I would feel literally drained.
My first mistake was deciding to visit the health lab right after the holiday weekend. It was packed and I spent the first half hour in the “mud room” on a chair. The main waiting room was packed. It was an interesting place to sit with everyone coming and going. I met a couple with twin girls…just three months old and an elderly gentleman with a walker. They represented both the beginning and end of life. People were kind and gave up their seats for these special representatives of life.
We Northerners are a friendly bunch and I had several conversations as people wandered in and out. One thing I particularly noticed was two men of my vintage years, who greeted me with a “Good morning”. Those old courtesies are just about gone.
I looked around the group…”Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight.” What a variety of faces looked out at me and the dress was varied too. There were two obviously pregnant ladies. (I always feel the birth of a child is a sign of God’s faith in us…that we will try harder and we will make this a better world.)
The mud room I sat in held most of the patient’s shoes. You can always tell a Canadian…they take their shoes off when they are asked to…Americans used to laugh at me when we were down south visiting them…I always removed my shoes before I came into their homes. The shoes in the mud room were a wild variety…high boots, beat-up loafers, and some running shoes with vivid stripes down the sides. Like our Christian faith, they are all a little different but all have about the same purpose…comfort, protection and the ability to take us to our ultimate destination.
I was there an hour…book in hand and a banana hidden in my purse to eat in the car before driving home. I had been fasting for almost 16 hours and I knew my blood sugars would be low. And actually that hour sitting there was like looking through one of those glass jars that have little villages in them…for here was God’s world in miniature…all of our hopes, dreams, worries and impending tragedies wrapped up in about forty people.
Before I knew it, it was my turn and I got a few smiles as I left the room. My visit was a reminder that we were not all run off on a copy machine. We are individually God’s handiwork…and He looks at us along with the rest of creation and says, “It is good.”
