Weary or Wise
He looked in the mirror and wiped the sleep from his eyes. The man staring back at him looked much older on this morning than perhaps any other before. Tired. Frail. The face in the mirror was thin. The cheeks hollow and sunken. Not even close to what he had looked like just a month ago.
He leaned in a little and focused on the lines in the corners of his eyes. The puffy folds of skin under them. He put his hands to the sides of his face and pulled the skin tight, looking for a younger, healthier version of himself. “Ahh, there you are.”
He chuckled quietly and shook his head as he stepped away from the mirror. He exited the bathroom, flipping off the light and closing the door quietly behind him. It was early morning and he didn’t want to wake his wife. Not yet. It would make her crabby even if it was just a half hour early. Besides, he knew she hadn’t been sleeping well either; her worried ears fine-tuned to listen for sounds; any sounds that might indicate that he needed her.
He hobbled back to the adjacent room and winced in pain as he lay down on the mattress there. Not the bed where his sleeping wife lay, snoring softly, perhaps in the midst of a dream. But just a mattress on the floor, two sound-muffling walls away from her. It’s where he had been sleeping for a few weeks now since the pain started. Since he got sick. Since the surgery that had saved his life.
He lay there in the dark and closed his eyes, searching for the precious sleep that had eluded him for too long now. He searched for sleep, but instead found himself searching for answers instead. How had this all happened? How had he gone from where he was just a short time before to where he was now? More importantly, what did it all mean in the larger scheme of things?
It had started out as just a pain in his side. A pain that he had dismissed as a pulled muscle. Pulled and sore muscles were a familiar thing after all, as he had spent 5 days a week in the gym for the past 4 years now. In fact, there were days when he had lifted a cumulative total of more than thirty-thousand pounds in his workouts. He had felt stronger and healthier than any time in his life. But that was then. For the last few weeks, he had barely been able to move himself around. Now, lifting the coffee pot was a gratifying achievement.
The pain had grown stronger and moved. Moved from the side of his abdomen to the front, and even the back and had felt somehow connected. He had felt tired and weak. His abnormally low pulse had become abnormally high on a consistent basis. That’s when he had known. Known that this was something more than just a pulled muscle. Perhaps much more.
A doctor’s visit had resulted in a C.T. scan. The C.T. scan had resulted in a rapidly-scheduled surgery to remove a ruptured appendix and a pocket of infection the size of a football. More than one of the physicians involved had told him afterwards that he shouldn’t have lived. Told him that only about 4% of patients with that level of infection ever did. “You continue to amaze me,” one had said on a follow-up visit. He hadn’t felt very amazing at the time.
But, as he lay there, staring at nothing more than the darkness above him, he realized something. He had been doing a lot of praying lately. More than usual. He had prayed for healing. Prayed that the infection would stay away and not come back. Prayed to regain the blessing of the strength and health that he had enjoyed. But he had also expressed his thankfulness for the pain. For the sickness and even the suffering. For the wake-up call that it had been. For the many realizations that the sleepless nights had given him. For the truths that he had learned in the dark of those many sleepless nights. For it had been there, alone in the dark with only his thoughts and prayers that he had realized a great many things about himself. Among those realizations, and really the sum total of those realizations, was the epiphany that while his worry, fear and prayers had seemingly been for himself, really, they hadn’t been.
His thoughts hadn’t been about all that he had done or achieved, but what he hadn’t. And, it was, he realized, the simple things that he would have missed if he wasn’t among the blessed 4%.
It was the beauty of a sunrise. The majesty of a snow-tipped mountain. The thunder of a raging river or the soft bubbling of a mountain stream. The opportunity to make his wife smile. The innocent laughter of a child. The trust and loyalty in the soft, brown eyes of his chubby, little dog.
It wasn’t the adventures he would have missed, but who he would have spent them with. It wasn’t time or money, but time with family and friends. It wasn’t what was left undone for himself that had worried him, but what was left undone for others. He was important. Everybody is. We all have a purpose, but sometimes we get blinded by the bright lights of life and the distractions therein.
That’s when the tears came. The guilt of time wasted. The furthering of the realization of his purpose in this short little space of time we call life. He lay there in the blackness and thought about the mirror and smiled. He suddenly felt a little less weary…and a little more wise.
One might wonder about the relevance of this story to the mission of Orphan’s Lifeline of Hope. The relevance is great for a few a couple of reasons. For one, it’s my own personal story. For another reason, it embodies realizations and lessons we have learned here at Orphan’s Lifeline over the years.
2020 was a year that tested us all. It tested our resolve. It tested our health, mentally, physically and spiritually. It tested our savings account and perhaps even at times, our faith. It made us take a close look at what is truly important in life. From the tumultuous political environment to the riots and rhetoric. From the hateful speech to the pandemic, it was a year that asked much from our fragile human nature and many out there in this world failed the test.
However, our perspective here at Orphan’s Lifeline was much different. For what we witnessed was humanity at its finest. What we witnessed was His image reflected in the kind and giving hearts of compassionate Christians.
When the pandemic began raging in the countries we work in, we asked you to help feed and care for even more children and widows. You did. When we told you that we would have limited information due to the lockdowns and government rules, you didn’t lose faith, but instead continued to give and entrusted us with even more financial gifts than usual. In spite of your own worries and troubles, you put the needs of others in front of your own. You shined His light upon the world.
As we begin a new year here at Orphan’s Lifeline, I believe it will continue to be one in which we are tested. There will be new “tragic opportunities” and already we are expanding the scope and the scale of our mission. It’s always a leap of faith.
But we step forward expecting there to be trials. And yet, we step forward with confidence because we can see the reflection of God’s love in your actions. We can see the compassion of Jesus in your actions. We have the advantage of 20 years of that experience and therefore we have faith.
Yes, I believe we will all be tested again this year, as life just tends to be a series of trials and blessings in some proportion to the other. But knowing where it all will end or rather where it all will truly begin, gives us an advantage. That advantage allows us not to just become weary…but wise.