Full Cadence

The days go by much too fast. Once again, I find myself on the Potter’s wheel being crafted and smoothed into a vessel that is pleasing to Him. I can almost imagine His furrowed brow and expression of concentration as He works, removing those things that are not to His liking and reshaping the things that are left.  Sometimes the reshaping brings a form of pain, but that is never His intention; I have invited His touch and given Him free rein over who I am.  He is reworking me at my own request, my own appeal. The desire of my heart is to walk upright before Him and be pleasing to Him.

Work has been hard this week; so many sick patients and not enough time for all that I want to do for them. My favorites are the new patients, the ones who have just only learned of their diagnosis and are terrified.  I can sense it when I first walk into the room. Their eyes follow me and silently plead with me to tell them it isn’t true, it isn’t real, it’s all just been a huge misunderstanding……… I wish I could.

What I try to give them instead is hope.  I tell them that they are in the very best place they could possibly be; I tell them that we have the resources and the technology available to give them the very best medical care that they can find.  I tell them that we will work with them and walk them through every step of the way, and we will help them climb over this rugged mountain that is myeloma.

I had just such a patient on Friday. He and his wife had driven here from another state, after being diagnosed at home. Like hundreds of other patients, he told me that they had gone to the internet to research, and the name of our institution  "just kept coming up." So they had driven the several hundred miles to come here to our facility. He had spent the week doing the prerequisite testing: blood work, PET scans, bone marrow aspiration, MRI’s and Xrays. He was in the clinic Friday for his first visit with the doctor, and he was terrified; his blood pressure was off the chart.

I introduced myself and asked him to tell me a little bit about what had brought him to our institution. As he began to talk, I listened with my ears but also with my heart, taking my own inventory and impressions of him. He was fifty-something, very atheletic and strong, skin deeply tanned by hours outside. Probably a golfer, I thought, and I was right. Strong and healthy, full of hopes and plans and dreams; a family man with people depending on him, and now slapped with a diagnosis of cancer. No wonder he was terrified.

Fast forward to the end of the day. He has spent time with me, and then with the doctor. He has spent time with the research nurse and the insurance nurse. I have even recruited a member of our staff from his home state to go in and join him in a team cheer for their university football team. His panic-stricken face has been replaced with a smile, and he is now able to say he is so glad he came. He is going home for a week,  and will return to begin treatment. He tries to shake my hand, but I give him a hug instead and he hugs me back. I don’t know what his future holds, but I know that we will give him our best.

And this is why I am here. This is why God has placed me here, in a role that I am not qualified for in the natural. On my own, I do not have the abilities and the skills that this job requires; some days I feel like I am just flying under the radar. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt why I am here. It isn’t about me, or about my skills and abilities; it is about being a willing vessel.

In the scope of things, it doesn’t really matter who is doing their job and who isn’t. It doesn’t really matter who called in sick when they really had a trip planned, and who left on time without offering to help those of us who were still there. It isn’t about those things, and it isn’t about me. It’s about what I’ve been called to do.

Those are the things He whispers to me as I drive home under blazing skies. Those are the truths He tells me as He smooths my rough edges and trims off my selfishness. It’s not about you, He says softly. It’s about what I’ve called you to do. 

And that is worth one more trip around the Potter’s wheel. That, my friends, is worth everything.