
I remember it so well...ah...that time of year. Plans were being made, airline tickets bought, bags packed. We were all getting ready--getting ready, that is, for spring break. Some of my friends had made plans to for hitting the Florida beaches, some were looking forward to spending days on end sleeping in their own beds, some were counting down the days until they could drive north for an end-of-the-season skiing excursion. But nonetheless we were all making plans. Mine were special, yes, they were special. You see, I had the honor above all honors...I was making a trip to the oral surgeons, I was having all of my wisdom teeth extracted (and you ask how I have any wisdom left over--I have no idea...), yay for Dustin.
So I went home, and then I went to the surgeons, and then I had my teeth pulled, and then I found God. No, not really, I actually didn't see the correlation between wisdom teeth and God until months afterward, but la de dah.
I went home. I went to the surgeons. The surgeon, with whom I had to train my ears to understand his harsh accent, explained to me all of the risks and potential problems involved with the surgery and the medication (anesthesia and such), the nurse reiterated everything the doctor said--just much much more understandably. And then the anesthesiologist came in and administer my little serum to happy land. I was gone. Gone. Before I could count to ten backwards, I was floating among cotton candy clouds and glittering diamond stars. And then I rudely woke myself up. Yet my happy world continued...I sang (i even have video to prove it--ugh, did I say that out loud?), I bothered the nurse with endless questions, I asked if I could keep my extracted teeth (no, I couldn't--it was against OSHA or PETA or something like that) and then a pretty little receptionist-nurse person came in with a pretty (possibly prettier than the receptionist-nurse person) little blue wheelchair. This was my wheelchair, I was getting to ride in a blue wheelchair. So I happily obliged her commands to sit in the seat, and off we went--into the wild unknowns of the hospital halls. And yet somehow (really, I'm not sure how) I ended up in the passenger seat of my car, and I was on my way home.
Needless to say, I immediately fell asleep on the drive home and a funny thing happened. When I woke up, I couldn't remember anything that had just happened. I wouldn't have remembered the singing except I had video of it. I wouldn't have remembered the questions except the nice nurse let me take a picture of my teeth instead of keeping them. And it took weeks for me to piece together that I had actually rode in a blue wheelchair. Literally weeks. The whole process, the whole day, in fact, is a blur to me. I have these foggy faded memories, these unconscious acknowledgments of what happened that day, but I don't think I will ever know or even understand everything that happened that day. Nah, probably not.
So the other day I was driving and I realized that God was like my blue wheelchair. Please, don't stop reading, just listen, listen. Okay, okay, here goes. God has affected each and every person on this planet. He has altered the lives of every human that has ever lived. He has been an integral part of humanity since he created humanity itself. And yet we are so quick to forget God. As we wake up from the stupor of society we have no recollection of the impact that God has had on us. And so we go on living life, benefiting from what God has done, yet forgetting (or not remembering) what, in fact, He has done.
There are those, the few, who are able to piece together bits of God's influence on their lives. They become keenly aware that there is a power guiding them. They begin to understand His impact and acknowledge it a little bit more. As they progress in life, more and more of the God/humanity saga becomes clear to them and they realize a little more of what God has done. But they will never understand it all. Still they see God through their foggy memories and their bleak awareness. I think we will spend eternity learning just exactly what God has done. I don't think I will ever be able to grasp it all. And yet God has done it.
God has helped us go just a little bit farther. We slowly begin to see God more clearly--and a blue wheelchair.
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