I had a conversation with my doctor about a certain health problem, and when I described the health problem, she laughed. My immediate response came in such a manner that I found myself having an out-of-body experience, as though I was so embarrassed by her laughing that way that I could not stay in my own body. My shoulders fell slump, as I sat upon the examination table, and my head fell and my eyes turned towards the floor. Suddenly I became aware of myself as an observer looking on at myself from a distance. Strange? Is that me sitting with his head hanging down? I suppose I even felt embarrassed to have had a head-hanging response, so I said, Im sorry. And I said more and I apologized for my embarrassment. I cannot tell you how I apologized for my embarrassment, because even that is embarrassing. You know I received a third-degree burn when I was at age five. Five is a tender age for a boy, and I remember my little five-year-old body. My father and mother drove me to the hospital. I had a disfiguring burn on my left shoulder and across my chest. Even now with my man-sized hands, I cannot cover the disfigurement using both hands. It is an embarrassment. I used to swim in the ocean with my shirt on, but then I realized no one could see my burn while I swam amid the ocean waves. It was not always that way with water though. When I arrived at the hospital at age five, I was stripped of my clothes and placed to sit in six inches of water in a tub. The shock of my little body burning on fire had caused my shaking, and a nurse sat on the edge of the tub trying to calm me. Even then I recall feelings of embarrassment sitting so before a strange woman. She was talking softly and attempting to peel away my hanging burnt flesh. I think it was hanging, because she would reach and get hold of a piece and pull. I felt a need to pull away and defend myself, on the one hand, and aware of my nakedness, a need to cover myself. The need to defend myself from her reach caused me to lean back, and the need to cover myself from her gaze caused me to lean forward, and she would smile to embarrass me and to cause me to lean forward, and then time her reach to get at another piece of me. Lean back, lean forward, and lean back, lean forward. The singer Julie London has a very soothing voice, and I love her version of the song Sway, where she sings, Like a flower bending in the breeze, bend with me, sway with me. And she sings, When we dance, you have a way with me. Stay with me. Sway with me. Other dancers may be on the floor, Dear, but my eyes see only you. Only you have that magic technique. When we sway, I grow weak. My first dance swaying with a woman was at age five, sitting on my bum, leaning back, and leaning forward, while sitting in six inches of water. My wife Katherine is right in her saying, You have issues going way back. I do have bad memories of my burnt body and sitting in shallow water, and many more bad memories from that event. Indeed I do. My third-degree burn also caused my hip bone to break. However consider Isaiah 42:3, A bruised reed shall he not break: and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. God does not say more. There you see it. You see both things. I see a smoking flax or a burnt body, and I see a bruised reed or a broken hip bone. Matthew 12:20 repeats the words of the Prophet Isaiah a bit differently, A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. But is my wife Katherine deciding to love me and be nice to me? No, she is deciding daily not to. God says that He is not going to quench the memory a five year old child gets from his body burning. I do not want to say that I earned the memory, but there is a great price my body paid, and for what? Do you think God has a purpose? And what about breaking a bruised reed, when God says not to do that? There are times when I am working while washing windows, and with water you know, when I am standing on a ladder or standing on a ledge, and if I sway back or sway forward, I will fall. Things break when a person falls. Maybe my mother-in-law Janet Pauline Reynolds should snap another photo of the Water Kelpie. A reed sits in water.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 16:18:44 +0000
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