Lenten Blog - Waiting

 The following blog entry was written by Kristin Davidson for Advent and revised by Charlene Aldrich for Lent.   

 

A few years ago when I was working as a first grade assistant at a small Catholic school, I began to get a cold – not surprising as it was the middle of February and I was working with kids for 8 hours a day.  Unfortunately I was a little stubborn both about going to the doctor and about taking sick days. 

 

So for a couple weeks I tried to self-medicate with Dayquil and lots of vitamin C, but it only got worse.  When I finally did call in sick to work, I could barely get out of bed to get dressed.  So my mom had to take me to the doctor.  I had a fever; my head ached; my body ached; I could barely breathe without coughing. 

 

While we were sitting in the waiting room, a young girl in pajamas came in with her mom.  The girl looked about as sick as I felt, but she had brought a flannel blanket with her.  She wrapped herself in it and the laid her head in her mother’s lap.  I was more than a little jealous.  That little girl had come prepared to wait.  And I hadn’t even had my morning coffee.

 

There was something truly humbling about being sick in that waiting room.  There I was an adult and my mom had to take me to the doctor.  The nurses looked at me with pity, and the healthy people looked at me with fear, hoping that whatever I had was not transmutable through air.  And what’s worse was that I knew it was my own fault that I had let myself get that sick. 

 

So there I was waiting, and I realized that despite how miserable I felt, there was a little glimmer of hope – hope that the doctor would know what was wrong with me and give me medicine – hope that within the next few days my fever would break, my head and body would stop aching and I would be able to breathe freely through both nostrils.

 

Lent reminds me of that waiting room.  Here we are sick and weak usually through our own stubbornness or pride – waiting – waiting with a glimmer of hope for Christ to come and heal our souls.  We know that Easter's coming, but we have to go through Calvary to get there.