I remember last Friday.
I spent the entire day cutting grass. It was warm and sunny. It was one of those days of reflection made possible by time on a tractor. It was a good day.
I remember last Friday.
What I don't remember so well is what happened after Friday. By Friday evening, it was clear that I was sick again. And here it is Monday, and I'm wondering what happened to the weekend.
I'm sure that significant things happened in the past few days. In fact, there were several events that I missed. And world events continued to unfold. And, of course, sporting events continued to happen. But my world suddenly became so small - almost totally focused on myself and my health. Which is perfectly normal, I suppose. Still, it's interesting that, at least in my mind, the only important thing that happened this weekend . . . was that I was sick.
Just in case you have a morbid curiosity about my health, it seems that the first round of antibiotics succeeded in ridding my body of all the bad bacteria - and took out most of the good bacteria too. "It's pretty common for that to happen," I was told in the emergency room at midnight on Saturday. I hadn't been told that before, of course. But I'm not sure that any other course of treatment would have been possible. In any case, after five hours in the waiting room on Saturday night, I found a sympathetic doctor who (hopefully) got me headed in the right direction.
And while I was completely focused on my health, the world kept spinning.
Babies were born. There were graduation parties. People got together to worship. Some people died. There were picnics and dinners and family gatherings. Armies made advances and the borders of nations were changed. People came to faith. There were storms and accidents. And there were grace gifts of all kinds. In other words, it was a weekend like any other.
I suppose in times of crisis, it's okay to have a small world. That makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is having a small world all the time.
I need to work hard at keeping my eyes open so that I might be aware of the complicated bigness of this world and the God who holds it in his hands. Interestingly, as miserable as this weekend was, I wasn't the only one in pain. I wasn't the only one who was suffering. I wasn't the only one in need of help. But it's hard to remember that when the only story I'm thinking about is my own.
So what I pray for - when I'm in crisis and when I'm not - is eyes to see more than my own story. All the time.
I have no idea what really happened this past weekend. But I'm sure sorry that I missed it.