In the roller coaster called life, I have been through a number of highs and lows. My life has been complete with its trials and tribulations and tragedies, as also its ecstasies and achievements. Through this journey, I have taken much for granted, valued much and raised my hand in sheer gratitude as I have counted my blessings. Though it wouldn’t be correct to say that I have been in the pink of health all through the years, but the truth is I haven’t perhaps spared a thought about some of my rather generous endowments.
Last night, as I sat on my work desk racing against time to meet a rather important deadline, the phone rang a little ominously. With hubby dear’s (read hubby dear’s) foot in a cast due to a chip fracture in the ankle, I picked up the cordless to see who was calling at an hour, which would be dinner time for most folks.
At the other end was someone I wouldn't exactly call a friend, but someone who I have been fond of by virtue of her virtues. My husband’s former senior’s wife. We had been a little out of touch thanks to the fast lives we are all enwrapped in, so I was a little taken aback to hear her voice out of the blue. After the regular pleasantries were exchanged, to make conversation, I asked her why she sounded a little dull and then went into enquiring about her health.
It was in response to this query that I heard a mild shiver in her voice, eventhough her words didn't belie much. She said, “I am fine in a way and not so fine really.” My pulse went up and I couldn't resist asking her what she meant. She said she was fine in a way because she had just been operated upon to remove a malignant breast cancer and she wasn’t really fine, as the diagnosis and the surgery had left her shaken up and traumatized. What she revealed then, left me fumbling for not just words but I had trouble finding my voice, which seemed to have begun to sink, like my heart. She said she was calling from the hospital and that she had called to implore for the strength to wade through these testing times. I was then reminded that in the days of our direct and close association as wives of co-officers in the same regiment, I with my strong will power and faith-laden nature had once too often prayed to God for the mild her to surface out of, what were small troubles. And she always said that God always answered the prayers that I made for her. The joke was, she said she needed my recommendations to be heard!! But this was everything but funny!! I just didn't know what to say such, that would make her feel better.
I managed to give her one of my famous talks on ‘keeping the faith and being in surrender to His will’ and I could sense that I had met my objective. My telephonic monologue was interrupted midway by a nurse who came to dispense her medicines…so the lady began to feel groggy as her sleeping pills took control…which was when I politely edged her to go to sleep. She must have slept well or so I prayed…but here sleep eluded me…I just couldn’t bring my mind to focus on the task at hand…There was a sense of bereavement in a way, but the silver lining to this dark cloud was the fact that she had been very prompt about reporting her lump to the Surgical speacialist, which is perhaps why she could be operated upon in good time.
The last thing she said before we hung up was that I must pray and recommend her speedy recovery so that her post-surgery reports come clean and show that the malignancy has not spread…else chemotherapy and radiation was what lay in store for her. I would have prayed either ways…but it was the fact that she held on to hope so tightly that made me suddenly feel guilty for not valuing what I have and hankering after what I don’t…
This episode taught me two very important lessons:
One, that I must value my endowments and care about them and two, that there are people who still believe in God and think that in whatever way my prayer would reach Him faster, as I was a loved child! And being the ‘loved child of God’ was a reminder that made me feel reassured of His love to me which seemed to be shared or lost at worst, but was indeed the result of the tests of faith that He put me through…so that I may pass them with flying colours!
I am humbled and praying hard that ‘All Goes Well’ with her now and forever!!
Amen
