Today, I spent nearly the whole day taking my boss to and from the hospital for outpatient surgery. Yesterday, I helped her move furniture so that she could get about in her home and took her condo payment to the off-site rental office. Today, I was chauffeur, companion, personal assistant, grocer, and pharmacist. We were in the car for three hours in the trips back and forth, with stops for food and pain medication.
Because I had some data entry to do, I worked in the hospital cafeteria for a while at a table. However, while I was there, I had to nebulize. When I cough now, I am expelling stuff that is building up in my lungs due to all the labored breathing, swelling, and irritation. At one point, I was walking to get a drink and coughed and then started choking because of how much stuff came forth. Funny, I was the best help she could find?
My boss is not a kind person and regularly is quite cruel to me. She disparages me to my colleagues and to my superiors. I do her work. I do her chores. I do her errands, and still, to my face and behind my back, I am her whipping boy.
Why, why in the world did I serve her this day? In truth, a part of me does not understand myself.
Much of what I do for her, abasing myself, is because I fear losing my job. Plain and simple. And a horrible reality.
Yet some of what I do for her is not out of fear, but a compassion I simply do not understand, a compassion that makes no sense apart from Christ. For I know my sin and I know how much I struggle to turn the other cheek to her. I certainly did not want to ferry her and attend to her. There will certainly be no thanks for today. But she was in need and had no one here in town to help her. No one who was willing that is. I did not enjoy this day; I worked very, very hard to keep my mind on what God has done for me as I worked to "do" for her. But she was in need and had no one here in town to help her. No one willing that is. I know what that is like. Even her...even one such as she...should not suffer when another can help. That is what I know, what I have learned in church of years past.
Still, it was a very strange day for me.
For one, I am so very fatigued from a combination of a lack of sleep and hours spent with my heart racing from the nebulizer drugs. For another, I have started to have this very strange problem where I start swaying like I am going to lose my balance even though I am sitting, not standing. The academic in me, the researcher, has stepped back and tried to analyze what is happening at that time. Could it be from my ears still hurting and still being stopped up, an equilibrium of sorts? It is a new type of dizziness from MS? Is it sheer fatigue? Is it because I have not been eating well? The chicken part of me is just plain scared. I want to things to go back to how they were before the flu virus!
The only good part of this day was that when I was getting her bags of frozen peas to serve as ice packs, I loaded up on Trader Joe's corn--12 bags in fact! I also bought some milk, sweet potato fries, fresh pasta, and (not nearly like the real stuff), and what I thought was two containers of meat because my cupboard is rather bare. However, after biting into a strip of beef, I discovered I had purchased faux meat. UGH! While I really need protein, I cannot stomach the stuff.
Well, that is not true...perhaps the good part of the day was spending the evening--after narrowly winning a fierce game of Scrabble with Bettina and reading books to her children via Skype--in the Living Word, trying to understand this day.
In the Book of Concord, in the Augsburg Confession and Apology, the fathers taught, with regard to the Sacraments, that they were still valid even if performed by wicked men, even if the man standing in the pulpit was mired in sin. They were still valid, despite what the papists were claiming, because the work was of God, not man. God brings forgiveness in His body and Blood, not the man serving as undershepherd.
It was not my work today. How could it be? I was a most reluctant participant! I dragged my feet more than once and it was not because I am so tired! Yet I attended her because she had no one to help her.
"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'
"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
"Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
"Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
"These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." ~Matthew 25:31-46
I know that this passage is not about justification, that clothing and feeding and visiting is not about achieving righteousness. But I also know that it is a passage revealing those who truly believed as evidenced by the choices they made...I think. What does this mean? Really mean? I get the Law interpretation; I have heard it ad nauseum. But what is the Gospel in here? Am I a goat or a sheep? If I am at once saint and sinner, am I not also at once sheep and goat?
Pastor said, in a heated moment, that we live under grace. I am still wondering what he meant by that.
Did I honor God this day by caring for one of his errant children? Or did I dishonor Him because I did so very reluctantly?
Time to nebulize. Time to try and stifle once more the fear I have been battling since the first attack a week ago early Tuesday morning. Time to try and find a way to be still and know that He is God....
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
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