The Mild Yoke
After I fell and broke my clavicle last week (and possibly a rib or two), our associate pastor, Mike Justice, called to ask if we needed meals. I told him three nights’ worth would help a lot.
Apparently Mike doubled that number because our church family covered us for six. And here we are nine days later closing the door behind a friend who just delivered chicken marinara. And she just had a baby!
As wonderful as all the marinara, enchiladas, and turkey have been, even more wonderful is that “you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty…What I want is for you to receive a well-earned reward because of your kindness. At the moment I have all I need—more than I need! I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me—they are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable to God and pleases Him.” (See Philippians.)
Along with food have been the emails, visits, hugs, calls, gifts, cards, grocery runs, laundry service, art supplies (!), and other offers of help. Some of my friends have even gone out of their way to make me chuckle.
Rhonda in North Carolina made me a Humpty Dumpty get-well card. Mary in France sent me a two-inch-high handbag with a note saying it would have to be my purse size for now. Debbie in Dallas suggested I go for a simpler injury next time—like a hang nail. Dorian hinted that I might want to leave the flying to commercial pilots. My creative writing class, which knows me as the Be-Verb Czar, sent me a card with all the “be” verbs crossed out: “It sure would X nice to lay around in bed all day, watching TV, X-ing waited on, cared for and fussed over. It’s too bad you’X not well enough to enjoy it.”
I laughed out loud.
I can’t drive yet, and my husband came down with a bug Monday, so Mark and Kelly have taken me to school and Lynzee, Leani and Heather, my students, have brought me home. While I miss the freedom of my Malibu, I would’ve missed out on some great conversations had my body remained intact.
I haven’t even mentioned the prayer support. I’ve had a lot less discomfort than I expected, and I’ve slept through the night consistently. I’ve even needed less medication than I thought I would. I firmly believe that’s because so many have prayed. If you’re one of those people, thank you.
Much as I dislike being so helpless, two truths have helped me adjust to this “down time.”
First, our worth as humans comes from being, not doing. Even if I were laid up in a hospital bed in a coma somewhere and as “useless” as the embryos I seek to defend, my worth would remain unchanged. To my Heavenly Father, it has never been about what I do.
Second, God doesn’t need our work. Sabbath rest teaches us that. Back in the beginning people set aside one-seventh of their time for doing nothing. In the wilderness they didn’t even cook (or do dishes!). Gene Peterson, who observes such a day in the present, refers to his day of rest as “that good-for-nothing Sabbath.” Though we’re no longer under the law, if we devote a seventh of our days to rest, we benefit by regularly facing the reality that it’s not about us.
God doesn’t need our toil. And the light yoke of napping and relaxing when we could be accomplishing reminds me of that. I don't get a day of rest every week, but I try. And such days have served as a great training ground for my longer-than-a-day period of semi-confinement.
John Milton is my mentor in this. In his Sonnet XIX, sometimes titled “On Blindness,” he describes how difficult it is for him as one of history’s most gifted writers to take the permanent Sabbath accompanying his loss of sight:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
As my friend Peggy once noted, the beauty of lace is in the holes; without the empty spaces, all we’d have is a piece of cloth. Our lives are like that. You have to have the "nothing" parts for the whole to look beautiful.
There is blessing in uselessness. Sometimes we serve Him best by doing nothing for a time.