Nagging into heaven

We looked at the feathers floating in Lucky's water bowl.
"How did those get there?" I asked.
Lucky looked at me, his face a tangle of unreadable wiry hair.

We glanced over at Tallin, Asherel's bird, who still perched happily in his cage. The bird wasn't talking to us either. This would remain one of those mysteries of life.
 It is likely my sensitive heart would be better off not knowing the source of those feathers floating in the water.

The day already was not going to be recorded as one of my top ten. I had to go visit the dermatologist, due to an annoying habit of aging skin. She took one look at my face and decided it was time to start "zapping" off pre-cancerous spots.
"Zapping?" I said, "What is involved in zapping?"
"It's no big deal," she answered.

Now I have found that it is much easier for the one inflicting the pain to say that than the one receiving the pain.
"I will just freeze them off with this."
She held up a metal device that looked like a submachine gun.
"You don't have any special events coming in the next month that you care what you look like?" she asked.
"You mean like walking down the street ?"
"No, I mean like a wedding or any event where photos will be taken."
"Not in the next month...but to tell you the truth, I am not sure I love the vein of this conversation. I can safely conclude I will be in no position to have a photo taken of me after you finish blasting my face with that weapon?"
She ignored me and said, "Here comes the 'ouchy'."
About 20 ouchies later, my forehead, arms and even hand had lovely bubbling, brown eruptions on them. This was the prettiest stage. For the next week they would turn red, inflamed, scab, and then fall off.

I hope you weren't eating breakfast when you read that.

"But then ," she promised me, "Your forehead will look much better and it will be safer. You don't mind needles, do you?"
"Needles?" I said weakly, wondering how long the stinging of the twenty or so new wounds lasted, "Yes I mind needles. Why?"
"We need to take this mole off your back."
Maybe Lucky had the kinder method, just gobble me up whole.

I went to bed at 8:00. I was worn out from all the intrusive procedures that we must endure as we cook here on earth. I thought of Paul telling the Philippians in our morning Bible study that morning, "It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again." In other words, he was saying, "It won't hurt me to nag you til you listen." It was like the doctor, not zapping just one spot off me, but every spot, every potential cancer forming spot.

This verse confused Asherel. That's because she had never seen nagging elevated to gospel before.
 And I conjectured, given he begins this gentle letter to the Philippians with the assurance that he isn't being hurt by his need to repeat things to them, we can presume they had just asked him, "Doesn't it bother you to have to keep teaching us knuckleheads the same issues over and over again?"

I like the Philippians. I get the sense that they had receptive, humble hearts that longed to learn, despite their failures and need to be constantly reminded by Paul. I am sure that his convicting messages and reminders were at times as painful as the zapper on my sunspots, but they knew that their safety and eternal well being depended on the holy transformative message.

Sometimes healing hurts. But in the end, when the scabs fall off, and we are renewed, transformed, made whole again....the ouchies are just a blip in eternity.


Philippians 3: 1, 12-14, 17-21

 ¹ Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

 ¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.


¹⁷ Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. ¹⁸ For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.