Close examination

"Do you think he dyes his hair?"Amy whispered.
I followed her gaze to the black haired man sitting across from us as we waited in the hospital for her CT
scan.
We would not be stooping to ridiculing others except that we had now been sitting in the hospital for over 3 hours waiting for her CT scan. Junk magazines and respectful discourse can only get you so far on an empty stomach.

He was at least 65 years old, and his face was wrinkled and carved by a rather ruthless finger of time. His hair unlike the rest of his washed out features was vibrant and dark like an 8 ball.
"It reminds me of the Beatles tribute band we saw a few months ago," I whispered back,"They looked great from the back of the stadium but when we went up to the front row, we realized they were old men wearing black wigs."

I began to sing to Amy.
"Yesterday, my skin was not so wrinkled, old and grey, now it looks as though it's here to stay, oh I looked good..."
"From far away!" she finished.
We collapsed in laughter, which eased us through the next few interminable minutes of waiting. Fortunately the black haired man thought we were laughing over the book I was reading about the Warren commission finding Oswald to be the lone gunman in Kennedy's assassination.

The CT scan was finally completed and we headed to her doctor to hear the verdict. Two docs came in and told her it was good news, the cyst was not growing and it might go away on its own. If she continued to feel good, she was free to go to Virginia for Matt's wedding in two weeks.
The scan confirmed that only one third of her pancreas is still healthy, but he didn't seem terribly concerned about that.
"Sure," Amy told me later, "It's not his pancreas!"
Down the road she will need some more procedures, but if all goes well they should not be too bad and we are hopeful they will eliminate reoccurance of the pancreatitis.

When we got back home, almost 11 hours from when we had left that morning, her cat, Albert Einstein was nowhere to be seen. He is a very old cat and likes to stick close to home. Amy hunted everywhere for Albert, behind the couch, the plants, the bed. Her sainted husband Jim came home and began hunting. Frankly, I feared the worse. This CAT scan might not end up being as hopeful as the morning CT scan. But happily, the old cat was just napping under the deck, and all was well.

And funny, all that waiting around was more exhausting to me than the 8 hour cleaning marathons we had been doing to whip Amy's house into shape so she could have time for at least some fun this summer. Upon close examination, hospitals are not cheery places.

I return home today. It was, as always, fun to spend time with my sister who makes me laugh more than anyone I know.

It was a visit filled with examining: examining how to declutter when the clutter is filled with precious memories, examining the humor in rather dreary circumstances, examining the hidden secrets of the often ignored pancreas, examining the hiding places of an old cat, examining just how quickly I could irritate my hosts so they would be grateful rather than mournful at my departure.....

God loves examination. He tells us that if we examine ourselves and our conscience is clear, we will be unashamed when we stand before Him in the final exam. No black wigs will fool Him. And He doesn't need a CT scan to penetrate to our soul. We can't hide from Him under the deck.
It would all be rather frightening except that just like the doctor, all that close examination is meant to bring to light what is harmful to our body and to our soul.

As we waited for the last few minutes to see the doctor, the man with the dark black hair came out of the examining room.
"Well," he said with a smile,"Seems you are following me everywhere!" And then finally, it was our turn to step in to the examining room.

Proverbs 5:21 NIV

For your ways are in full view of the Lord,
and he examines all your paths.

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