The Kayak I Don't Love

I am a walking time bomb. My molar fillings are 50 years old. They will not last much longer. So every dentist visit I live in dread of the news that they will all need to be replaced. Nice as my dentist is as a human being, I hate visiting him. But yesterday, I dragged myself step by wretched step to his office for my cleaning appointment. I knew it was going to hurt...it always does. I have a couple of spots with receeding gums and I shoot through the roof when they try to scrape any tartar off those areas. I warn them, and they put the numbing gel on, but it only takes the edge off. It still hurts. And I feel bad that I react because the hygienist always is so apologetic. I wish pain were more easily contained.

I don't handle pain or really any stress well. Some people, like my son Anders barely notice when they are hurt. When he was a little boy, he once sliced his foot open to the point where it required ten stitches. He came toddling over to me and said, "Mommy, I think I might have hurt my foot."  Might have? I almost passed out just looking at it, let alone living it.

But as I tried to engage the hygienist in conversation to delay the inevitable, I found out she was a fellow Christian and her goal in life was to spread encouragement and joy. Despite the pain, I found myself glad that she was chattering away to me with her fingers in my mouth. As I left, shaky but alive, I wondered what it is about some people that they just glow with acceptance of me. Maybe it is just that she doesn't know me. Still, it is a quality I long to hold within myself. I don't know if one cultivates that kind of character, or if it just flows more easily out of some people. If I could buy it and pour it into my soul, I would. But I suspect it is one of those things you can't manufacture.

After the dentist appointment, we took our beloved friend Polly and her visiting three grandchildren kayaking. I brought all my kayaks, and assigned poor grandson Nicholas the kayak "I don't love."
I have a total of 6 kayaks, though 2 belong to Matt and his new wife. Two are hard shell kayaks that we put on top of the car at much expense to my vertebrae. The rest fit inside the car when deflated. 3 are the fantastic inflatable ones that are very well made and a joy to paddle, and one is the kayak I don't love. The kayak I don't love is actually a two person kayak and is really too small for any but the smallest of two people, but too big for any but the biggest of one people. Since Nicholas at age 16 was the biggest of us, he was given the kayak I don't love.
"Why don't you love it?"
"You'll see."

So the 6 of us set forth, like a gaggle of geese floating off on our kayaks. I had figured these kids would last maybe forty minutes. Two hours later, we had kayaked to a sandy shore and jumped off a dock, kayaked to two enormous rocks sticking up out of the middle of the lake and moored there, played like otters scampering and leaping from the rock, and kayaked back exchanging stories of lives that intersected just for a moment at this little point in time. Nicholas led the pack most of the way in the kayak I don't love.

They were delightful kids- friendly, smart, polite, and found joy in every part of our lake journey. They clearly loved and respected Grandma Polly, and her lovely face sparkled with the delight of these precious souls in her presence. I had one of the nicest afternoons I had had in a long time just being in the presence of people who appreciated simple pleasures of life, and of each other.

As I deflated the kayaks and rolled them up to pack them in the car, I carried the kayak I now loved with a little more respect.

Romans 15:7
 ⁷ Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.