Lucille's

I AM THE PRIZE

 Recently I drove by a high school and quickly glanced at a big lighted sign announcing the date of….   wait for it............

PATHETIC AWARDS

It took me a few seconds to realize that the sign actually said:

 ATHLETIC AWARDS

I laughed out loud and almost drove off the road. Then I began to ponder all the ways in which I am pathetic and wonder if I might be eligible for the award.

I used to be pathetic (still am) at things that didn’t matter to me…like singing bass, or sword swallowing or bull-fighting. None of my friends could do those things either so that was okay.

I would have liked to have been a better swimmer though, like my sister Judy. She tried in vain to teach me the techniques but I was pretty hopeless. I did look good in a bikini for a short while which assuaged my flagging ego somewhat but that turned pathetic sooner than I would have hoped. 

(sadly, no pics available)

I liked to participate in sports and pretend I was a contributing member of the team but inside I knew I was less than stellar (make than completely less). I was okay with that because there were other important things I could do like recite Latin poetry and re-arrange our attic bedroom 50 different ways.

I felt beyond pathetic when as a young mom I was discarded for an even younger model. I lost focus and confidence and hope. I feared the mornings when it all became true again. Pathetic was written all over my face.

Years later, after one of my 13 surgeries (yikes) I remember feeling particularly pathetic as my teenage daughter tucked me into bed and administered my medication that she bought with her babysitting money. I was the parent and she shouldn’t have had to do that. I struggled with my inability to leap tall buildings and be the super-single-mom I needed to be while pathetically my body refused to co-operate. Over the years, I mourned the fact that my children were unable to buy the team jacket, sport the trendy fashion, eat out with their friends, feel secure that they would have what they needed.

Yet, interestingly enough, they have the most amazing memories of growing up. They recount the story of our 3-day holiday in the Okanagan in a leaky tent with a propane stove that didn’t work, and the pile of mush that accumulated outside our tent after the rain had its way with our presto logs. (I proffered them as cream of wheat for breakfast but received no takers.)

They love how we ate dinner in the dining room with 3-course meals served on the good china on Sunday nights. The main attraction however was that we got to take turns leaving the table and coming back as a character that the other two had to guess. I was acclaimed ‘awesome’ when I returned one evening in my allotted one minute with a cardboard guitar and singing ‘Born in the USA.’ How cool was I??  

           

We cried together and we laughed together and now years later we seek one another out to share our lives. They have turned out to be successful people with beautiful hearts. When I look at them, I don’t feel pathetic at all.

Now being pathetic in my body is another story. Which day this week will I wake up unable to walk because of arthritis in my feet? Which weeks will fibromyalgia suck more and more life from me? My head and heart are full of a trillion things I want and feel I must do. I refuse to live out my days taking up space. The time left is shrinking (unlike my body) and I must stuff as much as I can into the days I am given. What if I live my whole life and never accomplish my unique purpose?

 It’s too tragic to think about!

And so I press on and I do things I shouldn’t and pour out too much of myself and insist on doing things myself and cram another thing into my week. I do pace myself much better than before but sometimes someone needs me, or my brownies, or my loud cheers from the sidelines and just what is a body to do?

 I have come to peace with the fact that I am not loved by God for my performance; that he would adore me sitting motionless and uncommunicative in a wheelchair. But the very fact that I have breath and can see needs and hurts and have that deep desire to bring help and healing and show love propels me beyond the easy and into the hard where everything hurts and where I long to escape this pathetic state and really go out there and slay the world with kindness.

Knowing that God knows my heart makes all the difference. When I am too feeble, he doesn’t berate. He offers rest and restoration for body and soul. He bathes me in loving kindness. I am renewed.

Seeing myself through God’s eyes gives me new perspective. I am his adored child. I am perfection.

I am ineligible for the pathetic award.

And so are you.