A friend once shared on Facebook her experience of a three hour wait at a clinic made worse because she was without a book. This prompted another friend to respond: ‘What is this ‘without a book’ of which you speak?‘ I actually laughed out loud at that. Unthinkable that anyone should face any stretch of time without the ‘blessed companion’ that is a book.
This came to mind yesterday during the two and a half hours I spent at the Eye Clinic at Gartnavel General ‘without a book’. I should say that I had the blessed companionship of my wife but after a while the sighs become a bit more frequent, the backs and lower regions begin to protest and you begin to wonder if somehow we have been forgotten. When eventually your name is called it’s not so much relief as surprise.
But why the Eye Clinic? For the last two weeks or so I’ve been suffering from conjunctivitis along with sties and it was thought that further investigation was in order. Any infection in a cancer patient has to be treated seriously. In the end it appears my presently dodgy immune system is at the heart of the problem. However with antibiotics and appropriate eye drops things are definitely improving.
But to get back to this waiting business. You have to get used to it as a cancer patient. By and large it is understandable. You are not the only patient in the world, you are by no means the most catastrophic patient, the medical staff have a great many unforeseen challenges that arise, you have to accept that waiting patiently is all part of the cancer experience.
‘Waiting patiently‘ is another of those themes you come up against in the Psalms. In Psalm 37 David calls upon the ‘righteous’ to stand against what seems to be the relentless advance of the ‘wicked’. In the face of this David’s counsel is:
‘Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.’ (verse 7)
Those of us with a practical turn of mind might wonder how we can cultivate this stillness, this waiting patiently. Can we expect the Holy Spirit to zap us with these qualities so that patience is as familiar to us as breathing and fretting a distant memory? My experience and that of many other Christians is different. None other than John Newton shared his experience in a poem I Asked The Lord That I Might Grow:
‘I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of his salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.’
The answer he received was not what he anticipated. He wished for the subduing of his sins and rest. But:
‘Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.’
This almost drives him to despair until he realises that this is the way God answers ‘prayer for grace and faith’. He places His people in circumstances where they need to depend upon His grace alone and exercise faith in Him alone:
‘These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.’
The message is: ‘You want to be more patient? Well, here are a really irritating set of circumstances. Be patient.‘ Sounds harsh but as David sees it we are still ‘before the Lord’, we wait patiently for Him. In the poverty of our inner resources we turn to the Heavenly Father from whom comes the strength and the peace that are proof against every challenge.
