Misunderstandings

As a baby and through my preschool years, I had more than my fair share of ear infections.  Other than that, though, I wasn’t often sick.  When I was nine years old, I had pneumonia for the first time.  It was miserable.  I felt terrible and had no idea why.  When I finally just stopped playing or reading or doing anything fun, Mama and Daddy knew it was time to take me to the doctor.  Something was really wrong. 

Since I had little experience with being sick, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I had been warned that they would probably need to take some blood.  I had not been given a heads up about the urine specimen.  So, a very stern, no-nonsense nurse handed me a kidney shaped plastic bowl and sent me to the restroom.  I later learned that the bowl was intended to be used by folks who happened to be throwing up.  Maybe she thought it would be easier for me.  Her instructions were, “Second knob to the left.”  She was giving me directions to the restroom, of course, but, I could clearly see the restroom from where I was. 

Mama asked me if I knew what to do.  I nodded – which was a big, fat lie.  When I got inside the restroom, the second knob to the left was hot water.  So, I filled that bowl with hot water.  To the brim.  It was so hot that I had to hold it with my fingertips around the plastic lip.  I carefully carried that steaming bowl down a short hallway and deposited it at a table next to the nurse.  She stared at the bowl.  She looked at me.  Her mouth opened and closed, but not a sound came out.  I turned around and went back to sit with Mama.  I didn’t really like my nurse and I told Mama what had happened.  I had just finished the story when that same cranky nurse asked to speak to Mama.  It irked me considerably that I couldn’t hear what they were saying.  When it was over, Mama came back and told me that I had “misunderstood” and needed to head back to the restroom with a new plastic bowl.  I did, but I thought it was a really gross thing to expect anyone to do.  Nurse Cranky stood outside the door to receive the second “specimen.”  I knew right then and there that I would never, ever become a nurse.

It really doesn’t matter much if you are on the giving or receiving end of a misunderstanding – it isn’t too pleasant for either side.  There have been many days when the misunderstandings have piled up on each other until nobody even knew how things got to be in such a mess.  Unraveling it all would be impossible.  It makes it hard to forgive, hard to love.  But, God always has the answer for those misunderstandings.  He made sure that someone wrote it all down for us:

Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another. Even as Jehovah freely forgave you, so do you also. But, besides all these things, clothe yourselves with love, for it is a perfect bond of union.—Colossians 3:13, 14; 1 Peter 4:8.