Who remembers these toys from our childhood? I suspect my 50-something friends . . . Weebles wobble but they don't fall down. They were little people with rounded, weighted bases, who tipped but popped back up.
Kind of like us in real life now. One of the constants of this season: being thrown off-balance by unexpected change/problems/issues/sorrows. This morning, for instance, one intern was so sick the nurses in the Newborn Unit had hung an IV drip, and even though she said she would still try to work she clearly had to go home (not that we would want someone with that level of gastroenteritis touching babies even if we weren't compassionate), the other intern is supposed to be on his last day and was unreachable until afternoon, all the new clinical officer interns were called to a half-day meeting, one medical officer (like a resident) got sent to a month-long training and the other had to leave for a family funeral, the medical students went to clinic, and my colleague was a couple hours delayed on the road. Meaning that out of our team of 12, one lone clinical officer intern who wasn't in the meeting, and me, were left to round on, do vital signs, write notes, draw blood, talk to parents, for 32 NICU and about 30 more Paeds ward patients. Or take this week: we found out that our medical licenses got lost in the cracks of ever-changing medical superintendents, one of us went to considerable effort to gather evidence-based support for following the Kenyan protocol for a certain type of patient but the team decided to just do what they have always done anyway, one of our kids had travel delays and later found out (unrelated) about a misunderstood missed deadline, I was scrambling to get the final edits on on the 4th Rwendigo book, all our kids are in significant transition as Julia wraps up her last week at Spring Lake Farm in Vermont and prepares to move to her Fellow's Program in Greensboro, Jack moves into his apartment with Cru friends at Duke (where he has no bed), Luke continues to figure out being an ortho intern, Abby (Luke's girlfriend) seemed to have one apartment after another fall through (though she finally got a place for her NP Trauma Fellowship), and Caleb got transferred to a different platoon that means he'll spend two of the next three months in additional training and field exercises. Then there are wobbles one doesn't expect to make such an impact, like the death of one of our family friends Dr. Fred Hubach who represented the stable foundation of my childhood. There was a day when riots made the road our teams were traveling in Uganda impassible, and then an embassy notice went out to expect street protests in Kenya too. There is the daily scan of the Ebola news, praying the epidemic does not reach Bundibugyo or Nyankunde (so far it hasn't, which we are thankful for, though the total cases have risen to 103). There was the afternoon I spent catching up our mortality database, feeling sad about the babies who have died. Then there are the small things like going to worship practice, and the leader has decided I need to add the electronic percussion on the keyboard, which I've never done, so it was kind of stressful. Or the fact that the lady who does two half-days of housework for us while we're in the hospital left for the week. Or the bizarre announcement that after changing our residence to WV two months ago, the 911 coordinator decided to change our address number (we're on a little gravel country road but for some reason 3413 will eventually have to change to 3317 . . . ). Or the constant cross-cultural nature of everything. Nothing earth shattering, just the constant pushes and punches that knock you off your groove. And all the above is this week alone.
Wobbling, righting, wobbling, righting.
One morning this week I was really struggling, particularly discouraged. I knew that the constant hits throwing me off-balance had resulted in a pretty poor attitude. This verse jumped out. "Create in me a clean heart, O LORD, and renew a steadfast spirit within me . . . that the bones You have broken may rejoice." I need a new, tender, heart, a renewed steady spirit. And the promise is that even the broken parts will eventually rejoice.
The weighted bottom of the Weeble is what keeps it popping back up, and the weight in our lives is that anchor called hope, that leaning into a dimension where the spirit is being refined like silver. Honestly the prayer for a steadfast spirit and clean heart DID help with the next day's punches.
We're all little Weebles trying to testify to glory.
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