Quench thou the fires of hate and strife,
The wasting fever of the heart;
From perils guard our feeble life,
And to our souls Thy peace impart.
J. H. NEWMAN, Tr. from Latin.
The Locker room of the radiation clinic usually is empty when I walk in. It should be. Every 15 minutes, two patients are taking their radiation. When I walk in, someone is already having their treatment. I'm sure as I'm undressing, the next patient is pulling into the parking lot. Very rarely do we encounter one another.
So you could just imagine my surprise in finding another lady in there. We both were dressed in our hospital gowns trying to put away our belongings inside our lockers. The lockers are very tall, but extremely narrow. The shoes and clothes are no problem, except for the purse. Lord, I've yet to get it in there without a struggle.
That day was no different. I am bent over at one end, trying to jam the handbag in with all of my might. At the other end, is this poor woman attempting to do the same. Both of us are bent over wearing these hospital gowns, our behinds up in the air, having no luck at all.
"You know, I can't get this purse in there," I turned to her in total disgust.
"I've been trying to do the same for the last five minutes," she replies.
"Why do we have so much stuff in our purses? My daughter's purse is the size of my wallet. When did we start collecting all this stuff? When we had children, I think, we never stopped using diaper bags," I said taking some things out.
And what does she do? She burst out laughing. I mean a real gut wrenching laugh that brought tears to her eyes. She kept laughing and laughing so hard that at times, no sound came out. She kept repeating under her breath what I said over and over again, laughing the whole time.
I realized she was laughing, because she needed a release. It wasn't because I was extremely funny. She obviously had so much pent up emotion resting on her shoulders. She needed to release it. When I do bump into these ladies, they're not smiling. Who could be? I know I'm not. Radiation is a depressing and tiresome daily chore. We're tired. This place needs laughter.
I read something great in my devotional this morning. It said, God does His best work in the worst circumstances. I love that. I wish I could hang that in big bold letters right inside that locker room for all the ladies to see. I'm glad I made her laugh so hard. I hope I can do it again.
Have a blessed day everyone.
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