Parents, What to do while waiting? My father had to take my sister and me to the hospital with him, as he made patient rounds one time when my mother had another meeting across town. We were too young to stay home by ourselves and no one else was available to keep us that day. Instead of us running the halls or exposing us to the germs of a waiting room somewhere, my father took us to the doctors’ lounge, which was just a big board room with a large table in the middle with lots of chairs around it. It smelled like cigarette smoke, burned coffee and old hospital smells. He had been gone several minutes when my ADHD had had enough of sitting still with a pen and a note pad, in a chair too tall for my dangling little legs. I don’t know what adventure my mind had cooked up but as soon as I had ascertained that the coast was clear, I jumped up on my chair and slid across the table, à la one of the Duke boys sliding across the hood of their car, so they could drive fast off road and jump something… a “Dukes of Hazzard” episode was never complete until the boys with the General Lee did something good by outrunning someone, jumping something, and rescuing someone. Only my little jump and slide across the table yielded only an adrenaline rush and a loud crash followed by regret. Back in the day, lots of doctors smoked, so the hospital had provided a fancy ceramic ashtray for the doctors as they met around the table. Young Bo Duke was unaware that his hood slide would send said ashtray flying across the room to crash on the floor, just as another doctor walked in and stepped over it… I was frozen, then I burst into tears. The doctor, not knowing what to do with some crying kid who had invaded the lounge, just turned around and walked out… back to busily saving lives. I sat and waited in a chair, head down, tears rolling down my cheeks, legs dangling, waiting for my father to return and see the mess I had made. When he finally arrived, I couldn’t talk, so my sister gladly put on the reporter hat giving him the play-by-play, maybe embellishing the story a bit for effect as we McGinnises are prone to do at times.(who knew that would come in handy as a preacher!) Surprisingly, he wasn’t too mad, he was in doctor mode, he evaluated the situation and came up with a solution. He picked up the pieces, dropped them in the trash and we went home. He made some comment that smoking was bad for you and they probably didn’t need to be smoking anyway. Apparently, at that time a large number of doctors smoked… doesn’t make sense to us now, but back then it was very acceptable. It would be many years later that hospitals would be smoke free. So, as we wait for this coronavirus thing to be over, there are lots of things we can be doing. Maybe we can take a page out of the Dukes of Hazzard and do something good like rescue someone… probably not a good idea to outrun someone, jump something, break something or smoke something but rescuing someone is a good option.
Paul says when we belong to Jesus and His people, our lives are changed, we become eager to do something good. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.” Titus 2:11-14 (CSBBible) So, while we wait, ask God what good something He has for us to do today… who needs to be rescued, even if it's in a small way. We can rescue someone else from loneliness with a phone call or driveway visit. Or rescue someone from boredom with a fun game played together on Zoom. Or drop off coloring books, sidewalk chalk, or a board game to someone with young children.
Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m praying for you all!
