A Well Greased Machine (Lisa)

My husband and I are like a well-greased machine. We heard this often enough when it came to our daughter. Claire lived with the challenges of being quadriplegic and for nearly 27 years we honed our way of caring for her, loving her. It was always easier to double team, tackling her personal needs ... I imagined us, doctor and nurse performing a demanding surgery, all gloved up, masks donned. We took turns as lead surgeon, our roles shifting mid-procedure; him removing her trach, I inserting the new one.

We’d make a game of it, sometimes a race - who could get her curled up arm or spindly legs through the sleeve or pant leg first? Manning our stations on preferred sides of the bed, we took our positions... READY? SET? GO! racing to prove our own strategy worked best. I'm an insert-foot-into-pant-leg-first-then-shimmy-it-up kind of gal. He’s a reach-arm-up-through-pant-leg-grab-foot-and-pull kind of guy. We laughed chiding each other, "Why do you do it that way? My way is better!"

Down through the years we found our comfortable strategies and positions in other places too. On Sundays, when Claire sat sandwiched in the church pew between us, I had to sit on her right while he sat on her left. She would fall right over without us holding her up. I tried sitting on the other side but it never went well. So yes, we had our preferences. We grew used to our side, our methods, our ways. Same was true at her bedside. He had his side, I had mine and like people said, we were a well-greased machine… that is, until those moments when we weren’t.

Life is life and human is human. We didn't always run so smoothly with each other or with our family or with any other human being. Sometimes we got so stuck in our chosen positions, committed to our well-honed ideas or strategies that we closed ourselves off. Suddenly it didn't feel like a game. No greased wheels. No winners. No fun.

Somewhere I heard a quote that suggests when in a disagreement to, "Search for the truth in their error and the error in your truth." No matter how erroneous someone might appear to you, God is calling us to look for some truth in their actions or words, that would help us to love them, even as we disagree. He also calls us to be humble, as we search for the error in what we say or how we say it, considering that it may not be received by others as we intend. Sometimes our best intentions do not feel like love. Shouldn’t that be the starting point, that our words and actions come from a place of love? Jesus thought so. We are all human. Only God is God. We come from different places, have different life experiences, function with different chemistries, brains, bodies. We stand on different sides of the bed.

One day, Pat and I switched bedsides on Claire. My pant strategy did not work. This puzzled me until I looked over and saw that Pat was using my proven strategy on my preferred side of the bed. My right handedness did not serve me well on the other side of the bed, nor did his. We both had to adapt. We found each other’s truths.

God never commanded us… “Thou shalt understand all” or “Thou shalt judge all” or “Thou shalt fix all” He commanded us, “Thou shalt LOVE each other” and bring each other, love each other to HIM, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who will take care of all the understanding and judging and fixing. LOVE is the only answer.

Be well and joyous! Lisa