protector
In the waiting room, I sit on a cushy sofa beside a water feature that transforms the wall into a waterfall. Rivulets gurgle, trickling down over curvy metal panels–shiny blue, polished silver, suggesting the play of light over undulating bodies of fish, a pulling current. The water disappears behind a panel at the bottom. I wonder if it’s real water or merely a trick of light and sound, if my inquisitive touch would cause a spray across our faces. I wonder, but instead of reaching out, I pick up my book and try to lose myself in a story.
He leads me beside still waters, the poet wrote, implying that because I travel with the shepherd, I can walk beside the water and, my thirst already quenched, not get off track slurping for sustenance. God sustains and satisfies me with Himself. David articulated this truth about God all kinds of ways, even compared himself to a weaned child unconcerned “with things too wonderful to know,” leaning his head on his mother’s chest. It isn’t only here I think of this poetry; lately, I’ve been listening to the psalms a bit more carefully, carrying them with me like a staff.
Zoe sits on my other side, reading. Her warmth feels good, also the way we can communicate with traded glances as we wait for someone to come and tell us Adam is finished and ready to go home.
I keep glancing away from my book and through the opening above the receptionist’s desk, past the closed hallway door, down the hall to all the rooms. I imagine the oral surgeon, perched on a wheelie stool in active pose, elbows and attention cocked, hovering over Adam’s open mouth while Adam sleeps the patient’s drugged, forgetful sleep, and dental assistants, gloved and masked and wrapped in medical blue, murmur to the surgeon in monotone. I imagine this, but I can only see a row of closed doors. Those doors look quiet and flat calm, still, like Adam’s face likely looks while he sleeps. I wander down the hall in my mind, my hand flat on the open pages of my book, wondering which door leads to my son and where I would run if suddenly I needed to see him.
In Walking on Water, Madeline L’Engle wrote, “I have a point of view. You have a point of view. God has view.” I remember this, staring at all those closed doors, and also I remember her assertion that we could all walk on water, our daring feet like Peter’s, if we could only remember how. Somewhere, faith eclipses the borders of knowing, or, knowing eclipses knowledge.
Despite my best efforts to prepare Adam for getting his wisdom teeth removed, I feel pretty sure he barely understands the outer edges of this experience. Even so, he trusts me.
Adam has a handful of reliable expectations because I gave him all the information he could accurately interpret in as simple a way as I could, written, so he could review it. He has read and reread that social story for days. He knew exactly the time we would leave this morning, and so when I walked downstairs, he already wore his shoes, already had his diabetic kit slung over one shoulder. He knew about the gauze they would stuff in his mouth after, because I knew that without advance warning, that detail would be the one to confuse him. Most importantly, he knew I would be here waiting, and he felt no fear.
Drumming my fingers against the cover of my book, I wonder if Adam thought “I’ll be with you” meant I would actually hold his hand, that he would feel my fingers, my skin, while the doctor did his work. With all my being, though I don’t want to watch the procedure, I wish I could be beside him now. I wish I could hold his hand, so that he could feel me through the cloud of unknowing, when he wakes up to the strange room and the numb swelling of his cracked lips. I shift in my seat, returning my gaze to my book, recognizing the restlessness I feel as protectiveness, fierce and simmering. Knowing Adam didn’t fully comprehend, that he couldn’t, makes me feel even more protective of him. I know he needs this procedure, but I can’t quite sit back against my seat. Give me one sound of potential danger, and I will leap to my feet.
I glance at the water feature again and wonder if God has peeled back the curtain for me another time as a gift of grace, allowing me to catch a glimpse of His heart. My shepherd’s ways are higher than my ways, and I am a sheep with limited capacity for understanding, but as I grow and spend more time with God, He gives me a knowing that surpasses knowledge, a peace, a love exploding human comprehension. Most importantly, God prepares me for unknown lands by telling me He will be where I am, with me through the cloud of unknowing, even when I can’t feel Him beside me. As I sit here in the waiting room shaking my leg, reading but listening, listening, listening and constantly aware of my son, aware of this place, aware of every other person here and the temperature of the room, I feel tender, imagining that if I, with all my messy imperfection, keep watch this way, our Shepherd must watch over us far more protectively, with even more alertness. I feel thankful, because He is unlimited by everything that limits me. He knows I can’t completely understand; that I don’t even fully know what to anticipate; that sometimes I don’t perceive how near He actually is to me.
“Who am I that He should be mindful of me?” David asked. Indeed, who am I, that He anticipates my fear, that he waits to run to me?
I put down my book, clasping my hands together, looking again down that hall, waiting, waiting, waiting, and I know the answer: I’m His child, and He loves me.
