Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: December 24, 2005
Good Sabbath
December 24, 2005
I really didn't expect to write any thing this day. I have that common ailment that knows no cure except a thousand ointments and pills that turn it from a week-long problem to only seven days. I woke up not believing that I had a cold since I get so few of them. I wait for it to seek more space in my chest so that cough would pain my ribs. I know so many wonderful people who suffer from real ailments with no known cures, so I shouldn't ever complain about a cold--besides no one would have invented kleenex without a cold,
Steve and Linda left to visit her parents so the house is near-empty, but our younger son, Mark is helping me with a study and we share laughs together while measuring the traffic--which goes from light to not-so-heavy. As a man turns into a parent, he also goes through his own maturation. I became a parent soon after my teen-age years. I was hardly a man, though considered an adult. Fran, being a female (thank God), matured more quickly as girls are supposed to. Just picking out shoes is a tougher task for a gal than a boy. Boys love sneakers and would wear them forever if they could. Later we learn about nice shoes but trade them in for sandals or such on weekends.
Colds remind us that wearing a hat/cap in the cold night air is a smart thing, but men are not hat-wearers as they once were, except for baseball caps. You find that warmth escapes through your head so you need something to intercept it, though the mere thought of this truth makes me uncomfortable. Mostly, you run out of the house and forget that theory, so the medicine cabinet braces for more action as our stupidity takes over.
The cold was invented by God so that boys would be urged to put on their caps and gloves when they are young. There is no truth that colds were created by Bayers.
I can understand measles and chicken pox, scarlet fever and even mumps, but a "common" cold I cannot comprehend. Is it a virus or a bug or something smaller than a bug? Is it real or imagined--no, the nose seeking a kleenex tells us this is real. Maybe it's a curse laid on humanity by Lucifer to show that not even God can prevent it from occupying the human nose. The sinus collects bacteria, that's its function. Why can't it collect whatever it is that creates the cold? Is the bug too smart or small or maybe invisible? Yes that's it, invisible as no one has ever seen a cold-bug; have you?
I imagine it as a stealth-creation of the devil, tiny, fast, elusive with a sense of mischief and humor--laughing all the way into a bag full of kleenex.
Oh well, I thank God that I don't have anything worse like a few of my friends have, with no cure evident and far worse than sniffles and 7-days of misery could produce. Those friends I especially appreciate on days with my runny-nose... So that's it; God created a cold so that we would better understand what our friends are suffering through. It's like fasting for a day to understand hunger. I'm OK with that possibility.
Enjoy your Sabbath with or without a cold, remembering your loved ones and friends who have so much worse afflictions.
sandy
