Part 1 - The Job
Part 2 - The Boss
Part 3 - The Father
Part 5 - The Budley
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January 2011 was the month that made me want to eat biscuits. Eating biscuits (or as they’re known around my house – lard sandwiches) is what I do when I’m at the end of everything I know to do and have no clue what to do next or how to handle anything. After getting through the whole Scott-losing-his-job-and getting-it-back-event and the Christmas program that sustained us, my dad died, my boss retired, I had jury duty, and then I got sick with a nasty sinus infection. It took a lot of biscuits to make it to February. February started with my annual gynecological exam, bone density test, and mammogram. I lost one of my favorite earrings that day in the women’s center. It was one of a pair of tiny silver and red hearts that a friend gave me when we were in college. Her dad was an English professor and had taken a sabbatical in Poland. She took her own sabbatical that semester and went with him. She came back with these precious little earrings for me. I have treasured them all these years.
Of course, I didn’t realize I was one earring short until I got home, an hour away. It was only then that I realized that the little tug I felt on my ear back in the dressing room when I disrobed was not just due to a narrow neck opening in my shirt, it was my earring leaving my ear lobe.
I went back to the women’s center a week later, but not specifically to look for the earring.
I went back because I had to re-do the mammogram.
At my initial appointment, after I’d gotten outfitted in a little pink paper bolero shrug and unknowingly deposited my earring on the floor somewhere, the sweet technician called me in. She got me all pressed down and squeezed in and told me to hold my breath (why do they tell you to hold your breath? It’s not like you can breathe all squished up in that thing anyway). The machine locked up. With me in it. She apologized and finally figured out the code to get it to release me. Whew.
She worked with it a little and then we tried again. Press, squeeze, don’t breathe.
The machine locked up again. Again with me in it.
I had contortioned into a breathless pose two times now but still had no pictures to show for it. At that point we all agreed the best thing to do was reschedule the appointment and call a service technician.
I went through a drive-thru on my way home to order a biscuit. Or twelve.
I went back to the women’s center a week later. No problems with the machine that time, and no sign of the missing earring either.
I celebrated the success with a biscuit. I followed with a chaser biscuit to console my disappointment about the earring loss. Those lard sandwiches are good for just about anything.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
Part 1 - The Job
Part 2 - The Boss
Part 3 - The Father
Part 5 - The Budley
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