Gory Bits Gone Wrong

I was on my lunch break, lying skyward on a bench, reading an excerpt from John Hull's memoir about going blind called "Touching The Rock" when...

Something had happened. Something was wrong.

At that moment, her little world was only as big as the belly of that stuffed animal turned wrong way out, wires like blown arteries, sheared from a heart in the shape of a battery-less box. 

Something had to be done. Right then.

I walked to my shop, found a tiny screwdriver, some electrical tape and pliers to strip the sheathing from the wires. Her worry receded a bit, the implements in my lap meant -

Something was going to be done. Right then.

She was a steady nurse. Kept the little screws safe in the folds of her pillowcase dress. Scolded the boys for wrapping electrical tape around their appendages. But her eyes never wavered, never left our patient. 

Something was about to be done. Right then!

Her body language willed my fingers on as I twisted wire into wire, first the black and then the red. I turned my palm up and she placed the electrical tape into my hand. Slowly I wrapped the once severed wires, first the black and then the red. Her eyes had questions that her mouth never asked. 

Not now. Something was being done! 

I pushed new batteries into place.  Switched the little switch to on. And she held her breath, held it in, held back elation, held back joy. Not yet.... 

Is it done? Now??!!

Her eyes did not need a mouth to ask. I handed her our patient, quickly she pressed it's paws together and from somewhere inside it's belly, little electric currents carried a signal to a tiny speaker hidden behind fake fur flecked with dirt. 

NOW!!

When all my guts, all my gory bits have gone wrong. When my insides feel like they are on my outsides and I don't feel like it will ever be better. I hope I remember today. Remember this child. Patient and trusting and willing and hopeful. I hope I am like her when my Divine Physician must work on me, when He strips back the sheared places, and slowly twists my heart back together.