AWAITING A NEW KIND OF PAIN

Though it is dim and muggy this morning I thought surely, as I stepped outside, that the seasonal rains were over and now I can walk freely about the neighborhood on a daily bssis. I noticed some chalk-marks on the pavement near the red no parking strip on the curbing and at closer inspection they clearly read “Wet Pain”! In my reclining years, (not wanting to use the less delicate “declining years), I have had some experience with pains of various sorts. To my knowledge there has never been anything I could refer to as ”Wet Pain”.

The street was a bit wet, perhaps from the night before, and it occurred to me that these words were a weather report of sorts, some impromptu observation from a vaguely disgruntled neighbor perhaps. On the other hand, who am I to brush aside a pain that one day may be my own; just how it is dealt with could be crucial. Such a pain may be, like that well known thorn of Paul, (2 Cor. 12: 7-10), which enabled him to say “In my weakness I am strong”, in the Lord, of course. My guess is that such a reaction does not come automatically and may need some practice—it is never to soon to begin.

Musing as I walked, thinking maybe it is something experienced only in the bathtub, I noticed what you have already guessed; all the red curbing up and down the street was clearly marked “Wet Paint”. But I am alerted and prepared now for something that could occur to me at any time in the future, Praise God.