Delight

I worked in an Operating Room at a large hospital in Florida in the 70’s,mainly scrubbing for a cardiovascular surgeon. He was about 6’5”, lean, bald, glasses, good looking. He was confident, serious, professional. He was an excellent surgeon.

The same team always worked for him. There were one or two nurses scrubbed at the operating table (they were considered sterile, passing instruments to or assisting the surgeon) and one or two circulating nurses (the nonsterile person who ran for supplies, handed them off to the ones scrubbed at the table and completed the paperwork.)

We were scheduled to begin heart surgery soon. We had ordered instruments which had been cleaned and sterilized but we had not yet done the first case. It was late in the afternoon and we were just about to leave when a call came from ER. They had a man who was changing a tire and a piece of metal somehow broke off and pierced his chest and the pericardium (the sac in which the heart is enclosed.) He was in cardiac tamponade which means his pericardium was filling up with blood and compressing his heart.

“We’re coming up now!” they said. “But we’ve never done a heart!” “Just open the packs…the doctor said to just set up the room and open the packs!” These directions were from our surgeon who just happened to be walking through the ER when this guy came in.

We set up the room, opened the packs and found the saw to open the man’s chest just as they came flying into the room. He cracked that chest open, popped a finger in the hole, did a little purse string suture around the hole, pulled it up tight removing his finger , poof…stopped the bleeding.

There was a collective exhalation. I don’t think anyone had breathed until that moment. The guy was sitting up in bed the next day when we went to see him, watching TV like nothing had happened. This was one cool surgeon.

I remember one time in particular following a scheduled procedure. He hardly had to ask for a thing. We were like a well oiled machine…a fast, efficient well oiled machine. He had finished, removed his gloves, taken off his gown pushing it into the trash and was walking out of the room. He stopped at the door and turned around and said, “Thanks guys, ya’ll did a great job.” Turned around and left.

We knew we were good. This was not an ah ha moment for us. But we all stood there and grinned like idiots. “Well….my!” There was just something about this man turning around and acknowledging our work that made our day. Man, we just wanted to do even better next time…if he thought this case went well, wait until tomorrow!”

I don’t know why, but I often think of that moment when I read Zephaniah 3:17…maybe because he was just a big guy. “The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

We are not graded on performance. God is not down on us one day and up the next. His love is the same … overpowering, everlasting, all consuming love from which nothing can separate us. Our acceptance is sealed. There is no condemnation.

But to say he delights in us. That’s another thing. That kind of bumps it up doesn’t it. That brings a smile. After I’d read Zephaniah, I looked for other verses.

2 Samuel 22:20 says He rescued me because He delighted in me. Psalm 35:27 says the Lord “delights in blessing his servant with peace.” Psalm 147:11 “the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” Proverbs 12:22 God “….delights in people who are trustworthy.” Micah 7:18 He “delights in showing unfailing love.” Proverbs 3:12 talks about God disciplining those he loves, “as a father the son he delights in.”

Ever had a child you didn’t delight in…or was difficult to delight in or the episodes of delight were so few and far between that you had to write them down?! I had a friend once who said her kids just weren’t what she was expecting. Another friend was so insulted with that remark…how could she say that? I understood what she meant. You expect them to make sense, to fit the mold of whatever you always thought kids would be like, that whatever you do naturally, just works on them; when you talk something over with them, they get it. You expect kids that sit, just do school and make at least B’s, to make friends easily like falling off a log, to mind because you said so.

I had to smile later on when the insulted friend described her son and mine as the kind of kids that just suck all the emotional energy out of you…out of the entire room. There would be nothing left but an empty shell when they finally left for college. If you don’t have a child like that, keep having them. One friend had four before she finally birthed a suck the emotional energy right out of you kid.

So which kid do I want to be…the one who just absolutely wears you out…all the time…every day? Or the one who brings delight. The one God turns around often to and looks at and laughs and says, “That was just great…you got it, good job!” I want to be that kid. Not to be accepted. Not to earn more points. I just love to feel that smile!