Annotations From the IV Room: To Be Human Is To Be Mistaken

Today, the IV room holds me, one other gal who we will fictitiously call Dana, and one older man who we will (also fictitiously) call Kelvin. And the nurse, of course, who shall remain nameless. The lesson of the day seems to be that humans can easily be mistaken, even medical professionals.

Kelvin has a large, clear bag of fluids. Dana has a smaller bag of yellow fluid, indicating she’s receiving a cocktail of B vitamins. Her bag has stopped dripping. My fellow patients and the nurse are engaged in much lively conversation, laughing, and general silliness when I arrive. Moments later, as I settle into a chair and remove my jacket, the nurse holds up a freshly plucked needle taken from Kelvin’s arm.

Then it dawns on her that she’s plucked prematurely.

“Wait, what — what have I done? I just got you going! Why did I extract your needle? I meant to free Dana, not yooouuuu!”

Kelvin shrugs and says, “I dunno! You’re the boss. I figured you knew what you were doing!”

A few good natured expletives get tossed around the room, and I join in the laughter and make jokes about whether I should stay put, run for my life, or just act natural. And by natural, I mean read my book with one eye, and watch the nurse like a hawk with the other until my bag is empty.

All joking and sarcasm aside, after the nurse got Kelvin’s IV re-started in his other arm, she kept bemoaning her mistake. So I said “Hey, chin up. This is the first silly mistake I’ve ever seen you make, and I’ve been coming here for years. Give yourself a break.”

Of course, this was easy for me to say, as it was not my arm being used as a pin cushion. But Kelvin readily agreed to forgive and forget. Truth is, our nurse rocks. And we know juggling lively conversations, managing three IV’s, answering phones, measuring meds, and dealing with incoming inquiries/orders from the doctor and other staff are not easy tasks.

Life is not an easy task. Not for those who give care. Not for those who need care. And that pretty much sums up the lot of us in this world.

Alexander Pope once said “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” The IV room today has been a living picture of Pope’s words. But if I allow my mind to stretch beyond the IV room, I must be honest and admit I’ve room for improvement outside the IV room.

Life is full of humans, and therefore error. On a base level, I understand that. On a practical level, I often do a poor job of remembering that and being gracious about it. Medical mishaps, toddler spills, oil spills in the driveway, broken eyeglasses, discounts not taken into account at the cash register. These are a few of the mishaps I’ve personally experienced in the last few weeks. Rest assured, if human hands and heads are involved, there will be error.

As the bumper sticker (not word for word) used to say:

Poo happens.

Forgiveness, as it is laid out for us Biblically, does not come naturally, as erring does. Erring takes place without effort. Forgiving only happens with concentrated effort.

Mishaps are challenging to forgive. But then there’s carefully orchestrated sinfulness, which is even more challenging to forgive. For instance, finding your eyeglasses smashed to smithereens, with a popped out lens and grossly twisted and broken in two frame is one thing. Finding them “neatly” folded on your chair when you return to it is another. This is a case of a mishap occurring, but also a cover up. An unwillingness to confess and apologize has been glossed over, and picking the glasses up from the floor and gently placing them on my chair as neatly as possible has been resorted to, in the hopes that it acts as some sort of an apology. As if the guilty one was saying, Oh, here are your specs, Mrs. C. All twelve pieces of them. #sorrynotsorry

No,  I think. Come to me and confess everything. Then and only then will I forgive you, you little weasel.

I am glad God doesn’t treat me that way. If I had to confess every offense I’ve ever committed to receive genuine forgiveness, I’d be on my way to Hades. I simply cannot do it. Unbeknownst to me, I sin. All the time. I’m probably sinning right now, somehow, blissfully unaware of the depths of my depravity.

“Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do.”

That was the prayer of Jesus on the cross and it is to be my prayer. Whether I’m dealing with a mishap or pre-meditated mistreatment or failure to own up, forgiveness is the correct response. Seventy times seven is 490, but the point of Jesus’ mathematical answer about the correct number of times one should forgive was not a solution to a math problem. It was a solution to a heart problem.

Keep forgiving.

That’s the message. And do it because Jesus keeps doing it. And if that’s not sufficient enough reason, perhaps Matthew 6:14 will provide some motivation:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus was not saying that if you’re His, and do not forgive, you lose your salvation. He’s saying if you’re His, you will forgive, as that is the natural consequences of a genuine confession of faith. In other words, forgiveness is the dominant trait of a Christian. If you refuse to forgive, you are not a Christian.

That is not to say that forgiveness comes naturally, easily, or that it is not often a process that takes years to come to full fruition. It’s just to say that the child of God will naturally head in the direction of forgiveness and reconciliation because that child knows and continually senses the depth of offenses for which she is guilty of and forgiven for. She is keenly aware of the depravity of self, coupled with the forgiving power of the blood of Christ that has cleansed her. And that awareness of undeserved grace and mercy is what spurns her on to, in response, extend undeserved grace and mercy to others.

Well my IV is a handful of drops away from being finished and that means I can stop preaching at you. Forgiveness is hard. I write today out of an ongoing struggle to be like Christ, who readily and freely forgives everything from slight mishaps to pre-meditated and carried out maliciousness. Just because one is saved does not mean one is automatically sanctified. The struggle of forgiveness is real. But also necessary. It gives us a slight (and I mean slight) clue as to what it was like for Jesus on the cross, when He bore the weight of the world’s sin. So when I feel as though I can’t conceivably forgive, I try to remember Christ’s work on the cross. My duty, though reflective of His, isn’t comparable to His. I am not required to forgive the sins of the world or to be the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of others. I’m merely called to forgive the sins committed against me and those I love, whether they are committed by little weasels or sexual predators or murderers or store clerks – because that’s what Jesus would do. And though I’ve used the word “duty” here, it should be duly noted that while Christ did what the Father required of Him, it was love that kept Him nailed to the cross. And it is love that should keep us dying to self and freely offering forgiveness. We love because He first loved us. We forgive because He first forgave us.

Okay, for real now. IV is done. Needle is out. I’m a big fat sinner. So are you. God forgives us anyway. In response to His loving forgiveness, we are to lovingly forgive.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it like IV tape on a hairy arm.