My temporary job in the sheet metal shop was winding down.
For the first time in my 34 years as a sheet metal worker I was unsure of my future.
I had hurt my back as an apprentice and this would be a condition that plagued me throughout my entire career. Now in my late fifties, it had become apparent that with my back problem along with a chronic lung condition, It was becoming harder and harder to produce in the shop.
My high level of production was falling off at an alarming rate as my ailing lungs struggled to meet the oxygen demands placed upon it by the rest of my body.
I could feel my oxygen starved heart working over time as I scurried around the shop hoping no one noticed how out of breath I was.
One day I was having an unusually difficult time breathing, I was coughing uncontrollably, and there was a deep pain in my lower back. Finally it became so bad that I knew something had to be done so I called a clinic and got in for a quick check up.
After taking my temperature and pressing on my back in a few places the doctor looked at me sternly and said “When you leave here I want you to go straight to the emergency room. You have pneumonia.”
I am well aware of the fact that pulmonary sarcoidosis and pneumonia makes a cocktail similar to arsenic and green tea so I followed the doctors orders without delay.
I spent the next five days in the ICU Hooked to tubes and getting stabbed with sharp objects regularly. When the hospital staff realized that this tortuous treatment wasn’t killing me, they gave up and sent me home. I was thinking “FOOLS! If you hadn’t fed me so well your diabolical plan might have worked.”
So there I was, unsure of what the future had in store for me but willing to let go and let God (a neat little trick I learned from my mother).
This tactic had never failed me in the past and I knew that another opportunity would present itself. I must keep an open heart and mind and and stay alert so as not to let that opportunity slip by me unnoticed.
With a quiet resolve and a flicker of excitement I watched and waited.
