More Important Than Important

Tears streaming down her face, an ancient woman from down the street knocked at my door yesterday interrupting my work.

Actually, she didn’t knock; so feeble she could not make it up the single door step, she just stood there crying.

Fortunately my computer desk is right at our front window so I’d seen her totter up the driveway and went to the door to see what was the matter.

Even with my help, she could not make it inside because she was shaking and quivering so. She tried to explain why she had walked to my house but her voice cracked and she cried so hard that I could not understand her.

My first thought when she appeared was “Damn! Oh Damn! I’m right in the middle of something important here. I don’t need this!”

The importance of my work preparing Barbara White’s Along The Way columns for publication presses me to work on this project night and day recently. I’ve been skipping meals, working late, putting in 15-16-18-20 hour days.

Ginny and I talk about little else than The Project. I think about little else. Notes and clippings and file folders have littered our living room for weeks now. We pray about The Project. We’ve involved our whole family in helping.

I hardly ever post blog entries, grudging the time taken from The Project. My own writing has come to a screeching halt because I feel preparing Barbara’s books is more important than my own.

I feel that her work borders on the fringes of becoming a Christian classic.

So, when this old woman appeared at my door, my first thought was one of resentment.

I’m too busy serving God to be bothered with some senile old bitty.

Bullshit!

It much more important to follow Jesus than to write about following Jesus.

Setting aside my first thoughts, I calmed the old lady down enough to find out what had upset her.

She wanted a cardboard box.

She felt ashamed to admit it but one of her children is in jail and had asked her to mail a pair of eyeglasses from home and the old lady could not find a cardboard to put the glasses in.

She said she knew I had boxes because she’s seen the postman deliver proof pages of my books in small cardboard boxes.

That’s why she staggered to my door.

She needed a box one of my books had come in.

Well, I’ve prayed to be able to serve Christ with my writing.

Here’s my chance.

The old woman found it so embarrassing to have to tell me her daughter was in prison, she was so ashamed of admitting that to me, she was so weakened by the walk to my house, she was so upset and worried about her daughter that her blood sugar had spiked and she was near collapse.

I left my precious writing and found a box, tape, bubble-wrap, etc. and I packaged the eyeglasses securely. The old lady’s hands shook so bad that she could not address the package; I had to do that for her.

As I fixed up the box to mail to the prison, I calmed the old woman by asking her questions about her “baby” who is over 50! But still her mother babies her.

The old lady told me about how she married in 1943 but was not able to have children till after an operation in 1951. Then she gave birth — Pop. Pop. Pop. — to six children in less than ten years.

As she talked, she became clearer and clearer. He hands stopped trembling so bad. Her tears stopped and she told me all about that wonderful year 1945 when her husband mustadred out of the service and came home.

Happy beautiful memories unveiled and relived.

So, in all this, I lost a couple of hours work. So it threw my work schedule off. So I won’t finish the goal I’d set for today. So I’ll have to put in a few hours extra this weekend. So what?

But my times are in His hands.

It does no good for me to write about the love of Jesus if I don’t try to live it out.

What’s important to me is not necessarily important to God.

Some things are more important than important.

But, it strikes me funny to think that while the last book I wrote may or may not serve the Lord Christ -- the box that it came in will.