The Chairs

   Sometimes when I write these entries I scramble for an idea or a starter.  Sometimes these ideas are based on my personal health conditions at the moment.  Sometimes they spark from something I have read or learned.  Today I was painting chairs.
   We received a new kitchen table from Kyle and Michelle.  They also brought along a matching bench and the two pieces look beautiful.  But we decided to take the five walnut-brown-stained captain's chairs we had with our old table and paint them white.  Each one has multiple spindles and leg supports and nooks and crannies and weird little angles.  Complicating things of course is that I am covering a dark brown surface with a white paint on a smooth surface, all of which you understand means multiple coats.  The process is started.  One or two chairs at a time come down to the basement with me, get their initial treatment, sit there during the obligatory drying period, get their next coat, and so on.  Use the brush, wash the brush, let the brush dry, put the brush away, and repeat often.
   Why bother saying this?  Well I just wish to inform you that the white chairs that have been completed look doggone good by the table.  I can honestly say that I am proud of the change.  But it takes time...it is all a process.  When my friend Tom went through his two bouts with lymphoma, he informed us that he had a verse that was becoming his theme during his treatments.  Job 23:10 states, "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."  This repetitive cycle of testing is what I am experiencing as well.  I also have my obligatory "drying" periods -- like now -- where it seems as though nothing is happening but it is still a part of the process.  I have to just sit and be patient just like those chairs.  When finished, the improvement is obvious and lasting.
   When this journey I am on is all over, I do not want to say that I have conquered cancer.  I don't want to be identified as a "survivor."  I am not planning on having some grand and glorious tattoo emblazoned on my chest that proclaims that I have defeated this enemy.  But I will have the chairs.  They will remind me.  When I sit on any one of those chairs, I will remember the process that made them look so good.  But I think I should let them dry first.