by Connally Gilliam
I am missing cartilage between the big toe and ball of my right foot. They did surgery to remove this weird - tennis induced - bone spur, only to discover: "The joint is shot." And unlike with knees, there's really no such thing as "toe replacement" surgery.
So today, when I walk-limped into the foodbank where I volunteer, I began talking to the coordinator who asked, "How's your foot?" (she knew I'd had surgery).
"Not so good. No cartilage. I'm afraid my tennis days might be over."
"Over? That's sad," she said.
"Definitely," I confirmed, acknowledging the loss after 33 years of smacking the ball around for exercise and joy. Looking down at my running-shoe clad foot, I continued, "It's a fallen world. Darn it."
And then there was a pause and a quizzical stare. This coordinator friend mused, "Hmmm...fallen world?" as if it were the first time she'd heard that phrase. More silence. "A fallen world...." she repeated.
"It stinks, doesn't it?" I replied. "I hate the fall. Nothing works as it really should. But," I continued, "one day there is going to be a new earth and heaven, and baby, I'm getting my foot back." At this point she looked at me strangely, as if she'd never heard words like that out of someone who wasn't a foodbank client. "Yep, I'll be ready," I smiled as I walk-limped into the distribution area to greet clients and take their bright blue tickets.
Reflecting on this short interaction, I realize how much freer I've become in speaking about reality with people who often experience it from a far different perspective. In the past year, I've spent much time re-studying the 4-fold gospel story (creation, fall, redemption, restoration). And I'm actually starting to know, way down in my "knower," that this big gospel story is in fact good news. Honestly, in vocational ministry for 10 years - but even for years before that - I've often labored and twisted myself up into knots trying to get others to see, know and feel the gospel, only to realize that most of my energy has been spent trying to get others to see, know and feel bad news of some kind (your good works won't save you; you have a God-shaped hole; your self-sufficiency will leave you isolated; no relationship will save you, etc.). Mine has too often been the "try and convince you of the bad news so maybe the good news can finally be seen as good" business. And that truncated message gets old for everyone, me included.
So for now - with the bigness of the gospel rising up within my mind's eye, perhaps like never before - I'm having fun sharing the goodness of the big story in regular conversations about day to day life: things ought to be one way, but they are another; things can be substantially different, and one day they will decidedly and completely be. That's actually news I find myself more grateful than ever to be living into and news for which I find myself actually delighting to find words.
And so while the goodness of the News obviously encompasses so much more than taking toes and tennis into eternity, how amazing it is that even corrupt cartilage is a small but real part of this grand decidedly real narrative, one I'm even beginning to find some joy in sharing!