Hitting The Nail On The Head


By Phil Scovell






     Due to a recent embarrassing memory that came to mind, I have
begun allowing other such memories surface to let the Lord renew
my mind in hurting places.

     One such memory had to do with the first day at the school
for the blind.  I was 12 years old and had only been blind for a
couple of weeks when I began attending the school for the blind in
the state where I lived.

     One of my classes that first day, was an hour of shop.  I was
the only student because it was the last class of the day.  the
shop teacher, a very kind man and who was always fun to be around,
took his time to show me around the shop.  I remember one specific
experience that embarrassed me a great deal.  I have always tried
dismissing this memory, and its uncomfortable feeling, because I
thought the focus was on my embarrassment.  It wasn't.  It was, I
know now, on my blindness.  Here's what happened.

     As the shop teacher showed me around the large shop room, he
allowed me to feel each of the large and small power tools. 
Stopping at a plays where several tools were hanging, he
described the tool cabinet and then he placed one of my hands on
the handle of a tool and asked me if I knew what it was.  His hand
was covering mine so I couldn't move my hand to touch the other
end of the tool.  There wasn't a tool in the shop I hadn't seen
before going blind because my dad was a good carpenter and we had
everything a builder could think of in our tool shed.  I was
familiar with them all and used most all of them at one time or
another.  Since he held my hand against the tool handle, I said
nothing at first.  He said, "I'm sorry."  That confused me even
more.  If he would have let me touch the rest of the tool, I could
have easily told him what it was.  Yet, he kept his hand over mind
which prevented me from examining the hand tool for myself.  "I'm
sorry," he said again as I hesitated.  Now I felt stupid because
it felt as if he thought I should know this tool without
hesitation.  Finally I just guessed and asked if it was a hatchet. 
He again said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry.  It's a hammer."  Now I felt
even worse.  I wanted to scream, "I know what a hammer was but you
wouldn't let me feel it."

     For years, I ignored, and otherwise pushed away, this memory
as just being part of life.  After all, I had just lost my sight
after six months and more than a dozen eye operations.  I had just
left home for basically the first time in my life and was in a
horrible place that I did not want to be.  I was homesick and felt
as if I were dying inside.

     When the Lord recently brought healing into my life related
to another situation of embarrassment relating to my blindness, I
thought I should stop and look at this childhood memory of
embarrassment and see if the Lord had anything to say to me about
it.  He did.  As I focused on the memory, the embarrassment of not
being allowed to identify the hammer for what it was, the
homesickness, the blindness, and everything that went along with
it, in my childhood memory that occurred more than 40 years ago, I
suddenly saw Jesus standing about 10 feet away in front of the
shop fire doors that led to the outside.  I had forgotten those
doors even existed until I saw Jesus standing there.  Nothing was
said audibly but I felt the words coming from the True Lord Jesus. 
He was saying, "I was there, even though you didn't see me, and
you did nothing wrong.  It was the teachers fault for not allowing
you to feel the rest of the tool."  Now, every time that memory
pops up in my thoughts, I see Jesus standing close by and making
sure I know He is there.

     Is Jesus there for you?  Does He stand in the places that
hurt or that are fearful or that are sad?  Yes, He can renew your
mind so that even such childhood embarrassing moments can be
healed.  Jesus can fill your life because He is the Alpha and
Omega; the First and the Last of your life.



He's ready when you are.
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