Bad Knee, Good Soul

The knee is bad for a while, all puffed up, like there's a golf ball bean bag just under the skin. It doesn’t hurt. But it’s grotesque. The kids like to poke at it like a jelly fish that's washed up on the beach and then grimace, gleefully exclaiming, “Gross!” and “Ewwwww!” while begging to touch it again. When I look down at my legs exposed in shorts, the right knee bulges, the shape of a large egg.

I know what caused it: too many of Jillian's Shred push-ups down on my knees, girl-style, the worn Oriental carpet in my living room no match for the hardwood floors underneath.

But despite the hideousness of a goose-egg knee, I procrastinate visiting the orthopedist because I know a needle, a big needle, awaits. And I don’t like needles. They make my feet sweat and my neck turn clammy.

It’s exactly what I suspect. “We’re just going to draw out some of that fluid that’s built up in there, and then give you a nice shot of cortisone to help with the inflammation,”  the doctor says briskly, all sporty in his polo shirt and kakis. I’m reclined on the table, an absorbent cloth that looks like a mini mattress pad under my right knee. I turn my head to the wall; I don’t want to see the size of the needle.

A sharp prick; it doesn’t hurt, exactly. But my feet, and my palms, sweat nonetheless. “Try not to let it squirt out,” the nurse says softly to the doctor, a slip of gauze between her fingers, and I blanche, imagining the liquid that sat on my kneecap for the past six weeks shooting out of my leg like a geyser. Is there not a word more medical, more professional, than “squirt” I wonder to myself, hands clenched, fingers white.

I feel the syringe drawn, and I imagine the putrid liquid being syphoned from my knee. A second needle is inserted. “Here’s the cortisone now,” says the doctor, pushing the plunger. Just a second or two later, he’s applying the band-aide. We are done.

I sit up, swing my legs over the edge of the table, shake hands with the doctor, apologizing for my sticky palms. Right before the PA slides the neoprene sleeve over my leg, tight and black like a wet suit, I notice the golf ball swelling is gone.

I wish I could remove all the distasteful parts of myself like that, I think later, on the drive home from the clinic. Jealousy, greed, impatience, doubt, short-tempered yelling, pride and selfishness – a quick prick of the needle under the skin, and all my bad qualities would disappear, syphoned away, disposed into a waste bin.  Even I, with my sweaty feet and clammy neck, would take a needle for that – the chance for a clean slate, the ugly parts of me tossed away like medical detritus.

I don’t realize it right away. In fact, it takes me a day or two. But then, the knowledge hits me hard: I don’t need a needle plunged into my soul. I don't need my sins drawn out with a syringe. Because the fact is, Jesus already did that, just for me. He took a nail clean through to absorb my flaws, my sins, my very worst parts. And because of that, because of him, I’m left not swollen and bloated and foul, but clean and new.

My body may be broken, my mind and heart may be flawed, but my soul is made pure.

{And a little reminder...if you have a quiet summer story, stop by here Friday to link it up with Graceful Summer. I'd love to read about your small, sweet moment}

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