As you know, our journey of life is full of many twists and turns and unexpected surprises. Such was the case for Vicki and me this past Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is very special to us not only because it’s a day to celebrate love between friends, but it was also 38 years ago that I drove Vicki out into a rolling meadow by Oak Grove State Park where we sat under a big oak tree and enjoyed a wonderful picnic. And afterwards I asked Vicki to marry me while the song I’ve Been Waiting For A Girl Like You by Foreigner was playing softly in the back ground on my boom box.
Well, rather than going out for dinner on Valentine’s Day this year, Vicki and I decided we would stay home and enjoy a romantic candlelight dinner complete with steak and shrimp, baked potatoes, corn and leftover cheese cake from the coffee shop and a glass of yellow wine (Mountain Dew). Again we enjoyed a special time together, although I forgot to put the candle on the table.
Feelings of passion were intensifying so Vicki and I decided then that we would cap the night by watching The Golden Moment: An Olympic Love Story. It’s the story of how an American athlete and a Russian gymnast fall in love right before the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Well wouldn’t you know it, when we turned the television on to begin searching through Netflix for the movie, I discovered that a new episode of Dr. Pimple Popper had just started. So Vicki and I quickly snuggled under our blankets in time to discover that Taylore had an ear keloid on each ear that needed to be clipped off. Ken had several epidermoid and pilar cysts that needed popping and Jose had a two year old lymphoma cyst that was the size of a tennis ball on his forehead that he wanted extracted.
Dr. Pimple Popper maybe wasn’t the love story that we had planned on watching, but it was so exciting to watch each individual find freedom from their pockets of puss. In fact, at times, the show was so full of suspense Vicki couldn’t even watch—it was the perfect night of celebrating love!!
If you’ve ever watched the Dr. Pimple Popper show, then like me, you wonder how all those little juicy cysts and zits begin to grow. And even more amazing to me is why do some of the people let them continue to grow bigger and bigger; one lady had a 45 year old black head removed that looked like a black marble.
Well, because I’m always thinking of something to write about for these articles, I began wondering if there was a spiritual connection between having a pimple removed and our Christian life. After all, after having his lipoma removed from his forehead, Jose said, “Dr Lee has changed my whole life.” And sure enough, as I was reflecting on the mashed potato like substance that was oozing from the pimples of each individual the Spirit helped me see that those cysts and zits and black heads are like unforgiven offenses or unconfessed sin—the longer you ignore them, the bigger they grow and the nastier they smell when you pop them.
When it comes to popping the pimple of an offense, Paul writes in Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if you have any grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” And when it comes to extracting the cyst of an unconfessed sin, John urges us in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sin, he [God] is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
With that in mind, I’d like to close by confessing a sin to you; I have an “epidermoid” growing in me. See I lied to you. I did not take Vicki to a meadow for a picnic and I did not ask to marry her under that tree with the song playing in the background. The truth is, I can’t remember where I took her out for dinner 38 years ago and I actually asked her to marry me while we were sitting in my car on her driveway right before I dropped her off for the night. I’m sorry. There I feel so much better ! Jesus has changed my whole life!!
With love,
Mike Altena