I learned about sickle cell anemia when I was working on a speech during my first year of college. The name derives from the shape of red blood cells in the affected person, in our country, most always someone of African descent. The normal rounded shape is more conducive to blood flow, helping cells to move around and with one another. In an acute onset, the sickle shape becomes elongated and bent at the middle, much like a boomerang with pointed ends. Not conducive to blood flow.

In such an episode, the cells jam up in a narrow bend or other restricted circulatory passage, blocking blood flow and causing excruciating pain. I know this not by experience but by the accounts of others. What I do know, experientially, is that emotional episodes can follow a similar pattern.

Even significant events are often little more than irritating, just a briefly challenging blip on life’s little radar screen, until they begin to jam up. Family controversy, car trouble, traffic aggravations, chronic illness, holiday disappointments, budget challenges, arguments, etc. are just parts of life when spread out with some intervening respite between. But when they tumble in against one another, in close timing or even simultaneously, the accumulating jumble can knot us up, sometimes painfully.

That’s when I know it’s not just time to pray; it’s time for a heart to heart with Jesus. Even if I do most of the talking.

H. Arnett
10/16/09