FIX ME. JESUS; NO, NOT YOU, NICHOLAS [Su, 6-22-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Fixin’s of An Old Man—FIX ME. JESUS; NO, NOT YOU, NICHOLAS [Su, 6-22-25]

 

I thought the physical therapy for my hip was going well. The pain had decreased quite a bit. I knew how to do a “bridge.” I had learned how to spell “piriformis.”

Then, one day, Nicholas put me on a balance board and made me rock back and forth on it. It was exhausting. Not satisfied, he made me rock from side to side. I was enervated. [Yes, I looked up a synonym so I would not repeat “exhausting.” The alternative was “plumb tuckered.”] I could barely drag myself to the car, cane or no cane.

Finally, the third day, I said, “How come you’re debilitating [synonym search again] me with this balance board? It’s killing me.”

“Well, you said you wanted better balance.”

“No, I said I have poor balance. I didn’t say a thing about wanting it to get better.”

He thought and said, “You’re right. You just told me about your bad balance. You didn’t say you wanted to do anything about it.”

So, I have learned never to say anything to a physical therapist or a wife that can be construed a request for help. What to you is just information is to them a call to arms, a request that they fix whatever you seemingly have acknowledged is wrong with you. They already have enough ideas about how to fix you; they don’t need other suggestions.

I think about that as I sing “Fix me, Jesus” as one of my break-of-day songs.

Oh, fix me. Oh, fix me. Oh, fix me, Jesus.

 

Fix me for my journey home.

Fix me, Jesus, fix me.

 

Fix me for my dying bed.

Fix me, Jesus, fix me.

 

It’s a slave spiritual, with two meanings that are melded in the word “fix:”

First, there is the old Southern meaning of “fix,” as in “I’m fixin’ to go there.” In other words, “getting ready.” I heard that a lot growing up down in Gibson County.

Second, to go to heaven, one needs to get ready, by having a healed and whole soul. We need Jesus to fix, repair that soul, so we can be fixin’ to go “home.”

Just don’t sing “Fix me, Jesus,” unless you are fixin’ to be fixed, because Jesus takes that sort of thing pretty much literally.

John Robert McFarland