the dr is in | but will we go

I don’t go to the doctor until that is the absolute last last last resort. Not that I don’t believe in the benefit of medicine or the wisdom and training of doctors, but for various reasons going to the doctor is my absolute last resort. A couple years ago I was working at a coffee shop and in my enthusiasm of lifting heavy items and moving as quickly as humanly possible, I broke my hand. But to my knowledge it was just sprained, the idea of having broken it didn’t even enter my conscious thought. The pain brought me to tears but I didn’t go to the doctor. My hand hurt for weeks, and weeks turned into months at which time I relented my opposition of needing medical assistance and went to the doctor. By this time, the doctor informed me that I had broken my hand but that it was almost healed and there was nothing he could do for me, though he was sending me to a specialist. The specialist proceeded to tell me that he would do nothing for me and that I would just have cosmetic abnormality to my hand but there was nothing operationally wrong with the way it healed. I’m sure his working agreements with worker’s comp through my company gave his medical decision a certain bent and to this day my knuckle is uniform with the rest of my knuckles, and I’m sure in 10, 20 or 30 years I will end up having to have some kind of surgery due to a flare up of a ligament healed without the attention of adjustment in it’s initial stage of pain.

As I look at my hand I think of our lives. Painful and hard things happen and when I try to fix the problem or ignore the pain it only prolongs the healing and just like my hand, heals improperly. The Lord is our healer and He is the greatest physician of our souls and lives. Attempted to cover up and put our own salve on the wounds of our hearts and lives keeps Christ out whereas He wants us to come to Him, no appointment needed, no time wasted, but immediate comfort, but we alone have the choice to come to him in those moments.

The same time of my life where I broke my hand and refused to receive medical attention, a series of circumstances in my life also broke me in many ways. And just as physically I didn’t seek and outright refused to receive medical attention for my hand, emotionally and spiritually I also refused the comfort and love of Jesus Christ. The Lord can do anything, and it’s never too late to come to Him, but it is my choice, He is not the one hiding, we’ve been the ones hiding since the garden of eden when Adam and Eve hid in the fig leaves, but God still came to walk with them in their shame and their disappointment and their pain, and He is the same God today as He was then.

Is there a time in your life where the physical represented a spiritual and emotional ailment?

The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior Who saves! He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in silent satisfaction and in His love He will be silent and make no mention of past sins, or even recall them; He will exult over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17