Yesterday I had a scheduled appointment with my neurologist. He has always been one of my favorite doctors to visit because of his compassion and genuine ability to listen. Yesterday ended up being a big disappointment for me and in my devotionals this morning, God opened my eyes as to why I left feeling frustrated.
First, the doctor is usually on time or only a few minutes late. Yesterday, the nurse told me that he was running about ten minutes late. An hour later, he arrived. Usually, he asks me questions about my health and then examines me. Yesterday, the first thing he did was take out his reflex hammer and hit my left knee, the one I fell on three weeks ago that is still healing. OUCH! Right after that, still no questions, but he wanted me to get up and walk without my rollator. He walked beside me and just observed my unsteady, ambling gait. At that point, I told him I had fallen and was still healing and both of my ankles are swollen due to the congestive heart failure diagnosis. When he sat at the desk, he looked through some records, asked me a few questions about my visits with the orthopedist and nephrologist and then said, in all seriousness, “You can’t have injections for your bones because they affect your kidney. You can’t take pain medications for your arthritis for the same reason. Basically, there is nothing else we can do for you, so all I can say is ‘Good luck.’” No words of compassion or any kind of understanding for what I have been going through…just a “good luck.”
I went outside to call my husband to pick me up in front of the building and told him what he had said. He reminded me that one of the kidney doctors I had visited told me, “You have stage 3 kidney disease. You’re going to die.” And then he walked out of the room. Needless to say, I found a different kidney doctor. That is not because I don’t believe that he was telling the truth since we are all going to die, but because his bedside manner was seriously lacking.
I am not planning on changing my neurologist because of his lack of empathy yesterday. He has been my doctor since my stroke almost twelve years ago and yesterday was an anomaly for which I am forgiving him and moving on. But that is not without some insight into why his words upset me.
You see, I visit a lot of specialists because I do have a lot of physical ailments. I was born with one kidney that is failing, I was born with asthma so my lungs are not in great shape, and now I have a recent diagnosis of congestive heart failure. But in my quiet time this morning, the Lord spoke gently to my spirit and asked me about my trust. In whom do I trust? What am I depending on? If I am depending on doctors for answers, He reminded me that they are called “practitioners” because they are practicing. They don’t know everything nor will they ever. But…big but, if I am truly leaning on God to help me through all of this, then I will be fine. (After all, I do know where I am going when I do die, so that is a great consolation.) He knows what is going on and he truly cares. He isn’t going to pronounce a death sentence or tell me “good luck” as he heads out the door. He is walking beside me all the way. God opened my eyes to the fact that I have been trusting in chariots. During the Roman era, they were the sleekest, fastest and most reliable way to storm into battle and conquer the foe. But they could break down or be covered by flood waters just as the Egyptian army that was drowned in the Red Sea. So, trusting in chariots isn’t going to be what will carry me through these trials, But God will.
I need to re-focus and trust in God to heal me, not just physically but spiritually and emotionally too. What is trust? According to the Cambridge English dictionary, trust is:
to believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable
It all comes down to faith, to believing that God is good and He will not harm me. He is reliable, totally trustworthy, even with my impossibly complicated health issues. Meds won’t help, but God can, and I choose to believe that He is helping me and He will continue to help me. He encourages me daily to get out of bed and start moving, even as my body protests. I wake up each day thanking Him for the new day and for whatever it may bring. Some days are harder than others, but God is always present and always there to quietly remind me of His love and presence.
Are you trusting in chariots? Not the ones you see in museums, of course. What I mean is, are you trusting in anything or anyone who is not God? Don’t wait until you are gobsmacked by a doctor who nonchalantly tells you “good luck.” Trust God today and know that you don’t need luck…you have God in your corner, wiping away the tears and telling you that He is always with you.
