Everywhere we turn these days, we’re bombarded with medical tips, so now it’s my turn to pass one along: Eat fiber and do whatever it takes to lovingly care for your colon. I guess I didn’t, and I have recently spent several weeks of my life enduring some rather awful procedures and discussing things normal people never talk about.
My diagnosis was diverticulitis and the recommended treatment was surgery. Just a few snips and stitches and Ms. Humpty Dumpty would be good to go. But first, my doctors needed to scout out the territory.
Oooooooh, that part was NO fun. I had to drink “nuclear milkshakes” for two tests, down a gallon of “human Drano” before some other tests, and have LOTS of nuclear stuff “installed” before another photo shoot. I told the radiologist that if my colon was photographed once more, I was going to hire an agent.
My digestive system is like Michael Jackson – too often photographed, disturbing to look at, disgusting to talk about, and more than a little kinky.
I deserve at least a bumper sticker (“Bet My Colon is Cleaner Than Yours”) for surviving with even a shred of dignity intact.
Am I telling you more than you want to know simply because I can? No, I’m here to share the transcending lessons I gleaned from my weeks of digestive mayhem. Here are a few:
· When you think you can’t, with God’s help, you can. During some of these most unpleasant procedures, I longed to have a Shirley McClain, New Age, out-of-body experience. Then I remembered that I had something much better to help me – the peace of God. I recalled a verse I had memorized once for a root canal: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isaiah 26:3) It worked. I found a measure of peace in the midst of some very dicey circumstances. I thought I couldn’t, but with God’s help, I did.
· God provides good people to help us through bad times. Caring and competent doctors and nurses, a tender and strong husband, loving sons, a “casserole patrol” who fed my family, friends who prayed and encouraged – God touched me deeply and loved me well through so many people.
· Suffering isn’t optional, it’s inevitable. It’s part of living in this fallen world, and God can use pain in our lives to accomplish good things. Jeremy Camp, a grieving young songwriter who had just buried his wife, wrote, “I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see, because this broken road is Your will for me.” God knows that the painful potholes in our broken roads are filled with gold, waiting to be discovered by those who will persevere and learn.
· Pain is temporary; alienation from God can be eternal. We mustn’t let temporary pain blind us to the goodness of a loving God who is the only source for everything we need to endure – comfort, peace and hope. Sometimes He delivers us from tough things; sometimes He delivers us through them. Sometimes He heals; sometimes He doesn’t … always, He loves.
Psalm 23:4 — “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
Romans 8:18 – “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”