Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Of Diagnosis and Peace

 

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

“I have spoken of these matters in figures of speech, but soon I will stop speaking figuratively and will tell you plainly all about the Father.  Then you will ask in my name.  I’m not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God.  Yes, I came from the Father into the world, and now I will leave the world and return to the Father.”  Then his disciples said, “At last you are speaking plainly and not figuratively.  Now we understand that you know everything, and there’s no need to question you.  From this we believe that you came from God.”  Jesus asked, “Do you finally believe?  But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone.  Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.  I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.  Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”  John 16:25-33

When you’re unarmed, exposed to the road ahead where dangers and hardship abound, it’s hard to have peace of mind.  That road is especially daunting, even frightening, if you’ve never travelled that way before.  With the shadow of the cross of Golgotha growing ever closer, Jesus used precious time to prepare His followers for the difficulty of the road they would eventually travel without him.  That road was a combination of trials and sorrows which would not break the peace He was going to give them. 

A few months ago, I sat in my primary care doctor’s office describing the fatigue I felt.  Each step of the day was like extracting my feet from a muddy bog…I was dragging my way through life.  His response was to rule-out the obvious suspects.  My doc sent me for a stress test to find out the load my heart carried. 

A few days later I was laying on a hospital table (not the most comfortable bed, mind you).  I was prepped to have my ticker challenged with a walk on the treadmill to nowhere.  As the test was about to begin, the heart doctor stormed back into the room and stopped the show.  She told me this was the wrong test…my heart wouldn’t stand for it.  As I stood at the checkout desk to schedule the next test, I had a flashback to my days in the U.S. Army…my life was beginning to take-on the flavor every grunt private knows, hurry-up and wait!  

The next test was followed by several weeks of that “hurry-waiting” until the next appointment to review the results.  My new heart doctor said two words that rocked my sense of peace, heart failure.  She described a weakened, enlarged blood-pump that was under-performing in passing along that substance which contains life.[1]

Since that time I’ve acquired two new doctors.  It seems this stage of life (in the eighth-decade) collects doctors like my arteries collect platelets and plaque.  I’ve learned much about the stages (progression), and symptoms of heart failure, by listening and reading.  It’s a strange road, and, at least in my case, knowledge is not exactly power.  It is somewhat unsettling.

I’ve been able to identify two positive results in this short (5 month) road trip:

1.    A sense of the peace Jesus promised in difficult journeys is always there

2.    A new appreciation for all the stages of life…from the physically-stronger times when you’re concerned with being relevant and useful…to the (now current) stage, when just brushing your teeth and showering are major accomplishments.

Both peace and struggle are real and palpable ingredients in the stuff of a believer’s life that Jesus gives us.

For You Today

What peace are you willing to surrender to the ferocious struggle you face?  Or is it settled in you that His peace will never bow to any struggle’s growl?  Jesus said that is possible, because He’s overcome the world!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©   

For another post on this text see Blood White or Peace in the Pandemic



[1] Leviticus 17:11  for the life of the body is in its blood.



 

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