You probably wouldn’t guess my least favorite routine medical procedure. It’s not giving stool or urine samples, though those aren’t fun. It’s not getting my eyes looked at or being poked and prodded. It’s not getting a flashlight shown down my throat. It’s not giving blood samples. I have no problem with needles or messy topical treatments.
It’s having my ears looked in with an otoscope. I literally stopped to rub my ear after writing that sentence. I have one doctor who just really gets it in there deep, and slight panic tends to rise. I hold perfectly still, paranoid that I’m going to move involuntarily and end up with the end of that thing puncturing something important.
Am I the only one with this slightly irrational fear?
The thing is, when I let my doctor poke something into my ear, I am trusting a lot into her hands. One wrong move on her part and I could be in a lot of pain, and maybe even have long term damage.
As chronic illness warriors, we do this every day. Our doctors are human, and they’re constantly messing with our bodies and treatments. We give them power over us that few people will ever have.
That’s kinda scary to think about sometimes. A family in my hometown just lost their mom because she was accidentally given a double dose of something that was supposed to help her. She had little kids.
Yet we trust our doctors. We trust that they have our best in mind, that they want to help us get better, and we trust that they know what they are doing. I trust my doctor because she’s proven herself over decades of successful doctoring, and I also know her.
Lately, I’ve been learning to trust God the same way. I might not know what’s going on. I don’t know how to heal a hurting heart. I don’t know what I need when and in what dose and how often.
But God does.
Recently, I went on a weekend retreat. I was excited to hang out with friends and I was prepared for a busy schedule. Instead, I ended up with a ton of unexpected time to myself.
Friday, it felt like God tore me apart. That night, I knelt on the cold concrete and felt completely exposed and vulnerable. There were a lot of unknowns that weekend! I didn’t want to be in such a fragile place to face them. Besides, I needed to go back to normal life in less than two days, Id rather not be a mess for the big work project happening the day after the trip.
Saturday, God worked on my heart. And with each step, I had to trust. When He opened up one area, I had to be patient until He knew it was the right time to move to the next step. It wasn’t an all-at-once, get-it-over-with session. Instead, I had to take it one half-step at a time, trusting that God wouldn’t leave me stranded on a tightrope, but would take me all the way across.
And you know what? God tore me apart, but by Sunday, He had put me back together again. We can trust God when He exposes our wounds or prods areas that hurt. We can trust that He’s not going to further damage us. Like me with my doctor, we can trust that He will do what’s best for us because a) He has ages of experience in successful heart-healing since the beginning of humanity. And b) we know Him.
That’s pretty amazing.
Healing might hurt, and it might mean cleaning out areas with puss and festering. But we can trust that He is in total control and won’t poke our eardrum with His otoscope. Unlike human doctors, the Great Healer does not make mistakes.
Yes, it takes trust and vulnerability, which are both hard. I told a few friends during that weekend, “I’d take excruciating physical pain over this emotional processing and painful heart healing.” I wrestled with fear and trust. But we do trust our doctors with our bodies . . . why can’t we trust God with our hearts?
