Medicine

Over the past week I have become well acquainted with medicine as both a practice and a drug. As my husband was lying in a hospital bed after fracturing his hip, I couldn't help but muse about medicine. Granted, I was overtired, under a lot of stress, and may or may not have lost touch with reality for a moment. But still I kept thinking about medicine and its practical application to my life. Here's what I came up with:

1. Medicine is yucky. It doesn't taste good, which is why the song from Mary Poppins is so important to know: Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down....
2. Medicine is inconvenient. It's never easy to either obtain or stay regular on almost any type of medicine. It requires a doctor's visit, a visit to the pharmacy and usually some outlay of money. Additionally, it usually has to be taken or ingested in some form or fashion. Just because we go to the pharmacy and get the medicine doesn't mean we will get well. Which leads me to my third point.
3. Medicine is necessary. My sweet husband was in loads of pain and needed some relief. Also, the doctor needed him to heal without his blood clotting, so added a blood thinner to his regimen.

So where am I going with this? Where I usually go. Into my head and down into my spirit. I am a broken person. I need healing. I need medicine but not any that can be bought. I need God's healing in my broken places. I need his touch in the dark places in my heart. I need his hope where I feel none in my soul. I need that kind of medicine.

But the truth is that God's medicine is no different than the other kind. It's yucky. And hard. And it hasn't taken me too many days of living this way to ask God to please give me my life of ease back. I know there will be blessings on the other end. In fact, I am finding things everyday to thank God for.

This medicine has been inconvenient. I have had to cancel things on my calendar this week that won't happen for months. But because of the nature of this injury and impending surgery, I have no control over timing and need to be available for my husband.

Finally, this medicine is necessary. I don't know the whys or the hows or the impact to the future, but I know there is purpose in the timing of this injury. I may not know for a long time or I may never know. But I have the hope that this reordering of our lives is for a reason.

Is God speaking to you today? Is he tugging at your heart to do something new or different? I know change is hard and it's never a really good time. But I challenge you to go ahead and dive in and see what he has for you.

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