Now or Later

"Dad, can you come read a story with me?"  My daughter Anna asked plaintively.

"In just a few minutes," I said.  I was working on something that wasn't terribly important, but I didn't want to leave it till I was done with it.

I am sure that I am not alone in making my children wait.  Sometime there are important things that just need completion prior to anything else.

In Matthew 4, Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee and discovered John, James, Peter, and Andrew with their nets and asked them to follow Him.  The Scripture records that "Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him."

The priority that I give to a request, or command tells the person asking it how important they are to me.  I am afraid that all too often, I have left my children with them impression that "my stuff" is more important to me than they are.

It is even more important that I give a sense of urgency to the requests that my Savior makes upon my life.  For, if Jesus is All the World to Me, then the world must wait while I follow Jesus' voice and not the other way around.

I may try to put Jesus on hold when He calls, hoping to pick up the call when I am ready, but He may not still be there.  If Jesus is not given first place, He will have no place in my life.

Slow Communication

 

In 1775, just before the beginning of the American Revolution, General Thomas Gage began a crucial battle on the outskirts of the city of Boston.  This battle became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill (even though it was actually fought on nearby Breed's Hill).

In the end, the British won a very costly victory.  General Gage sent word to England immediately, requesting reinforcements.  The new took nearly three months to go from Boston to London and a similar amount of time to return.  It took six months for a few lines of communication to go from Boston to London.

In the years since, there have been major advances in communication technologies.  Speedier forms of travel, such as the steam engine and steam driven boats let messages travel from place to place a little faster, but then, Samuel F. Morse invented the telegraph and suddenly it took only a few moments for a message to go halfway across the country.  In the years since, different types of telephones have been created and now the internet allows messages to travel around the world in the blink of an eye.

Yet, with all of this technology, I am afraid that real communication probably occurs far less than ever before.  Because, real communication requires more than just a transfer of information, or the act of commenting on a Facebook photo. 

We are more connected than ever before and yet, in this connected world, it is far easier to be isolated.  It is far easier to avoid heart to heart, deep conversations.  For, real communication takes time.  It takes just as much time to open your heart to another and share things that are truly important as it did in the 1700s.

Technology has a way of shrinking the distance between locations, but it does nothing for the distances between people.  That requires communication and communication often takes time, effort and sometimes work.  In the end it is the one thing that will heal wounded relationships and damaged hearts in a way that technology never can.

"But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Hebrews 13:16

The Opposite of Pork

"Dad," my five year old daughter asked me.  "What is the opposite of pork?"

Now, I have taken some pretty hard tests -- medical board exams and others, and I have not come across a question that stumped me quite as much as this one.  "I don't know, Anna," I said.

"A spoon, Daddy!" she replied triumphantly.

Anna had just turned five and she was pretty random at times.  I still have no idea what brought this question and answer to her mind, but there was no way that I would get the right answer without her telling me.

It is easy to view life as a test from God, filled with unanswerable questions. 

"Who should I marry?" or, "What occupation should I take up?" or, "Should I move to Kansas or Ohio or, maybe California?"  It almost feels at times like an examination, in which not enough information has been given to supply an answer.

God knows the answer to each question.  He has chosen not to reveal the answers to us before His time.  This is because the test and its questions are not as important to the Almighty as what He hopes we learn through this test:  Trust."

Each "random" event we experience, each unpredictable scene we encounter demonstrates God's greatness and His care for us.  He knows the paths that we take.  We must learn that in the midst of uncertainty, we can always trust Him.

"But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold." Job 23:10

A Big Case of Strep

The smallest deeds make the biggest difference in this world. This is particularly true when they are done in a spirit of giving and humility. I must confess that there have been many times that I have forgotten this. It seems that every time I forget, I am reminded of it by something in my life or practice.

In my three years of residency training I saw hundreds, possibly thousands of patients. Numerous times I was awakened in the middle of the night to admit dying patients or to go rushing up the stairs in a desperate attempt to stave off death in the Intensive Care Unit. In this whole three years I received only two thank you notes from patients. Of these two, one of them stands out clearly in my mind.

It was a busy day in my clinic in my second year of residency training. I was working in the office seeing patients after having been up most of the previous night on call. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get done early when my nurse told me that the front office had added another patient on to my schedule.

I swallowed my frustration as I went in to see little Alex. He was just a year and a half old. His mother was a Russian immigrant and spoke poor English. She was on the brink of tears. She explained, in broken sentences, that Alex had run high fevers over the last two days and he was not drinking very much.

I examined him carefully and quickly discovered the source of the child’s fever. His tonsils were huge and swollen with white patches. A quick throat swab confirmed the diagnosis: Strep Throat. After my nurse had given him a shot of penicillin, I assured his mother that Alex would be better soon.

Two weeks later I received an envelope at the office. In it was a card from Alex’s mother, thanking me for curing her son. Reading the broken sentences within, you would have thought that I had saved Alex from death, not cured him from Strep Throat. Yet, in his mother’s eyes I had done much.

These are the things that matter most. It is said that we are called, not to do great things, but to do small things with great love. This is true.

To take care of small matters is very important. There are so many more cases of Strep Throat than there are cases of meningitis to treat and yet, there is a tendency to believe that those with Strep Throat don’t really matter since their problem is small in comparison. Nothing could be further from the truth, for problems that may seem small to others are huge to those experiencing them – even if they just have Strep Throat.

Luke 16:10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

Strawberry Season

Strawberry season has come and gone.  It was a really good season this year.  Last year, southern Indiana had a late freeze and heavy rains that wiped out most of the crop, but this year was different.

The first day that we had strawberries, Elaine brought home three gallons.  The first bite of fresh strawberries is always amazing.  I always hate it when people say "there's nothing like it," when often there are similar things, but I don't know of any fruit that combines the flavor and juiciness of a fresh strawberry.

Of course, January strawberries from Wal-Mart are a different story.  They may look a lot like strawberries, but they aren't the same.

I made strawberry ice cream and Elaine made freezer jam.  We kept a box on our counter and Anna and Elliot made frequent stops to pop the juicy red berries in their mouths (leaving the caps all over the place).

Now, just a week and a half later, the season is over.  Ecclesiastes tells us that for everything there is a season.  In my experience, the time for eating fresh strawberries is a lot shorter than the time of planting, weeding, and strawing strawberry plants.

We do not get to choose what season of our lives we are in, when they come, or how long they last.  Unfortunately, the human tendency is to wish for the season we are not in, even in the midst of plenty.  It spoils things to wish for blueberries in strawberry season, or for sweet corn during blueberry season.

In the end, the greatest blessing is reached when we can enjoy the seasons of our lives as they come and then, gratefully bid them farewell as they leave.  For most of the seasons of our lives leave behind treasures and memories that will last for years and even sometimes a few frozen berries and pints of freezer jam.

How wide?

"Open wide and say 'ah,'" I told the young man sitting across from me.

The young man obeyed and I looked at his throat with my light.  I put down my light and moved to palpate the lymph nodes in his neck.  "You probably think I opened my mouth pretty wide," Jake said.

Sure," I said.

"Well, I can open my mouth a lot wider than that!"

"Really," I said, not particularly interested.

"Do you have a pop can?" Jake asked me.

"No," I said.  That is one thing we have never kept in our exam rooms.

"Well, I can fit one of them in my mouth."

Clearly Jake was pretty proud of himself and his achievements in the pop can swallowing department.  It may not be a valuable talent, but he believed he was good at it and wanted to share that information with me.

Of course, this isn't a particularly useful skill.  I have heard of people paying to watch someone else swallow swords (I'm not sure why), but I've never heard of anyone paying money to watch someone stick the end of a soda can in his mouth.

Pride is a foolish thing.  Jake had nothing to do with how wide he could open his mouth.  He didn't do special exercises to improve his jaw flexibility.  Knowing him, he was sitting around one day and just decided to stick the end of a soda can in his mouth.

So many of the things that we are proud of are things that we were given.  Beauty, athletic ability and intelligence are talents that come from God, not things that we earned.

Even when it comes to the development of potential, so much of the credit belongs to parents, teachers and coaches who pushed us to become more than we would have otherwise.

God has given us much and we must give the glory to Him.  For it is better to be known for your humility than to open your mouth wide in pride and purely by accident, insert a soda can.

One Hundred and Ten Percent!

"I'm going to go out tonight and give one hundred ten percent!"

Many athletes are no longer content to give one hundred percent effort, they will give more than that.  Of course, I am not sure why stop at hundred ten percent.  Why not two hundred percent effort?  Surely that would be better than a measly one hundred percent?

I suppose this one hundred and ten percent could come from a number of different sources.

Perhaps, athletes believe that they have never really give their all before and this time, it will be different.  Maybe, this just comes from a lot of athletes having really poor math skills.

Perhaps no teacher ever told them:  "But Johnny, if you have one apple pie, you can't eat more than one hundred percent of the pie, unless you eat the plate!"

I wonder if some athletes have reached the place where they believe that giving one hundred percent is just what everybody does and they know that they are above average.  They are giving a lot more than all the other players who are just giving one hundred percent.

In the Christian life, it is clear that one hundred percent effort will not gain us salvation.  One hundred ten percent effort wouldn't either, but that doesn't stop plenty of people from telling themselves that tomorrow will be different.  Tomorrow will be the day that one hundred ten percent comes through!

It is a little bit like the scene in the movie Flubber (or if you are older, The Absent Minded Professor), where a woefully unskilled Medfield College basketball team is being crushed by an oversized, much more skilled opponent.  There is no way that they can win, even if they give just a little more effort.  And then something changes.  Flubber enters the game and nothing is quite the same...

We are not enough in ourselves and never will be, but God is faithful and offers us a gift much better than flubber.  But it is a gift, nothing more or less.

Salvation cannot be earned.  It must be accepted as an amazing gift, from a Savior who gave His one hundred percent on our behalf.  Only as a gift can we receive it.  Without it, even one hundred ten percent effort will not avail us.

Short Term Memory Loss

I just got back from nine wonderful days away on vacation with my family.  A journey back east.  Beautiful scenery.  Historic buildings and monuments.  Time with people that I love and with whom I love to spend time.

However, I had a delivery the night before I started back in the office, an early morning meeting the following morning (cutting sleep down to about 4 hours) that ran over time, multiple patient to see in the hospital, a full schedule at the office, and lots and lots of stuff to catch up on.  Honestly, when six pm rolled around, it was hard for me to remember, much less feel grateful for my time away.

Often, older people come in to me complaining of short term memory loss.  It's the "Here-After Disease" -- where you can't remember what you came in here after, when you enter a room.  Truth to tell, while I have a good memory, I am not a whole lot different when it comes to remembering why I should be thankful.

It is easy to read the accounts of God's miracles on the behalf of the people of Israel and wonder how they could complain the way they did.  How could they gripe so much when they had been given a path through the Red Sea, water from a rock, and manna from heaven?  Yet, it takes me only a few hours of work to wipe all thought of my past vacation away.

I am blessed in so many ways.  One of those ways is in being able to take part in the family events -- life-changing moments in my patient's lives.  Some of these events are heart wrenching and draining, some are amazingly joyful.  But these are the things that motivate me to go back to my work, day after day.

I wouldn't change my job for anything in the world.  Except, when I forget to be grateful.

"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." I Thessalonians 5:18

A Bit of Earth

Three or four weeks ago, Anna came to me.   "Dad," she said.  "Could I... could I have a little garden spot of my own?"

I could tell that she had been crying.  "Why were you crying, Anna?"  I asked.

"Because I didn't think you'd let me have one," she said.

"Of course I will," I told her.  "Now, I am just trying to think about what spot to till up."

Elaine said that it reminded her of the chapter in the book "The Secret Garden," where Mary Lennox asks her uncle for a bit of earth.

For those not familiar with The Secret Garden, it is about an orphan, named Mary Lennox, who moves to England to be under the care of her uncle.  He is seemingly uninterested in her and her life.  When she finally meets with him, he seems distracted and at the end of their conversation, he asks Mary if there is anything he can get for her.  It is then, that she asks him for "a bit of earth," where she can plant some seeds and watch things grow.

Anna's request reminds me more of a passage from Matthew 7: 7-11 (ESV)

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  Or which one of you , if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?"

The passage compares our heavenly Father to fathers here on earth.  In this passage, there is a truth, a promise, and a command.  The truth is that our Father in heaven loves to give us good things.  The promise in the passage, is that He will do so, if we but fulfill the command:  to ask, seek and knock.

I am not a perfect dad, but it did not take me long to till up a little garden for Anna.  Together we picked out and planted some seeds -- green beans, pumpkins and watermelons and planted them in her special spot.  We also found a nice cherry tomato plant to put in one corner.  Just a perfect garden for a six year old.

As I knelt that night before my Father's throne, I knew that He was listening to me, ready to meet my needs, and even some of my wants.  Just as I had loved to spend time and give my daughter a little bit of earth.

Aging Monkeys

"Dad," my daughter Anna said to me.  "Monkey's getting old."  Now, Monkey (that's his name, not just what he is), has been Anna's close companion and bedtime friend since she was a year old (she's six now).

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Look," she said and pointed to a hole developing in his arm.

Now, I don't know about monkeys in the wild, but stuffed monkeys in captivity have a pretty hard life.  Anna's Monkey has gone everywhere she has.  He has fallen down stairs, been dressed in doll clothes, and slept with her nearly every night.  And Monkey is old.

For, time passes.  Anna is six and will be seven this fall and though we are seldom ready to give up the things we treasure the most, time steals them away anyway.

Even well-loved, treasured monkeys.

Beginnings

I am many things.  A dad, a doctor, a hobbyist photographer, but one thing that I have enjoyed doing is writing.  Somehow, after a busy day, with not enough time to think about the people I have met and the things I have done, sitting down with a pen and ring bound note book helps me to find a little clarity.

It is funny that while I use computers all day long, documenting in our electronic health record at the office, when it comes to writing my thoughts down, it comes more easily with pen and paper.  I have tried to write at the computer, but it just doesn't work.

Anyway, this is the end of "the beginning,"  an introduction to my blogging attempt.  I trust that the thoughts I share about my walk with Jesus Christ, my family, work and devotions may be encouraging and thought provoking, for in the end, He is and always will be, the driving focus of my life.