"I'm calling you about Olive Smith," the nurse on my cell phone said. "We just got her urine culture results back and it grew out Proteus Mirabilis."
"OK," I said. "Can you tell me what antibiotics it is sensitive to?"
"How about I tell you what things it is resistant to?" She asked me.
"No, how about you tell me what it is sensitive to," I countered.
There was silence on the other end of the line. "Is it sensitive to Cipro?" I asked finally.
"No, it is resistant to that," she said helpfully.
"Is it sensitive to nitrofurantoin?" I asked again, hoping this time to strike gold.
"No, it's resistant to that, too."
"How about Bactrim?" I asked, a little desperately.
"Oh, Olive's allergic to that. I guess I should have mentioned that at the start."
There was another pause. "Can you just tell me an antibiotic that has an 'S' beside it?" I asked pleadingly.
"Ampicillin/Clavulinate," came back the response.
"OK, let's go with that," I said, telling the nurse the dosage.
It had been an awfully frustrating conversation. I realized that the reason was that the nurse, for whatever reason had not wanted to tell me any of the medications that would work. Rather she focused on the ones that didn't.
This is a little bit the tendency of Christians. It seems easier to talk about things that are forbidden than on the work that is set before us.
But the reality is that Christianity is far from just a list of "don'ts." Yes, there are things that I don't want to do, because I am a child of God, but it is more than that. For me, faith is stepping out to follow the best Master I could every imagine, one who loved me so much that He died for me.
And what could be better than that?
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