What You Don't Know...

"What happened?"  I asked the middle aged gentleman resting in the hospital bed.

"Well, I guess my sugar got a little high," Clifford told me.

"How did that happen?"  I asked him.

"Well, it's a long story.  I guess it started because my sugars were so good.  They were always less than 150.  So, I decided to go off my metformin and I started drinking regular pop.  And everything was going great, except that I had to urinate all of the time and I was thirsty a lot.  So I just started drinking more."

"You were drinking regular soft drinks?"

Clifford looked a little sheepish.  "Well, I was drinking a gallon of whole milk a day, too.  Anyway, my girlfriend thought some of my symptoms might have been related to my sugar going up and so I decided to check my sugar and it just read high."

At the Emergency Department, his sugar had been 764 -- much higher than it was supposed to be.

If "ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise."  Perhaps denial is simply the pursuit of ignorance despite all symptoms to the contrary.  Somehow, deep inside of us, there is a feeling that what we don't know can't hurt us -- at least very much.

Perhaps one of the things I can really do as a doctor, is to shine light on to the areas where folks really aren't very healthy and encourage them to do better -- sometimes with medication, sometimes with healthier lifestyle choices.

We have come to a time of year where we remember Jesus' birth. 

When John wrote about Jesus, he described Him as a light shining in the darkness.  Certainly there is plenty of darkness around us, but worse yet, is the darkness that is inside of us.  There are places inside that we don't want to look at, don't want anyone else to see and Jesus came to shine His light on them -- not to hold those areas up for ridicule, but to provide healing in a way that no one else could.

The easiest thing is to say that we don't need healing, that everything is fine.  There are a lot of other people in worse shape out there.  But beneath the surface, we all know that we aren't OK and people wouldn't accept us if they knew who we really are.

Jesus does know.  That's why He came to earth.  And if our sin is exceedingly dark, His light is infinitely more strong than it is.

What you don't know can hurt you and denial can certainly land you in the hospital.

Just ask Clifford.