Addicted to Oxygen

"I need to order you some home oxygen, Barbara," I told the older lady sitting across from me.

"Oh, no, Dr. Waldron, don't say that," Barbara said in an upset voice.

"Well, your oxygen level out there was only 86 percent and truthfully, there have been a couple of other times in the last three months that it was this low.  I know you didn't want it when we talked before, but I really think you would feel better if you had some."

Barbara had COPD and obviously wasn't doing very well with it.  "Well, Doc," she said.  "I guess I'm just afraid of getting addicted to oxygen.  You know they say that once you get started on it, you're sort of hooked."

I chuckled a little.  "You've been hooked on oxygen for quite awhile and so have I.  The question isn't whether you need oxygen, it is just a question of what percentage of oxygen it takes to keep your oxygen "level" up in your blood stream.  The air around is only 20 percent oxygen and that isn't enough to keep your level up any more."

Barbara looked down at the floor.  I could see from the purplish tint of her fingers that the pulse ox meter had not lied, but she still wasn't ready.  "I'll think about it," she said.  "I'll let you know if I want it."

I did understand what she was saying.  She didn't want to be tied to an oxygen tank that she needed to carry with her wherever she went.  At the same time, she, like the rest of us, was already dependent on oxygen for life, the same as she was dependent on food and water.  To call the need for these things an "addiction" is to misunderstand our relationship with them.

I think there is a certain thoughtlessness that comes with our dependence on these basics of human life.  Air, food, and water are just there when we need them and so we just don't think about them. It is only when we start running low on any one of them that we realize their importance.  Even more so, comes our relationship with God.

The Apostle Paul said of God, "Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being."  We are all dependent on Him for our very lives, whether or not we realize it.

In the end, it is best not to struggle against it, but to lean into it.  I know that this is the relationship that has sustained me through many a hard day's battle.  There is just no need to fight Him when I need Him so much.

It would be easier to fight my addiction to oxygen.