Sneezures!

"Oh my," I said.  "I just about had a sneezure!"

"What is a sneezure?"  My coworker asked curiously.

"It's where you sneeze five times in succession.  I learned about them in second year Pathology in Medical School."

"Really?"

"Yes," I said and always willing to add a little extra information to the discussion added.  "The good news is that I can't get grandma sneezures because, first of all, I'm not old enough and second, I'm a man.  Women are the only ones who can get them, but I understand they are pretty rough."

For some reason, speeches like this seem to result in much eye rolling...

Sneezure or not, the truth is that I have a cold right now.  Doctors are not any different from average people in that if they are exposed to enough viruses, they will eventually catch one.  Unfortunately, although I am a member of the "secret cabal of medicine," I do not know of any secret cures of either the common cold or cancer.  I just have to struggle along with the same tools that everyone else does -- Kleenexes and Vick's Vaporub. 

The biggest thing about colds is that they are a test of patience.  It is in the midst of an attack of the sneezes that I understand why my patients come to see me after only three or four days of symptoms.  Surely, now, in the second decade of the 21st century we would have solutions that would shorten the course of such an irritating illness.

The hardest thing in life is waiting -- waiting for a doctor who is running an hour behind, waiting at a check out line, or just waiting to see if the prescribed treatment for whatever malady is going to work.  I am old enough that I no longer ask periodically "Are we there yet,"  when we are travelling to some far away land, like Tennessee, but the reason is not that I have more patience than my children.  It is just that I tell time better than they do and know how long our journey is going to take.

Life isn't like that.  When we start on a journey, we do not really know how long it will take or even what the outcome will be.  This is a test of patience and endurance and all of those spiritual muscles we don't like to exercise.

God will take us through every valley He leads us into -- in His time.

Even a bad case of sneezures.

Immutable

"How come you doctors don't give shots any more?"  The old man grumbled at me.  "I remember back in the old days, Dr. Manship would give me a big, old shot of Penicillin and I'd be good as new in a couple of days!  Those old doctors could teach you young fellers a thing or two about medicine."

I shrugged.  "The problem is that the bacteria have figured out Penicillin.  About the only things it works on these days are Strep Throat and Syphilis -- and you don't have either of those things."  I didn't say it, but of course, one of the biggest reasons why bacteria figured out Penicillin was that older doctors gave way too many shots of it.  Use an antibiotic enough and it stops working.

Medicine is constantly changing.  When I came out into practice we didn't give shots of penicillin (I'm not quite that old, although my kids think so), but we could use antibiotics like Keflex (cephalexin) for skin infections.  Unfortunately, sometime four or five years after I started in Paoli, we reached the place where more and more skin infections were caused by Staph bacteria and the term "MRSA" entered the popular vocabulary.

While there are antibiotics that cover Staph, cephalexin isn't one of them and therefore it isn't going to work for skin infections for the foreseeable future.

It is the same in all of life.  It doesn't matter what field you work in or who the people are you work with, things are changing every day.  Changing to meet those demands is part of what it means to be human.

God, however, is immutable.  That is to say, in more every day language, He does not change. 

To some, this may smack of a stodgy old man who isn't willing to accept that the Universe around Him isn't the same as when He grew up.  We've all met folks like that and they aren't necessarily enjoyable to be around as the regale those around with stories of what it was like in the good old days. 

When I hear that God is unchanging, it speaks to me not of stubbornness, but of sufficiency.  The Lord of the Universe is so far ahead of everyone else that He does not need to react to the details of the moment, He has already factored them in and knows where and what the present is leading to.  God does not change because He does not need to change.

This is a blessing, for while we can't meet every need or deal with the transitions within our work or family, God is never taken aback.  He is always sufficient for the events we face.

When we are not enough for life's circumstances,

God is.

 

A Locked Bedroom

I heard a wailing coming from somewhere down the hall of our home.  It sounded a bit like an ambulance starting its siren as it leaves on an emergency call.  A second later, I realized that this sound was coming from my two oldest (and youngest) sons' room.

I stepped out of my bedroom to see my wife standing at their bedroom door holding a pair of pants.  "Vince," she was saying, in a slightly strained voice.  "Go ahead and open the door so I can give you your pants.  We need to leave for church soon."

"Turn the key to the right," Anna said helpfully.

I will digress, just for a moment, to mention that our home has a bunch of old fashioned door knobs, locks, and keys.  Very neat, but often difficult for children to figure out.

"Elliot," Vince shrieked.  "Where's the key?"

"I don't know!"  Elliot wailed back.

"Well, look for the key," Elaine said.  "It has to be in there.  You locked the door from the inside."

"Elliot took it out of the lock and now we can't find it anywhere!"  Vince said.  Truly there was no joy in Whoville.

There is perhaps little more frustrating than listening to a seven and a nine year old looking for a key in their bedroom.  I know most husbands are pretty bad at finding things in plain sight.  Vince and Elliot are already there.

Eventually, I went out through another window and in through their window.  The key was in a corner of their room behind a closet door.

As a result of this episode, the key to Vince and Elliot's room has taken an extended, all expenses paid trip to the Caribbean.

It reminds me of the verse in Revelation chapter 3, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."  Jesus stands outside, knocking, waiting for us to open the door to Him -- waiting for us to respond.

Unlike my sons, there is no key that must be found before we open to Him.  It is simple enough to just open the door and allow Him to come in.  At the same time, we can find all sorts of reasons not to open that door -- maybe we believe our lives are too dirty to allow Him in, or we are just afraid that He will upset our status quo.

Regardless of our reasons for not allowing Him in, there is no decision that is more worthwhile to make.  Our lives will be changed for the good -- for an eternity -- if we only let Him come in.

Spontaneous Combustion!

"Oh my!"  Kim said, as she took a bite of her burger.  Immediately she began to drink water and to fan her mouth.

"That's hot!" She said.  "I'm really hungry, but I can't eat this, it's too spicy."

"What did you get?"  I asked.

"Some buffalo burger from The Grill," she told me, as she stepped over to the fridge for a refill on her water.

"But which buffalo burger?"  I asked.  "Buffalo meat doesn't taste spicy.  It's just like lean hamburger."

"I got some burger called Spontaneous Combustion," Kim said.  "But I told them to leave off the jalapenos."  She was scraping the cheese and toppings off the burger as she spoke.  "Here, you try a little bit of this sauce and see what you think."

I took a sample of the cheese and sauce.  I immediately broke into a sweat and felt as though flames were erupting from my mouth.  Spontaneous Combustion was too mild a name for it.

I too, began to guzzle water as though I had just returned from a hike through Death Valley.  "You're right," I said.  "That's sauce really has some zip to it.  Of course, I'm not sure what you expected getting a burger called 'Spontaneous Combustion' either."

Most of us value truth in advertising.  Some things are tough to test.  If your laundry detergent says its ten percent better than before, how do you really know?  My deodorant proclaims on the label that it "provides protection for seventy-two hours," but since I shower more often than every seventy-two hours (and plan to continue doing so), I have never figured out if that is true.

I guess technically speaking, the Spontaneous Combustion Burger has false advertising since neither Kim, or I burst into flames while tasting it.  It still did convey the idea that it was really, really spicy.

In a sense, the name 'Christian' advertises something.  It says that the one who claims that title is a follower of Jesus.  It is a name that should speak of a person who does and behaves certain ways -- a person whose life is filled with things like Love, Joy, Peace, and Patience.

It is a challenge for me that people do know that I am a Christian.  If my actions don't line up with who I claim to be,

There are probably a lot of things that are worse than having your mouth set up for the flames of a Spontaneous Combustion Burger just to end up with a normal bison burger and ketchup, but little can compare with the disappointment others feel when a "Christian" doesn't act like one.