Making Good Decisions

"Elliot, you need to go away!"  Victoria told her brother dramatically.  "I'm sick and you don't want to catch it!"

I chuckled a little bit as I heard her say this.  Elaine and I are always trying to keep our children away from each other when one of them is sick, although in all honesty, once one of them gets a dread malady, chances are pretty good that they will all get it.

Distance may help the heart grow fonder, but our hope is that it will prevent the transmission of contagious organisms, as well.

"But you aren't sick, Victoria," Elliot said.  "Can I have some of those chips?"

"No, Elliot!"  Victoria said in an even louder voice.  "They're mine!"

In this case, Elliot was exactly right.  Victoria was not sick.  I could only guess that she wanted the chips all to herself and so was trying to come up with reasons that her hungry brother had to stay far away.

I have discovered over time that my children are very good at coming up with "excellent" reasons as to why they should be able to do the things they want to do. 

This is not just something that children do.  If I am honest, there have been plenty of times that I have come to a decision and realized that I wanted to reach a particular conclusion and was just working backwards trying to figure out the reasons for what I just really wanted.

It isn't wrong to choose chocolate ice cream over strawberry and say "I just wanted chocolate today."  But to delude yourself into thinking that you chose chocolate because the countries that produce cacao beans are really need of financial assistance and you are doing your part to help needy farmers in the third world is probably a stretch.

The most important thing is simply that we are honest with ourselves.  True wisdom begins with knowing God.  The next step to wisdom is knowing ourselves and our desires.  Only then can we separate rationalizations from reasons.

It is not surprising that a three year old would want to eat all the potato chips herself, but learning to share is the path of wisdom.

Jessica's Marshmallow Cloud Cookies?

"Oh, dear," Anna said with a very dramatic sigh.  "These cookies just aren't turning out!"

"What's that white stuff coming out of them?"  I asked.  The cookies appeared to be some kind of chocolate cookie, but there was some kind of white lava that was emanating from the center of them.

"Dad," Anna said.  "They are Jessica's Marshmallow Cloud Cookies.  They are from Mrs. Fields' Cookie Favorites recipe book, but in the book they look beautiful, but all of mine sort of exploded when I baked them."

"They have marshmallows in the middle?"  I asked.  I guess I'm pretty old school, because growing up, I thought the word "Cookie" was synonymous with "Chocolate Chip."  Certainly my mother never thought of putting marshmallows inside her cookies.

"Yes, Dad,"  Anna said.  She was really upset.  "They are for a cooking contest our class is having."

"I'm sure they'll taste great," I said, reassuringly.

"But Dad, Mrs. Nan said that we would be judged not just on how things taste, but on how they look.  They call it 'Presentation.'"

"Well, I think they look tasty enough to eat and I would give you a blue ribbon," I said.  That didn't seem to help the situation much, but I did help myself to a cookie which was, as I thought quite tasty.

Anna never did figure out the cookie recipe.  She froze the marshmallows harder before she surrounded them with dough, but they still insisted on blowing holes in her cookies once they got heated up in the oven.  Finally, she left the marshmallows out and sadly took Jessica's Marshmallow-Free Cookies to school for the contest.

There is one simple fact that was messing her cookies up.  The reason why marshmallow came out of the cookies when they were heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit in our old Kitchen Aid oven was because that was what was inside of them.

Jesus said, "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."  (Luke 6:45 ESV)

What comes out of me when I am stressed and under pressure reveals the truth about my heart.  That is the time when the filters are stripped away and anger and bitterness or (hopefully) peace and joy can be truly revealed.

Nothing can come out unless it is first inside.

I pray that each one of us would know the heart transformation that only Jesus can bring.  Only then can we learn the lesson of Jessica's Exploding Marshmallow Cookies.

A Scary Frog

"Dad, it's a scary frog!"  Victoria said excitedly, holding up a little stuffed tree frog.  "It is going to eat you!"

"Oh dear," I said, pretending to tremble with fear.

This apparently was the right response, because her voice got a little louder.  "He's coming to eat you!  He's coming to eat you!"

And so it went over the next five minutes as the stuffed frog approached me, but never actually ate me.  In fact, he didn't seem even interested in nibbling on me.

Now, I can honestly say that I have never been frightened of stuffed frogs.  I'm not even afraid of real live frogs, even though I know that I know that there are very poisonous ones, like the Poison Dart Frog.  I have never once, in my whole life awakened in the middle of a nightmare shaking with terror because a large and terrible frog was pursuing me.

Victoria isn't scared of frogs either.  On the other hand, she is greatly afraid of insects.  I was trying to get her to go into the house the other day and she wouldn't move.  "I'm scared," she told me."

"Of what?"  I asked, scanning the yard and trees for some wolverine, bear,  or other terrifying creature.

"Of that," she said pointing at the ground a few feet in front of us.

I couldn't see anything at first, but then, there on the ground, I saw a little gray sow bug, headed to his place of business.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," I said, taking her hand.

"No," she said, resisting.  "I'm afraid."

In that moment, I picked her up and carried her into the house, past the scary sow bug and any other insects she hadn't noticed.

Each one of us has fears.  Perhaps it is a phobia of heights, spiders, or of tight places.  Maybe it is more worries about life events, like a fear of cancer, poor health, or bad finances.  The hard part is what to do with these fears.

For the most part, I think we try to avoid them.  Tree frogs (at least in Virginia) seem to be pretty easy to avoid.  Many other terrors are difficult to stay away from and linger in the backs of our minds causing anxiety about the present and the future.

Psalm 56:3 says, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You."

That, I suppose, is the key.  Our trust may not be very strong, but if our Father is strong then it is enough.  My heavenly Father is exactly that.

When I am not strong enough to even put my hand in His and allow Him to lead me past my fears, He will gently pick me up and carry me to a place of safety.

That's the beauty of faith.  It gives courage for each situation, not because I am so great, but because God is.

When I am afraid, I will trust in Him.

Always.

Building Trust

"So, you're the new doctor?" The older man sitting in the exam room said to me.

"Well, sort of," I said.  "I've been here since last July."

"Oh," he said.  "Well, I guess I haven't heard too much bad about you yet," in a tone that said that maybe next week he would hear about the former patients I had buried in my crawl space.

"I know you usually see Dr. Jones," I said.  "But I'll do my best to take good care of you.  What brings you in today?"

"It's my shoulder," he said.

The next several minutes were spent gleaning information about his shoulder and examining it.  "It looks like rotator cuff tendinitis," I said.  "You've probably just been overusing it."

"Well," he said.  "What do I do about it?"

"I think the best thing would be to put a shot in it and then probably do some physical therapy on it," I said.

"What kind of shot?"  He asked.

"A steroid shot," I replied.

"Is it going to hurt?"  He asked suspiciously.

"Oh, a little," I said breezily.  "You'll be fine."

"Easy for you to say," he said, sarcastically.  "I guess go ahead."

I went out and drew up the medication I would be injecting, very carefully.  I returned to the room with the syringe.  I carefully marked the area, cleansed it with alcohol, and picked up the syringe.

"All set?"  I asked.

"Go for it," my patient told me through his gritted teeth.

I gave the shot.  "You'll feel a stick and then a burn.  The burn is worse than the stick," I said as I pushed the Depo Medrol into the joint.  I don't know why I say that, but literally every shot I give I say the same thing.  "All done," I told him, slapping a Band-Aid on the posterior aspect of his shoulder.

"When are you giving the shot?"  He asked.

"It's in," I said.

"Wow," he said.  "You're pretty slick.  I hardly felt a thing."  He paused a moment and then said, "I do believe you might work out here in Brookneal after all."

It's a bit of a boring story from one of my days.  No one passed out, no one had to be resuscitated, and there weren't gallons of blood being transfused.  There was only a first meeting between a doctor and a patient and one that (hopefully) went well.  Of course, the bigger question will be known in a few days.  It doesn't really matter so much whether the shot hurts, it is whether or not it works.

I think about this a lot.  The relationship between doctor and patient is built on trust.  When I give my patients advice, they need to believe that I know what I'm talking about.  That confidence comes because of experience.  It comes because in each little event in my patient's lives I am there and take good care of them.

Our relationship with God requires even more trust -- we call it faith.  The knowledge that God will lead us through whatever trial we are in and that He will not leave us.  We can get this knowledge from God's Word and from reading the promises there.  Even better, sometimes, is just to sit and remember the dark times in the past and how He brought us through each one.

My memory isn't always the best at remembering how discouraged I was in the past when dealing with my son's speech delay or, a summer vacation disaster, but if I try, I can remember that those times were awfully dark and God took me (and my family) through each one.

Today's trials are big -- maybe they are bigger than any we've faced in the past, but regardless, our God can take care of them all. 

He's always been faithful before.

He will continue to be trustworthy, whatever we face, one day at a time.