A medical crisis is not something I’d ever willingly invite into my life. And yet, when it happens, I know I’m being given an opportunity to grow.
A month ago I landed in the hospital with a double lung infection that made it impossible to breathe. I was hooked up to an oxygen tube, and they pummeled me with antibiotics and other meds through an IV drip.
Slowly I got better. Got off the oxygen, the infection receded and after two weeks—two weeks—I was able to come home. Glad to be out of the hospital.
But even at home the care continues. I still get breathless at times—like going up a flight of stairs. Huffing and puffing. I’ve learned to take my time. Waiting for my lungs to regain their strength. And that would be my first point:
Take your time. And that’s very much one of the lessons in any healing. To not push it. To accept change as it comes. To embrace healing as it comes. In God’s time.
I go for walks. Slow walks. Before I was sick, I’d go for a 3.5 mile run in the park. Running is not part of my repertoire now. But walking is. In the hospital I had several sessions with a physical therapist. Much of that time was spent walking. I was so grateful to be shown, “Yes, this is something you can do.”
Trust your doctors. How fortunate I am to have an excellent team of doctors that I readily consult. A week out of the hospital my doctor wanted me to come in for a chest X-ray and some blood tests. Dutifully I complied. (It was a long day.)
That evening at 8:00 the phone rang. She was calling to give me the results of the X-ray (which looked good—amen) and the blood tests (I was a bit dehydrated). Obviously, I needed to drink more fluids. She also tweaked some of the meds I was taking.
God is a healer. But God works through doctors like her. Interestingly enough, her first name is Angela.
Hold on to Scripture. The Gospels are full of examples of healing. At first, I found that annoying. I wanted to say, “Jesus, You healed all those people with simply a touch. Why can’t You heal me, slam-dunk?”
But as I lingered over some of those words, I found what helped me. Passages like the one where Jesus is called upon to heal the daughter of Jairus. People come to Him from Jairus’s house and say it is too late, the girl has died.
What does Jesus tell Jairus? “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” Those words became the ones I held onto. How I would be healed—that was happening already (even if it wasn’t as fast as I wanted it to be). What I needed to do was not be afraid. And believe.
