The Ways of God...
So, I treated this patient the other day. He was a middle aged man with a thick white beard, thinned salt and pepper hair, a solid beer gut, and a thick stature which ultimately reminded me of Daddy. The similarities quickly ended there as I read through his chart which revealed a lifetime of social misbehaviors including past cocaine use and smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes per day for the last 30 years. The only other similarity he shared with my Daddy was in his diagnosis: myocardial infarction.
As I read these words in his chart, my own heart started screaming. I'm not sure if my heart was screaming at God, screaming for my Daddy, or just screaming for the sake of screaming. I just couldn't believe that I had been given orders to treat this man who reminded me very much of my Daddy, yet with his history of partying and poor decisions, he actually survived his heart attack! That God, he sure can be cruel sometimes. Or so I thought...
Prior to treating this patient, I could feel the bitterness welling up in my whole body. One of the main reasons I opted to be a PT was because of the endless opportunities I was going to have to help people, yet there wasn't a bone in my body that wanted to help this patient. I figured that if he was lucky enough to survive his heart attack, then he could just figure the rest out for himself. Now, it's true that my Daddy wasn't the healthiest individual in the whole wide world, but he'd made a conscious effort to monitor his health, try to lose weight, and abstain from smoking and heavy drinking. This dude had done none of that but he was sitting in front of me waiting for me to help him. It was then that I had to dig down deep and think about what Daddy would've done, and without a doubt in my mind, I knew that my Daddy would've prayed.
So, I prayed. I prayed that God would help nurture this man back to health, and that he would treat this health scare as a wake up call to change...to change his social habits, to change his spiritual habits, and to gain appreciation for this life that he was given a second chance at living because there are so many people who aren't given that luxury...
As I proceeded with my treatment of this particular patient, I realized that God meant for this whole situation to happen. Medically, you can't explain why this guy survived while my father did not. But, you can't always compare things on paper. After his death, my stepmom once described my father as the only adult person that she knew that has died and is actually in heaven without a shadow of doubt. Perhaps it was for this reason that he wasn't given a second chance because there are so many people in this world who need to fix their lives in order ensure that they will find themselves in heaven one day. Either way, this whole situation served as the perfect illustration of God's individual plan for each one of us. And while we don't always like it and while it's sometimes not fair, it always seems to work itself out in the end...
I know I said I was done blogging about Daddy, but in the oddest way, working with this patient made my heart smile because I realized that I, too, know that Daddy is in heaven without a shadow of a doubt, and it truly is a much better place to be...
Until next time...love y'all!
As I read these words in his chart, my own heart started screaming. I'm not sure if my heart was screaming at God, screaming for my Daddy, or just screaming for the sake of screaming. I just couldn't believe that I had been given orders to treat this man who reminded me very much of my Daddy, yet with his history of partying and poor decisions, he actually survived his heart attack! That God, he sure can be cruel sometimes. Or so I thought...
Prior to treating this patient, I could feel the bitterness welling up in my whole body. One of the main reasons I opted to be a PT was because of the endless opportunities I was going to have to help people, yet there wasn't a bone in my body that wanted to help this patient. I figured that if he was lucky enough to survive his heart attack, then he could just figure the rest out for himself. Now, it's true that my Daddy wasn't the healthiest individual in the whole wide world, but he'd made a conscious effort to monitor his health, try to lose weight, and abstain from smoking and heavy drinking. This dude had done none of that but he was sitting in front of me waiting for me to help him. It was then that I had to dig down deep and think about what Daddy would've done, and without a doubt in my mind, I knew that my Daddy would've prayed.
So, I prayed. I prayed that God would help nurture this man back to health, and that he would treat this health scare as a wake up call to change...to change his social habits, to change his spiritual habits, and to gain appreciation for this life that he was given a second chance at living because there are so many people who aren't given that luxury...
As I proceeded with my treatment of this particular patient, I realized that God meant for this whole situation to happen. Medically, you can't explain why this guy survived while my father did not. But, you can't always compare things on paper. After his death, my stepmom once described my father as the only adult person that she knew that has died and is actually in heaven without a shadow of doubt. Perhaps it was for this reason that he wasn't given a second chance because there are so many people in this world who need to fix their lives in order ensure that they will find themselves in heaven one day. Either way, this whole situation served as the perfect illustration of God's individual plan for each one of us. And while we don't always like it and while it's sometimes not fair, it always seems to work itself out in the end...
I know I said I was done blogging about Daddy, but in the oddest way, working with this patient made my heart smile because I realized that I, too, know that Daddy is in heaven without a shadow of a doubt, and it truly is a much better place to be...
Until next time...love y'all!
posted by Stacy @ 2:09 PM
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