The Results Will Be Worth the Pain

“Dad, I’m scared,” said my ten year old son. He had a lymph node die in his throat and it was decaying causing swelling and in a few hours it would completely suffocate him.

I decided to do something perhaps I shouldn’t have, but at the time it seemed wise. I told him, “Having surgery is up to you. If you decide to have the surgery they will make you go to sleep, and they will remove the problem and you will wake up and be on pain meds until you are better. If you don’t have surgery, you’re going to die.” He laid there in his hospital bed and thought for a few minutes and then said, “I think I’ll have the surgery.”

I don’t understand why, but we are usually afraid to let those who know what they are doing remove something that is hurting us. The choice should be obvious, but yet we fear.

The same thing tends to happen when God wants to remove a part of our personality that hurts us, and or others. Usually others. I am currently lying in a hospital bed (figuratively) about to undergo the removal of one such part of me. I know God knows what He is doing, but I’m afraid. I think I fear what I will be like after the procedure. I know time is of the essence and this cannot be put off any longer, so I am saying to God tonight, “I think I’ll have the surgery.”

“There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.” PHI. 1:6 (MSG)

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