If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’m preparing for a surgical procedure at Mayo Clinic. I’ve been waiting – eagerly – to have surgery on my cervical spine. When I say eagerly, I really do mean eagerly because the expectation is that the surgery will be a great help to me and that my prognosis will be good. So, I’m ready. No, I’m more than ready.
But my medical insurance company is not.
We’re now moving into our third week of wrangling with these guys, trying to get prior authorization for the procedure. Without prior authorization, I could get soaked with the entire bill, which could make the future quite interesting for my family. The auxiliary costs are already mounting. We’ve rescheduled surgery once and are expecting to have to do so yet again.
It’s no fun.
This morning during prayer, I was trying to convince myself of all of the pat answers I give to other people who are in similar situations.
“God’s time is not our time.”
“God knows what’s best for you.”
“There’s always a reason for everything.”
“There must be something God’s trying to show you through this.”
“Who knows? Perhaps something terrible may have happened if things had happened as originally planned.”
My head accepts all those answers, but my heart – especially my patience – wants to throw it all out the window. So, here I sit trying to absorb my own words of wisdom.
Patience is a virtue, but it’s certainly not my virtue. At least not at the moment.
I started flipping through my Bible, looking for passages about patience. I found quite a few very beautiful versus that made me feel a lot better. But there’s one in particular that spoke strongly to me.
The Lord will fight for you; you have only to keep still. (Ex 14:14)
Moses told that to the Israelitesjust after they had escaped from Egypt. The People of God had turned around and saw Pharaoh and his army setting out after them. They were scared and rethinking their decision to leave captivity. Moses wanted to assure them that the Lord held the victory in his hand.
I started thinking about this in terms of my own situation. My dilemma is nowhere near as scary as the one the Israelites faced. I don’t have a crazed despot chasing after me with a bunch of armed soldiers. I’m simply waiting on my insurance company to get its act together.
But I am fleeing from a kind of captivity, just as the Israelites. Behind lays the “old me” with its physical brokenness and ahead lies the “free me” that has been treated and healed. In between my life is on hold; it’s impossible to manage anything without knowing when my surgery will actually take place. My insurance company is like a Pharaoh that’s trying to get in my way.
The Lord will fight for you; you have only to still.
I’m adopting this as my “battle cry” for the coming days. I, too, am part of the People of God and our Lord has promised his faithfulness to me. I can’t forget that, even though it can sometimes feel as though I’m standing all alone, helpless and uncertain.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to sit down and have a chat with Moses right now!
Instead, I’ll content myself with reading and-reading his words to the Israelites and remembering the victories that the Lord won for them. He won those victories for me as well.
And he’ll win this one also. I need only (try to) be still.
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