I am dying of old age. I’ve said it, the ghastly truth. Please don’t be alarmed; I’m starting a fund. “So here I am God… Got a particular doozy for you.”
“My eyes hurt from allergies, and my neck hurts ‘cause I slept on it funny.”
“Amen.”
“You know what to do, God.“
“Go get ‘em, Dad. Do that fixy thing you do.“
“Ya, I know… In Jesus’ name, Amen. Right?”
“In Jesus’ name doesn’t have to be said, it just has to be known, but Yes.”
“Gotcha God.”
“You know what to do, God.”
“Ok.”
“Oh right, and probably should have said please, so God, ‘Please and stuff. Amen.’”
“You know what I like about you, son?”
“You know.1”
“You know how to pray. Go get some eye drops.”
That’s not the way I wanted it fixed, because it hurt to lean my head back. That was entirely the reason I didn’t want to take my eyedrops in the first place. I walked over and got the eye drops. “Fine!”
“Exactly.”
“So, you see,” I said, as I gestured with eyedrops in hand, “to put the eye drops in my eyes, I would normally tip my head back and that means…” I tipped my head back. “Yep,” lots of pain. “That’s too much pain. Can’t do that.”
“Gary, how many loaves do you have? How many fish?”
Yeah, but it’s not enough. Just complaining, cause tipping my head back H-U-R-T-S!”
“Do it anyway.”
“Woah.” I stopped for a moment.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” I mumbled as I fumbled with the cap. I threw back my head in full swing, hoping that the full momentum would carry my noodle further back then I could stretch it considering the mitigating circumstances.
“Now, quick, quick with the eyedrops!!!” I told myself. I slunk back in my low back chair even further, pushing through the searing pain as I, with trembling hands, carefully pooled the drops into my watery eyes. “Done,” I say, with moderate admiration (admiration for God of course, but don’t quote me on that).
I sat back up and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. I put the cap on the bottle while nodding forward. I nodded slowly and methodically to stretch my neck out in the opposite direction. Everything in my neck popped and went back into place. God took the fear of the pain I had in taking my allergy eye drops and gave me a personal chiropractor appointment, besides.
My conversation with God was intermittently interesting for the next hour. I thought occasionally that my neck was hurting less, though only briefly. Last I thought, “If stretching my head backward worked, let me try stretching to the left.” I stretched into the pain and said a little prayer.
I stretched into the pain repeatedly and I felt my neck and back pop back into place. I have got to feel like God was playing the role of the Great Physician because even though it felt like everything was balled up, I started to feel normal again. But what do you expect when God is your chiropractor?
Just like our bodies, we can be balled up inside and wonder when God will rescue us from our distress. In matters of the heart, He let me know that I don’t need to be frustrated and that He is a very present help in times of trouble (2). And physically, I think he just didn’t heal me today; He taught me a permanent solution on how to deal with future pain.
Footnotes
1. Ezekiel 37:3b
2. Psalm 46:1
