the Convincer

Today has turned into a quite the adventuresome day. Yesterday, my wife sent our oldest son to his school nurse to show her a bite on his left leg. It had turned purple all around it, which had her highly concerned. Max is not one to complain all that much so it was easy for us to overlook the seriousness of it. Following the nurse’s advice, I picked him up from school and took him to our local pediatrician.

What I thought would be just a routine observation turned in to a 45-minute minor surgical procedure. Staff infection had set up residence in that area and had to be dealt with. 

I DO NOT like for my kids to experience any sort of pain and did not enjoy this visit one bit. Before we left her office, the doctor said something to me that caught my attention. She said, “If we could have gotten to this sooner, we could have headed this thing off and wouldn’t have had to do this.”

the Hill '3'
(Forest Hill, MD)

In that split second, I wanted to say, “Thank you captain obvious.”  

I thought better of it when I realized how often that is just what I do. I put off…put off…put off what I know is necessary, only to have to face it sooner or later.

When we wait and let our ‘stuff’ mature, it is so much more difficult to deal with. To use a medical term – we end up having to do surgery and cut stuff away, where it would have been so much easier had we dealt with it when the time was right.

I am quite the convincer. I can convince myself that if I ignore the issue that it will go away. Either that, or I will learn how to live with it. The issues (habits – crisis – sin – hurts – pains – decisions) we face will never just go away. At some point, they all must be dealt with.

Just like I despise seeing my kids have to lie on a table in pain, our Heavenly Father hates it even more when life throws difficulty into our path. What bothered me most about today was that I didn’t notice the problem on Max before it got to this point. This was not something to play with and thankfully it was caught in time – so lying on that table today while the doctor did her work was for his benefit. But it possibly could have been avoided, if we had been more observant.

Only we know what our issues are. Only we know what we have procrastinated in dealing with. We must stop convincing ourselves that it will go away, because we all know better. It is much more painful having to lay our spiritual being upon the master’s table – especially when He has to look at us and say, “If you would have brought this to me earlier, it would be nowhere near as painful.”

Who knows…heading it off early on might just keep you from even getting a scar. Don’t delay. Take whatever it is to Him today, and let the healing begin.