Writings
For years I have been attempting to “translate” medical complexities into understandable and helpful concepts for my patients and my students. That translation work has often extended outward to nonmedical people, as well. Now I want to extend this teaching to you.
Note: the patients in these accounts are intentionally de-identified. Specific details have been changed to obscure identities, and some persons are composites. These patients presented in the stories are not intended to represent actual individuals and should not be construed as such.
New Year’s Resolutions and Relapses, Part 3
This opens up a whole new world of good things to set our minds on. Even beyond overtly “spiritual” matters, we have an endless variety of noble and worthy things to plant in our thought life – even “secular” things within art, music, literature, or sports.
New Year’s Resolutions and Relapses, Part 2
I have noticed that I have a spiritual problem not unlike this. Sinful thoughts, attitudes, and actions seem to recur in my life. I try to suppress them. Sometimes by God’s grace there is a great victory over sin. Until…a relapse. A negative thought, bad attitude, or unkind remark stubbornly reemerges.
New Year’s Resolutions and Relapses, Part 1
I hope you have not experienced a C diff infection. But I suspect you know all about the discouraging reality of relapses. Very likely at some point you have made a resolution (New Year’s or otherwise) to rid your life of a certain sin or bad habit, only soon to realize in despair, like Valerie with her C diff, “It’s back!”
An Eyewitness Account
But it was not blind faith that had led us there. When we had been unable to glean any trustworthy information from the news or the internet, we had turned to calling people we knew.
Mixed Messages, Part 3
The fake noise would be like the “phantom limb pain” that plagues some people with amputations. Despite the removal of a limb, these patients unmistakably still “feel” one, and may be tortured by pain, such as the burning of toes that are not really there.
Mixed Messages, Part 2
Then, as I beseeched God, something wonderful happened. Like a warm blanket of tranquility, a comforting peace settled over me. But that night on call I created a god in my own image, who naturally happened to have the same priorities as I did.
Mixed Messages, Part 1
In the most beautiful place I have ever seen, I was certainly drawn closer to God… but that was mainly to cry out frantically to him!
The Image of God, Part 2
To dehumanize is human. And the most important person for us to see the image of God in is the one we are most tempted to despise and dismiss. Everyone, like Matthew, like you, like me, should be regarded as a priceless soul which can be redeemed by Jesus.
A Masterful, Meticulous God, Part 2
Normal physiology may appear to be static, but it is really a homeostasis, a balance between opposing forces. You owe your health to a lifelong tug of war between bodily systems, tightly regulated by feedback. For us to live, this match must always end in a tie. This beautiful, tenuous equilibrium is sustained by a meticulous designer. He reveals his genius in our resiliency, as well as our fragility.