Hosea 6.1 "Come let us return to the Lord; for He has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up."

      It took 96 stitches to sew up my face and reattach my ear. That's right. 96. My senior year of high school, I decided to pull a Peter Pan out the front seat of a car. I hadn't any pixie dust available, so the street broke my fall...and my back...and my skull. My face and ear were chewed up pretty good, and I heard that a couple of my friends nearly fainted when they first saw me. Needless to say, I was a real-life bloody mess. I wish I could have seen it. (oh, bloody in the red way, not the British)

      For the next week, I laid on a hospital bed in ICU, experiencing first hand, why people must get addicted to morphine. It's a crazy drug that morphine. Burning ice creeps up your arm, and then takes you to a land, far far away. I guarantee Tinker Bell never had junk like this. Since my back was broken in two places, I didn't get around much while I was there, and seeing as how I was loaded on pain-killers, I didn't remember much either. My parents did fill me in on a few things though, and I don't know if this a twisted thing to say, but part of me really wishes that I could go back and watch it all happen. I know, I'm weird. I don't think I've ever been accused of being normal.

      6 long days passed in the intensive care unit, and I've never since felt pain like I did there. I guess I could have died several different ways, and my injuries were severe, but then, if God is sovereign, how can anyone be near death? In His eyes, I'm no more closer to death sitting in this van than I was hurdling through the air. Semantics I know. In any case, I recovered, and my life resumed, but in many ways, my life never "got back to normal." For instance, I never once thought about playing the guitar until I laid on my back for a month. If it weren't for that accident, I don't think I'd be playing music now. In other ways, my thoughts about doctors will never be the same either. You see, doctors are amazing. They know so much, and yet, their touch is so sensitive. A delicate balance of knowledge and practice. If God hadn't created them, I'd be dead.

       The craziest thing about doctors, I feel,, is their willingness to hurt you. I'm serious. Any time you come to their office, you know you're going to feel pain. "Does that hurt? How about that?" Surgeons will actually take a knife and cut you open. They'll sift around in your organs, stab you with needles, and do, pretty much whatever they have to in order to get you working properly again.

       I can't help but admire God for the same reason. Even when I persist that I'm alright, that I have it all together. He does not refrain and let me remain in my sin. Time after time, I've felt the hurting, healing hands of God hold me down and cut me open, that He might make right what I've made so wrong. Don't hate Him for this. He knows what is best for us, and often He must rip away that which we cling to in order to place Himself in our hearts. His ways are not painless, but they are good, and every good doctor will tend to our wounds, even when they're self-inflicted.