Dear Friends,
Life has its challenges,
and the past several months I've learned this lesson well. A few months ago, I
was having some breathing issues while walking my dog, only to discover I had a
heart blockage which resulted in the placement of a stent to open one of my
arteries providing greater blood flow to my heart.
I
contracted a UTI that hospitalized me, but fortunately it was not as severe as
the one I suffered a year ago that hospitalized me for a week and which became
life threatening when it turned septic.
On top of this in
June, I began to experience pain in my hip, only to discover that the hip
replacement of 30 years ago had begun to fail requiring the need for another
hip replacement.
All of these events,
which happened in the span of several months. took its toll on me.
A friend expressed to
me that "I was wearing my pain on my face," and I had to admit that I
was not dealing very well with all my newly discovered health issues that were
beginning to affect my emotional state.
I found myself
isolating from friends, and I had to acknowledge that my hip pain was
impacting my efforts to be the kind of person I wanted to be. To put it
plainly, I had become self-absorbed with my own issues, and I was not happy
with the person I had become.
On top of all this, I
noted my devotional life was suffering, and I was not praying and reading my
bible the way I knew I should. To put it mildly, my life was beginning to
spiral out of control, and I didn't like what was happening to me.
I knew I had to make
some changes to pull me away from my 'woe is me' mentality.
While I had always
been able to provide others with help who were going through a similar
condition, I couldn't seem to help myself. I was unable to translate 'knowing what to do,' into 'doing
what I know, and I was feeling very guilty about my attitude and actions. I was
spiritually stuck in a place I didn't like.
And
then one morning I was reminded of a story I had shared many times from the
pulpit about a person who was stuck on the verge of depression. She had
been coming week after week to the great psychiatrist Karl Menninger, and
yet she was making no progress in dealing with her condition. After months of
counseling, Dr. Menninger, frustrated with his inability to help her, finally
said to her as a last resort, "I want you to go across town, find someone
in need, and do something to help them."
She
did this and two weeks later she came back to Dr. Menninger a changed woman.
All she had needed was an admonition to forget about herself and her own
problems and make someone else's problems her own.
Yes,
getting back to the discipline of prayer and reading the bible, and church
attendance are important, but for me the most important action was thinking
about how I could forget about myself and begin thinking about how I could care
for others.
I
got on the phone and began calling people who I knew would appreciate hearing
from me. I began writing letters of encouragement to some friends who were
struggling, and I visited several people who had experienced some
personal setbacks, and suddenly my selfish attitude began to dissipate, and I
noticed a change in myself, and I discovered I was slowly working myself out of
my spiritual funk.
I
am not yet where I want to be, but I am happy to say that I am no longer
stuck in the 'sloth of despond' and I know I am moving in the right direction.
Yes,
as Jesus reminds us, our life is meant to be about serving and caring for
others, and when we make that our primary goal, we find a life of peace and
contentment.
Yours
in faith and friendship,
Tom
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