Getting Over It
I recently had back surgery. After I came home from the hospital I was really sore for a week or two. During that time I hardly got out of the recliner we had downstairs. I even slept in it. I would eventually be able to move over to the couch. My wife was a real trooper about things. She even did the unwomanly thing and let me keep the toilet seat up in the downstairs bathroom. I literally could not bend over and lift the seat up.
It was a rare treat just to be able to walk upstairs. Once I arrived at the top of the stairs I would head straight to the bathroom to gargle mouthwash and brush my teeth. I guess it sounds a little silly, but brushing my teeth seemed like such a reward. Here again, my wife, who hates clutter on the bathroom counter, allowed me to keep the mouthwash on the counter so I wouldn’t have to bend over and get it out of the cabinet where we kept it.
I found that one of the best ways to relieve my pain was to walk. Sometimes I would walk and walk until it just didn’t hurt any more. About the third week I started seeing more improvement. When I went back to the doctor, I got the news that I could return to driving. He also told me I could return to work, but to start out easy and work my way back into it. Life was beginning to return to normal.
Although I still have a little ways to go, I feel better and better every day. It is so nice to have such a great wife who took such good care of me. But one Saturday I walked into the bathroom to get ready and I realized that I must be getting to a turning point. I went to the bathroom sink to brush my teeth and use the mouthwash. I looked on the sink counter and could not find my mouthwash. As I looked at myself in the mirror I noticed I had an extremely puzzled look on my face. I bent down, which I now could do without pain, and looked into the cabinet under the sink. There it was, the mouthwash sitting in the cabinet. In a subtle way I guess I was being told that it was time to start returning to life as I use to know it.
His name was Dr. Joel Boone. He is the most highly decorated medical officer in the history of the US Armed Services. He even won the Medal of Honor for his actions in World War I. He would also become the chief doctor aboard the Presidential yacht, the Mayflower. This President decided to hold him over, in the name of continuity, from the previous President’s administration after that President’s death. Dr. James Coupal became the new President’s Chief Doctor. This new President had two young sons. These two sons loved to play tennis at the White House. They often played tennis with Dr. Boone and Dr. Coupal.
One day the White House chief housekeeper, Elizabeth Jaffray, noticed the younger son limping about. She asked him what was wrong. “Oh, I just got a blister on my foot from playing tennis,” was his reply. Another guy and the older brother were playing tennis when Dr. Boone arrived and he was asking where the younger brother was so they could play doubles. They told him that he wasn’t feeling well and Dr. Boone headed upstairs to check on the young lad. He found the young lad had a blister on his toe, but also noticed his temperature was 102 degrees. Then he really got scared when he noticed strange streaks running up the boy’s leg. That was a sign of blood poisoning and infection. The boy’s temperature continued to rise. Dr. Boone and Dr. Coupal summoned other doctors. Blood tests showed it was indeed an infection.
The Democratic convention was being held in New York, but the President paid very little attention to it. He was very frightened for his son. The President remembered his son’s love for animals and he even went out on the White House grounds and caught a small rabbit to bring into his son. A little smile came over his son’s face. The son was sent to Walter Reed. There was nothing anyone could do, the young lad would die soon afterwards. When the Democratic convention made the announcement of the little boy’s death, everyone was in shock even though this was a Republican President. The Presidential family was devastated.
Sometime later there was a little boy sticking his head through the White House fence. A Colonel Starling went up to the boy and asked him what he was doing. The little boy responded, “I thought I might see the President. I heard that he gets up early and takes a walk. I wanted to tell him how sorry I am that his little boy died.” Colonel Starling was floored. Later he went in and told the President about the incident. Starling noticed it was hard for the President to control his emotions. The President then turned to Starling and said, “Colonel, whenever a boy wants to see me always bring him in. Never turn one away or make him wait.”
He was a cocky young lad in his youth. Success would find him and he would become very well loved by his people. Then he was forced to spend a great deal of his entrance into adulthood in exile, running to stay alive. Success would find him again and this time his people would love him even more. He would become their king.
David, the new king, looked around at all the success that surrounded him. Instead of being the hands on commander that got him there, he decided to become a stay-in-the-castle type king. This lead to his wandering eyes to be distracted by a bathing neighbor. As king, he summoned her to his castle where he developed a relationship with her. When she became pregnant with his child, he panicked and when her husband failed to fall for his deceiving plot, he had him placed on the frontline of a battle where he knew he would be killed. Then, like a hero himself, he “kindly” took the soldier’s wife as his own wife so he could “take care” of her.
When this child was born he would take it “as one of his own.” Actually, it was his own child. He would love the child so much. The prophet Nathan would warn him that God was very disappointed in him and that He would take the child’s life as the punishment for what David had done. When the child became very sick, David, filled with deep sorrow, would pray and pray that God would change His mind and let the child live. He also refused to eat.
When the child died, David got up and started eating again and seemed to return to the life at hand seemingly unaffected by the child’s death. People were confused. David assured them he was deeply touched by his child’s death, but that he had prayed and prayed for God to remove His curse. Although it wasn’t the answer he wanted, it was the answer God gave him. And now that God gave him the answer, he needed to get back to the life God had given him to live.
President Calvin Coolidge became President on the death of President Warren Harding. He believed, like Harding, that government was too big and he would continue, even stronger than Harding himself, to reduce the government’s size and the tax burden the government place on the people. To continue that work he had to serve out the rest of Harding’s term and get elected on his own right. Coolidge brought two sons, John (the older) and Calvin (the younger) to live with him at the White House. When little Calvin died, part of big Calvin died, too. But Calvin Coolidge realized that the world and his purpose was much bigger than he himself. He had to work around his deep grief for this purpose, which he worked so hard for, to succeed. Despite his deep grief, that’s exactly what he did.
Life is filled with ups and downs. Pain is part of life, but it is up to us to move past that pain and return to the life God has placed in front of us. It’s easy to fall into the pit of pity. It is much harder to work our way up the cliffs to a normal life. Like my wife’s quiet hint, or Coolidge’s determination of his purpose, or even David’s strong faith that God always knows best, pain’s greatest enemy is a determination to recover and return to the life God has placed in front of us.
Prayer: Thanks You for the steps toward recovery I am taking. Thank You for my wife and the ways she is helping me get there. Amen!
