Two of our 4 children were born in the DePaul Hospital in Norfolk. A prominent sign on the hospital wall declared, “We dress the wounds but God does the healing.” It was 70 years ago but its truth still resounds in my mind.
I was the youngest of 6 children, the only one to finish high school, not because I’m bright. All my siblings left school and found jobs to help our family survive during the great depression.
As a sensitive child, I listened to symptoms of failing health in my family, and recall praying to be spared “high blood pressure and heart disease” long before knowing what they meant.
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Bobby?” I always told the inquirers, “I’m going to be a Soldier and a doctor.” They smiled politely, but it made no sense. Norfolk was a Navy town. No one wanted to be a Soldier. The earliest family tombstone dated back to 1824 and our ad-hoc genealogy made it clear – no one had ever been a doctor.
A Soldier tearfully shared the painful trauma of a terrifying combat incident. His soul and mine were entwined cognitively and compassionately. The chills up and down my spine told me I was on sacred ground. The divine plan for my life, including little victories and big defeats, entered my awareness. God did not have to use His voice. His presence powerfully affirmed: “I have prepared you to help this Soldier heal at this time.” All my life, I wanted to be a Soldier and a doctor. God prepared me to be a doctor for a Soldier. It was the most real experience of my life.
“How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees,” Shakespeare’s Othello, likely written in 1603. So often, Shakespeare’s words strike the rock out of which pours meaning and truth.
Trauma, a French word for wound, is widespread not only among our brave combat veterans, but also in our politically split nation.
We are a people in a hurry. We have little or no patience.
We are a Type A Personality Disordered People: we are driven to succeed, hard workers, very competitive, able to work under pressure, goal-oriented, prone to anger, extremely conscious of time, often race through life joylessly, and our lifestyle contributes to poor health.
Vertigo is a fitting metaphor for life overwhelmed by stress of deadlines, impatience, and hateful, angry thoughts.
One word best describes many of us today is impatience or more precisely, anxious impatience.
Sooner than later, each one discovers that common solutions such as the “tranquility of trivia,” distractions of sexuality, fame and fortune, brotherly love, awards and achievements or endless other human efforts will neither bring peace nor prevent our ultimate demise. Simply put, cremation societies and funeral homes seldom go out of business.
To live and die meaningfully, a righteous God, one that never leaves or forsakes us, is essential. That God inspired and instructed those who wrote the Bible, the richest resource of meaningful help for flourishing in the best and worst situations.
But how many of us actually read it?
As a coach wanting the best for his team, a counselor who wants you to experience this and the afterlife knowingly, and as an advisor wishing you to weigh your options and choose the right path, I entreat you.
The Bible tells us that God loves us to such an extent that he sacrificed his only son, Jesus, for us. We show our love for God by obeying his commandments and by loving, forgiving, and being patient with each other.
Jesus told us to cease striving and know that He is God.
Many biblical references to the importance of patience and to the gift of healing are readily available. If you don’t own a Bible, visit your local library.
Poet James Dickie wrote The Images of God. Job, a remarkable man, is depicted in the Bible, circa 950 B.C., as a man dedicated to God whose patience did not falter and who was ultimately and miraculously healed. The following is Dickie’s interpretation of Job 30: 16, 19, 20:
“The dark man spoke to the Lord. “There is no man of yours I cannot turn against you.” The Lord said, “I have one such. His name is Job.”
“I am Job, prosperous, with good family, good crops and my health.
I woke and looked out my window and saw that my crops were blasted as though by lightning from underneath the ground. Not a blade stood, and there was no hope for harvest. The next day I woke and my children were dead, whom I loved beyond all the telling of it. I could not say why this had befallen me. Perhaps I had offended the Lord by not enough worship and not enough prayer. So I fell to my knees and there burst blood and pus upon the floor of my home. I looked and I was covered with boils. Nothing more could afflict me. My wife cried out, “Curse God and die.” But the Lord is all that I have, and all that any man asks. He is greater than the sun and the stars in heaven and if He chooses to afflict me thus, yet will I love him. More than fields, more than sons, more than my body covered with repulsive sores, flies and insects getting at the blood. I will stand in the stillness of my affliction and live, then will walk and praise God in a shimmer of pain. The weight of sorrow is upon me. But it is nothing to the love that God bears me, and so besets me. Each of my sorrows is unending praise. Praise.”
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.
