Psalm 46:10     Be still, and know that I am God ...

"Doc, how you plannin' to fix this leg?" my patient Carl asked as he lay in the emergency room. The torn pants, matted beneath the clear plastic splint, revealed bone fragments poking through the skin. "And get me out of this pain! It's killing me!"

Pain, I'll tell you about pain, I thought as I looked down at him. I've just buried my twenty-six-year-old daughter!

But instead, I took a deep breath and answered, "There are lots of ways. If I put a rod down the bone, we can get you up right away. If it's too dirty, I'll put pins into the bones and connect them to a device that looks like a child's erector set, so I can keep an eye on those cuts. When they heal, we can eventually put on a cast. Let's get you up to the operating room."

As I planned the surgery, I thought of all the techniques orthopedic surgeons use to fix fractures, but that's not real healing. I'd just experienced how close God's spiritual healing parallels what He does in the human body.

Carl had complained about pain. Loss of loved ones, broken friendships and, of course, broken bones all hurt. Pain not only signals the injury, it allows the healing process to begin by causing us to be still. It was the same when Ann died. I needed to be still, to let those around me come and do for me. It made me feel helpless, but the pain was less when friends said, "I'm sorry, let me help," or when they arrived with a steaming chicken casserole. These things stabilized the hurt.

It wasn't easy to be still. I wanted to do something, anything, to make the pain go away. But just as the surgery caused Carl's bone fragments to be at rest so that repair could begin, it was stillness, in God's presence, that began my healing.

Great Physician, it was the unfelt touch of Your presence that began my healing. Hear my whispered thanks.
SCOTT HARRISON