Getting Well

There are times when we are ill or injured and the cure or treatment is unpleasant or just plain awful. Kids have to take yucky-tasting medicine, cancer patients have to suffer the side effects of chemotherapy, and those with broken or dislocated bones have to endure the sudden pain of resetting or realignment. Untreated pain or illness would be worse than the short-term discomfort of the treatment. However, as humans we shrink from painful things—even those that help. When we’re told that the way to health for our sin-sick soul is for the word of God to operate on us like a double-edged sword conducting surgery, we might think the cure is worse than the disease. But that’s just because we’re so used to the way we’ve been existing. When we open ourselves to the Healer, we may have to endure pain along the path to getting well—but it is all for a constructive purpose.