Mickey Starling
reporter3@greenepublishing.com
I began attending church at an early age, and I paid attention most of the time. Occasionally, during the less-engaging sermons, I would daydream about girls, fried chicken, the Miami Dolphins or the Dolphins' cheerleaders. I did learn a lot in those early days, despite my mind's penchant for wondering onto the world's playground.
One of the things I learned in church was that a boy must have faith to please God. I found that difficult at times since I couldn't see God or have Him make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when I was hungry. I knew that pleasing my mother would bring good results, and she kept my tummy pleasantly full. But, she provided a “to do” list in order to please her. With God, it seemed to always come down to trusting Him with whatever hit your plate and there weren't always clear instructions for handling every situation.
My dear mother reminded me often that if I believed strongly enough, God would solve whatever I was facing. So, I began working up a holy sweat, believing as hard as I could for God to “move my mountains.” Sometimes, it seemed that I was on a roll, and God was making things happen. Other times, I would “believe” until I was blue in the face, but nothing changed. The obvious conclusion I came to was that my faith somehow didn't even match the size of a mustard seed, otherwise I would have seen some results.
This scenario played out for many years in my life as I rode the ebb and flow of my faith. I counted each victory as a testament to my believing and each failure as a mark of my doubts. In the mix of all this, my feelings were a major indicator of how well I was doing. Since my feelings were like water, taking the form of whatever surrounded it, that was not a good plan.
This was never more evident than when I took my first teaching job as a seventh grade English teacher. Some days, the kids were sweeter than sugar, and I loved every minute with them. God was good. Other days, they turned my desk upside down or covered my chair in spitballs. These little munchkins stressed me enough to give me numerous colds, a stomach virus and my first case of kidney stones. As the kidney stone caused my bladder to feel as if it had been lit up by a blow torch, I found myself coming up short on believing God to deliver me from this formidable pain. After all, it is difficult to pray and scream at the same time.
As I grew older and escaped teaching middle school, I began to see that there was more to God than getting my requests answered. Sometimes, God is helping us to see Him more clearly and understand His character. He is much more than our genie, and what we really need is often greater than our understanding.
After thirty years of passing kidney stones, I met my match this year, in the form of a five millimeter stone that had set up shop with no exit strategy. Normally, I name all the ones I deliver, since I've been told that kidney stone pain is equivalent to childbirth. Anything that hurts that bad deserves a name. This one I named the rock of Gibraltar, for obvious reasons. After consulting three physicians, two of whom assured me they were going to torture me beyond my wildest fears, I settled with a doctor in Valdosta. One of my previous physicians even demonstrated how I should lie in a position that looked more like standing on my head after the procedure. This was supposed to help the stones drain more easily without getting stuck. However, it would have taken a small army to get me into his prescribed position and another group of valiant warriors to get me out of that position. Though my last doctor spoke of some possible discomfort from a stent he was likely to use, he was much more compassionate. However, that compassion did not reduce my fears of what was to come.
In the week that proceeded my procedure, I could find no peace. My prayers seemed to be bouncing off of the ceiling. The night before my stone was to be blasted into oblivion, I did not sleep at all, but since I had to be up at 5 a.m., that wasn't such a loss. I listened to several books of the Bible on my way to the surgical center, For good measure, I played Psalm 91 repeatedly as well. Nothing helped, until my divinely-inspired doctor approached me minutes before putting me to sleep. “No stent,” he said, “I'm just gonna blow that stone up,” as he playfully wiggled my big toe.
In that instant, my fears were gone, and I knew that God had heard every prayer and answered accordingly. He just didn't bother to notify me of His intentions. I learned so many lessons in that moment. First, God is faithful to us even when our faith seems weak, and we don't have to have it all together for Him to love and deliver us from our worst fears. My next lesson was that often, I need to ignore my feelings, or at least stop confusing them for facts. God determines facts and outcomes, and I need to trust His goodness to see me through. He has always rolled my stones away, and He always will, whether I know it in advance or not. The one feeling I do trust is that He can do the same for you.