Weeds, Bugs, Disease

My parents owned one of the finest farms in the county. Handed down from ancestors, a large house which had survived the civil war, white fences, animals in the pastures, crops and fruit trees.

It was such hard work, I could hardly wait to leave, to get into a community of excitement, educational awareness, worldliness. Now, having seen all the world has to offer, I would like to be back there, on the farm---fresh water from a hand pump, fresh eggs from laying hens, a place to grow fresh vegetables, fresh meats.

On the farm, there were always weeds, bugs and disease trying to take over the crops. After long years of schooling, long hours of hard work, I became a doctor and found that disease is trying to take over the world. Now, disabled, working with technology, I find that viruses (disease) are trying to take over the world.

The world started out perfect, God put Adam and Eve in a perfect garden with just one rule, one law, one commandment: they could not eat the fruit from one tree. Given the greatest gift of all, free will, men could not obey one rule and so came imperfection, disease, weeds, bugs.

Traveling the world, learning the reasons for why people do what they do. I have found that most blame God for their problems. Oh, if all of us could have been born “white, wealthy and wise.” So many people of color have told me that it is the color of their skin that has kept them from achievement on the uneven playing field. People with disabilities have told me that it is their disability that has kept them from performing on the uneven playing field.

I have found that the people who have accomplished the most, usually had to overcome the most...poverty, unattractiveness. So many times, these people had not thought they were chosen by God to do great things. While traveling every continent of the world, I have never found a perfect person, most of us have a neurosis, psychosis, disability of some type. The problem: we usually seek help from someone in worse shape than us, a sociopath, a psychopath. We do not need someone to give us an excuse. The Designer, the One who wrote the manufacturer's handbook (Bible), has given us all the instructions we need.

Life is a matter of sowing and reaping---you reap what you sow. But, you are not stuck where you start, and your character determines your destination. I have found that it is not just the military which carry around excess baggage, external and internal wounds, hidden desperation, struggling in silence. Many find relief from their struggles in addictions...alcohol, illegal drugs, overeating, overspending, sexual promiscuity, societal clashes. In combat, you learn to depend on one another, you watch each other's backs, you pray constantly for one another. The answer for the church, for Christianity; in fact, the answer for any religion, political philosophy: if you are really convinced, convicted, committed, act as if in combat.

I have encountered brokenness many times in my life, not just me, but others. As a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran, I prayed for my restoration; convinced, as I am right now, that God, in his infinite mercy and love, could do anything, even restore my eyesight. I remember the day that my specialist said to me, “Doctor, your eyes are totally gone.” I remember the hopelessness in death, the death of a patient, the death of a parent. Hopelessness is the message of the enemy. Christ forever cured our hopelessness and helplessness by telling us He would never leave, nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5)

Long ago, in another life, one of the most remarkable secretaries I ever employed, Jennifer, had won all the secretarial awards at the Pentagon. In the Washington DC cocktail party scene, it all starts with the first drink, and alcohol had enslaved her. When sober, she was the most competent person I had ever been around; under the haze of drugs (and alcohol is a drug), she was totally incompetent, had all the problems of the alcoholic. She had totally alienated herself from her grown children. On the day of my mother's death, I was so aggravated by her alcoholic stupor, (God forgive me) I thought “why lose my mother to cancer, who lived such a clean life; while others have dared their bodies to cave from their addictive living.”

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45). The tares have taken over the church, corruption has taken over government, greed has taken over the banking and financial institutions. On every hand, hypocrisy and outright sinfulness seems to prosper. What do you say to someone who has tried to live right, dependent on the mercy of God, and yet sees the wicked prosper. God told us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The apostle Peter told us that our troubles and trials are more precious than gold. (1 Peter 1:7)

If all believers in God prospered in this world, if all Christians were blessed in this world, it would be difficult to find an atheist. If unbelievers were the only ones experiencing deprivation of any type, everyone would board the heavenly express. Remember the apostle Paul's great message to the church: rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)