Take That!

Last Thursday our sweet little Norah had surgery. It was the first time one of our kids has had to be ‘put under’ as they say, and it was pretty rough for us to walk out of the pre-op room as they wheeled our little girl out into who knows what… In a little less than an hour, they were finished and we got to go see her, which was also very difficult. Poor Norah was so confused and out of it. She was hurting and had no idea why and couldn’t even open her little eyes to see us… We held her and rocked her and after a couple of hours took her home. I thought the worst was over, but little did I realize that the medicine the doctors prescribed for her would be an all-out battle…

It’s this liquid pain medicine that tastes really nasty. In fact, it’s so nasty that Norah starts crying and shaking every time she sees the big red bottle. She starts freaking out and swallowing air so fast that it’s almost impossible for her to get anything down. What’s more, we have to wake her up throughout the night to give her these meds! One hard thing for me has been the fact that I work during the day, which means that I give Norah meds before I leave for work, when I get home from work and in the middle of the night. Some of my only interactions with her have been these awful medicine bouts. It’s gotten to a state where she sees me and just starts crying because she knows I’m there to give her this medicine, which she hates like poison. I have been praying for a solution to these dreadful, medicinal encounters and then all of a sudden it happened last night…

Christy had an idea… an amazing idea… it was a stroke of pure genius! I woke Norah up and brought her into our bedroom to give her the medicine and as soon as she opened her eyes and saw my face, she said, “No Daddy, I don’t want it!” and started to cry. I was once again in that state of despair knowing that I had to put my kid through something she hated for her own good, when Christy said, “Hey Norah, do you want to make us try your medicine?” Norah’s tears stopped instantly and she said, “What?” I grabbed the baton and ran with it… “Yeah, Norah,” I said, “Do you want to give Daddy some of your medicine?” Norah’s face brightened up for the first time in days and she nodded her head. I gave her a dose of nasty, yucky medicine and then she gave me a dose. It was amazing. The fact that I was willing to go through her trouble with her made all the difference in the world.

Hebrews 4 tells us that Jesus went through everything we have to go through. Verse 15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet without sin.” Jesus knows what it feels like to be hurt and sad. He knows what it means to experience loss and betrayal. He knows how it feels to be misunderstood and made fun of. He knows how it feels to be hungry and homeless and poor and hated. He has personally felt and experienced every varying degree of human hurt. You are not alone. Whatever you’re going through and however you hurt, He knows. He knows how it feels. He came all the way down here and took all our medicine for us… in fact, He has not only been through our pains, He has known pain and hurt that we who believe in Him will never, ever have to know.

English novelist and playwright Dorothy Sayers said, “Whatever game, he is playing with his creation, God has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself 
gone through the whole of human experience from trivial irritations of 
family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of 
money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. He had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine.”