My Doctor and I

It’s over! The fine relationship I’ve had with my primary doctor. Not only I, but my family also.

It started with my daughter Eva-Marie. She had to change doctors because they changed insurance carrier at my work. We liked her new doctor so much that we all adopted her. And when my daughter Carina got married, her husband also adopted her.

That time has passed. Yesterday I had to say farewell to her. She is staying in town and we might meet at Wal-Mart or Sam’s, but now I have to start all over. My new doctor is going to be Chinese. My Eva-Marie would have liked that. She had such dreams about being a missionary to China!

I feel good today. I’ve finalized my ticket to Sweden to visit my father, and because of the route I have to take, to be able to use my saved up mileage, I will see some friends in Florida and some friends in Stockholm. The total cost of the trip will be $400, with taxes and the cost of the credit card that I save the mileage on. Not such a bad deal, considering I get to stay over in Miami and arrive in Gothenburg, and then leave from Stockholm.

Did I write about how devastated I felt last Saturday, with the $2000 bill looming over my head? It turned out to be that it had never been filed with the insurance company! Now I have to wait and see how much they will pay. I didn’t even spend two hours at the heart center. How can they charge so much? I should be used to this! During the years Eva-Marie was still with us, I had so many doctor bills I often felt like I was just working to pay the doctors. When you have someone in your family that has one bad condition after another, and you have no government help to pay the bills, that’s what it feels like.

How did we part yesterday, my doctor and I? We prayed together! I took her hands and prayed for her and her new “ministry,” because I consider it a ministry when a doctor takes his/her job seriously.

We have three doctors in my extended family. I have a brother surgeon in Green Bay, Wisconsin. My sister is a doctor in Sweden, and now her son is a doctor. And my sister and her husband are building a hospital in Burkina Faso.

Read in Swedish: http://www.vastafrikahjalpen.se/om-oss

I’m going to visit a neurologist to see if he can have some suggestions on helping me with the problems in my hands and feet. My doctor did her best, but neuropathy wasn’t her specialty.

Do you have a good doctor? Appreciate him/her.

Luke was a doctor. The man who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts; the man who stood by Paul when he had no one else at the end of his life. In his last recorded letter, 2 Timothy, this is what Paul wrote to his spiritual son:

Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. (2 Tim 4:9-11)

How gracious of our Lord to see to it that the apostle Paul had a doctor by his side in those sad times when he was imprisoned for the sake of the Gospel. As a matter of fact, Luke had been with him on some of his travels, he was one of his fellow workers.

Did I say sad times? I sure did! Paul was lonely, but he was not sad. He wrote what we call “The Joy Letter” from his prison cell.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:4-7

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Do you think his doctor had told him it’s good for your health to be happy?

Years earlier, the wise King Solomon had written:

A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. –Proverbs 17:22

I hope my new doctor and I will have such a good understanding as the doctor that just “walked out of my life.”

Yes, that is the way it is with doctors! You never know when you have to look for another one. But Paul’s doctor was with him until the end.

Although he had another doctor. Just like I have. The One and Only that will never leave us.

What he said to Paul, he’s repeated to me,

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

Doctor Jesus and I will NEVER part!