One Turns Back
Vincent Van Gogh, Prayer Before The Meal, 1882
This week Sharon and I were making our periodic visit to the psychiatrist who has managed her meds so effectively. Sharon reported to him that she feels this awful bout with anxiety is over. The psychiatrist responded: “Well, it looks like the meds are doing what they should be doing.” And surely he is right.
But in my usual impetuous way I blurted out, a little too quickly I suppose: “Yes, to be sure, the meds are working, but as well there has been so much new love shared between us, so much deep conversation that has brought us as close as human beings get, so much love we have felt from family and friends, and lots and lots of prayer.” The doctor simply nodded. I couldn’t tell how my words synced up with his narrative.
This little event sent me off thinking some more. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these days. To be sure the meds have done their work, and we are grateful. But as Sharon and I have taken our journey through this valley of the shadow of death, we have also been led closer to still waters and green pastures. We have felt another kind of power, through love, through prayer, often feeling the presence of the shepherd. I’m not sure I’ve got my head around how these two spheres work together, but we are experiencing healing, for which we are rejoicing. The shepherd is walking with us in new ways, guiding us to still waters and green pastures.
And so I am trying to shift now into a new kind of prayer. When we go through suffering and pain and darkness, we pray, naturally, the prayer of pleading: Lord come closer; Lord help us to feel your healing presence; Lord lift these demons from us. We are properly taught to pray this way.
But once the burden begins to lift, too often we go on our way, forgetting too quickly what has happened, as if we earned the change, as if healing is not a gift, as if the meds alone have done their work. We need to say thank you.
This week in my meditative reading, amazingly, I was guided to the healing of the ten lepers.
11 In the course of his journey to Jerusalem he was travelling through the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was entering a village he was met by ten men with leprosy. They stood some way off 13 and called out to him, ‘Jesus, Master, take pity on us.’ 14 When he saw them he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests’; and while they were on their way, they were made clean. 15 One of them, finding himself cured, turned back with shouts of praise to God. 16 He threw himself down at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 At this Jesus said: ‘Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? 18 Was no one found returning to give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19 And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way; your faith has cured you.’ Luke 17:11-19
I was blown away reading this story at just this moment in our lives. Here we are, trusting we have been “made clean.” What do we do now? Here we are, after so much prayer and pleading for Jesus to have mercy on us, how do we approach this new life that has been given to us? Maybe, the story tells us, what we do now is to learn better how to practice gratitude.
Could I possibly be, right now, among the other nine who simply go on their way without thanks? Or could I become the one who turns back and throws himself at the feet of Jesus, saying simply, thank you?
I am hoping gratitude will become a whole new way of life, a completely different angle of vision from which to view, not only pain and suffering, but as well the healing and hope and peace and joy? Gratitude lets us focus on someone other than ourselves, focusing rather on the ones we love, the ones who pray for us, the doctors who help manage our meds, and most of all, it lets us turn our eyes on our Lord Jesus with gratitude.
Oh my, let’s get on our way, building new life, all the while growing in gratitude.