It happens all the time.
Every time they have a medical visit, I send my residents to the doctor with a list of current medications. The physician is to look at the list, reconcile it with their list, sign it, and return it to me with a note on any changes. I then update my list and have it ready for the next visit. This is particularly imperative when the residents see multiple doctors who are unaware of what medications other doctors are prescribing or discontinuing.
As I sat with my tribe’s prayer circle yesterday, I was praying with numerous ladies who are feeling beat up by life or walking through fire. We’d opened the circle with this wonderful invokation:
” …We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father.”
As we went around the circle covering each other’s upcoming surgeries, sick relatives and friends, stressful life circumstances, etc., it abruptly came into sharp focus for me that we needed to reconcile our requests with the Word. People are sick, fretting, discouraged, panicked. A bromidic “bless brother Bob” prayer will not do. It is shopworn and threadbare at best.
Instead of agonizing over Meg’s daughter’s decision, and attempting to arm-twist her into what Meg wants for her, why don’t we reconcile it to say, “give Stacy complete knowledge of your will as well as spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way she lives will always honor and please you, Lord, and her life will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, she will grow as she learns to know you better and better.”
In this way we can trust that because we are praying according to God’s will, He who sees what we can’t see (now and in the future), will do whatever is best in ways we can’t anticipate. We can also trust that even if she does wrong, He will use that to grow her in wisdom, understanding, and maturity.
Instead of or in addition to praying, please heal aunt Helen’s cancer, why don’t we reconcile it with the admonition to “have all the endurance and patience she needs, and to be filled with joy and thankfulness?” We can’t go wrong with that, and she probably needs a good dose of it at this tough time.
As the axis who collects the ever changing medication orders for my residents, I most likely have the most current and accurate orders. It’s no slam on the doctors. Unless they are all in one streamlined computerized medical system, they have no other way to keep up. I have had doctors I had to call back and say, “Dr. Reyes changed the Digoxin dose from 125mcg daily to every 2 days, hold on the 3rd day.”
I have it in writing. I go by the book. If this doctor doesn’t like that order he can change it, or duke it out with Dr. Reyes. It’s my job to make sure our records match. It’s also his job but he only had 7 minutes to see the patient, review her charts, listen to her talk about growing up in Oklahoma, do a physical check of the pain in her gut, and prescribe new meds. Sigh.
- We have to constantly update and reconcile orders. If you are not praying scripture for yourself and others, you probably have some orders wrong on your list. Do take a moment today to reconcile them.
- What issue can I pray with you about today?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/abrupt/
image retrieved 5/2/18 from: https://quotefancy.com/quote/1246869/David-Hume-The-heart-of-man-is-made-to-reconcile-the-most-glaring-contradictions
Passage from Colossians 1, New Living Translation.
tribalminded.com 