Some of the toughest things to do...

I sat out to put down 'The Toughest Thing to do' but realized soon enough, it's got to be a list! Here are the top two for now:
1. To love without prejudice, whole-heartedly: Tough, really tough. Jesus said that is how we ought to love others but many times even if God forgives and Heaven is gracious, we do not and certainly are not! Fact is, often times we grudge God for His virtues - on those undeserving in our eyes (except ourselves, that is!).
Prejudice can be due to a previous hurt or more commonly due to public perceptions like class, education, language, region, color or creed. Yes, people do have differences and are different but the Bible teaches God loves them all - individually, right here and right now - in exactly the state they are in, without having undergone any preparatory or transformatory change.
Our own personal freedom will truly be when we can live it - live love, unprejudiced and whole-hearted...
2. To give up control: Damn hard. I want control over it all - my life, my family, my work, my class, my school, my place, my country... But Jesus calls to hand over the keys... And we can truly see God's power working in our lives only after handing over the keys to our life to Him. As it says, "Be still and know that I am God." But dear God, the toughest part is to be still... I would like to just point this one thing out, show You just that small direction I really ought to take, give you that one little tip... How I wish I could just be still!

Lost and Bleating

So often, I feel like the little lost lamb. I thought I knew better - better than others, better than my Maker. So I just set out on my own path. Sometimes, I also thought God may not give me what I wanted, if I should ask. But wanted it, I did. And get it, I would.

It seemed adventurous enough, even exciting. Everything was going well. So how did I land in this mess? Was it sneaking up on me? How did I miss it? Now, it feels like the lights have suddenly gone out.

I try to get out - flick my mobile for light, but the battery is gone; there is no torch, no match. I try to slink out, but looks like there are barbs everywhere, just waiting to poke me... My feet are unsteady, my foot is slipping... I slide into despair... I am so lost, so alone, so stuck... No one can see me or can even hear... I am so scared...

Then I hear a familiar sound. Its my Shepherd, my God. He has come searching for me! I can't believe this! How did He find I was missing? I can hear him parting the barbs around me in the darkness. His hand is now touching me... I can feel warm blood ooze from them, from cuts the barbs have made... He slowly picks me, lifts me up... my skin is also bleeding from the nasty cuts the barbs have given me. Is He going to shout at me? No He doesn't... Oof! I am out of here, but I can't walk all the way back - my legs are still shaking, and how will I ever find my way home if I loose track of Him again now? If wolves chase me on the way, how will I run? But no, he is not putting me on the ground... He has put me on His shoulders! He is walking the way back, not me! He will chase away the wolves, I don't have to! He will find the way, I don't need to! His feet are steady and they take me just where I've go to go!

Do you feel lost too, sometimes? Having chased after your dreams and desires and either having found them or not? Do you feel you have no idea how you got yourself into your current mess and worse, no idea how to get out?

Don't panic. Just bleat. You don't need to know what to do or how to do. Just bleat. You don't need to find the way or figure it out. Just bleat. Jesus promised to come for you. He knows what to do and how to. He knows the way. He will lift you up, pull you out and carry you through. Just bleat - bleat, "Jesus, find me, please! Jesus, come for me, I need You!" Just bleat.

O Dear God,
I just wanted something better, just wanted something more
Thought I could go out there and get it
Cleverly maneuver and make it
Somehow got stuck in this stinking hole.

I nibbled at the bush, felt the thorns brush
Thought deeper inside the thorns won't be much
Just a little more, O God, I tried just a little more
Before I knew, it was too late
I am caught in the middle of thorns I hate.

I am in pain, can you hear me bleating?
I am in fear, can you hear my crying?
When you look at the ninety-nine
Oh God, will you see I am missing in the line?
Please do! Please do! I need you to!

It's dark and dreary in the cold night
Wolves are howling, beasts are sniffing
Please, dear God, come, get me home!

I can't believe I am in the sun
I can't believe I am in my pen
You came and parted the thorns
Your bruised hands gently picked me
On Your shoulders they laid me
Carried me home, carried me home!

You knew how to do it
You knew how to make it
I just had to bleat, I just had to bleat
And wait, when my heart missed frightened beats.

My Pharoah's Cupbearer!

Everybody wants to get ahead, who doesn't? Very often though we need some one to give us a hand, a push or pave the way. We look to friends, family, peers, seniors, hoping they would be favorable to us. The only catch is, when the situation for them to do that favor for us does come, it depends on their mood, the last conversation we may have had with them, the last favor we did for them, that little slip that happened years ago, our kid getting couple of marks more than theirs in school, or just whether they feel like doing it at all or even remember we need a favor!!
Whew! And all the while, here we are, sweating it out, going through detailed imaginary conversations and interviews!! Well, well. Time-tested human nature. From the time of the legendary Bible character Joseph, Jacob's 11th son.
Joseph appears to have been a slightly flamboyant and dreamy young guy. Rubbed his brothers on the wrong side and got into deep trouble - very literally! Sold to Egyptian traders who in turn sold him to a wealth Egyptian man, he got into trouble again - this time for fleeing from the man's wife's adulterous advances!! Now he was in deep trouble, holed up in a gloomy prison cell. He must have wondered what exactly went wrong and how. He had believed God had great plans for him, had he done some mistake and thwarted them? How did he land up, of all places, in a prison cell, in a foreign country?
It must have been quite a relief when the Baker and Chief Cupbearer of Pharoah came in to give him company, had their dreams which he interpreted and which turned out true to interpretation. The poor Baker gone, the Cupbearer must have been more than happy to not just be alive, but get his job back as well. And of course, poor Joseph looked upon him as a potential rescuer. Maybe God had sent him here to plan a rescue. Otherwise, who would ever have been a voice for a strange boy of no concern to anyone?
Joseph asked the guy to remember him, pled his innocence and asked him to speak for him. To get him out of this horrid cell. The Cupbearer left for the Palace. Joseph waited and waited and waited. For all of two long years. I wonder why the Cupbearer didn't even remember Joseph. Maybe he was too engrossed with himself. Maybe he just wanted to erase that part of his life from his memory.
Two years later, God moved. This time, the Pharoah dreamed. And no one could interpret. The Cupbearer was forced to recall a similar past event of his life, either to abate the agitation of the Pharoah or to earn himself brownie points. But this time round, he did manage to remember. And Pharoah called Joseph out of prison. Pleased with the interpretation, made him second-in-command of the whole land, next only to himself.
What I learn: I may have asked umpteen people for a little favor to pull me out or push me up. Nothing unfair. Just to let me be known for my own credentials in the circle they have reached. But it may not have happened. For reasons unknown to me - fair or unfair. It is not wrong to ask for help, but I've got to remember the most reliable help on earth is from Heaven above. From God, my Father. The One who remembers me when no one else does. The One who cares for me when no one else does. The One who sees me crying alone in my room. And the One who is willing to come down, be with me, sit with me when I cry and sort out my problem. Not just help me to sort it out, but sort it out Himself, for me. For much too often, I can't even get started on the right track to sort it out!
And the door God opens, no one can shut. When He opens a door, He opens it WIDE, as His nature is to be generous. It does not depend on me, it depends only on Him. So hang my hang ups. Hang my inadequacies. Hang my mistakes, my failures and anything else. When I hand myself over to Him and He takes charge, none of these matter anymore.
Never mind the Cupbearer who did not remember he had had a dream. Now, the Pharoah himself will dream and the Cupbearer will be forced to remember. To say and do things beyond his control. For my God will be in control.
Jesus - forgiver of sins, enough to hang all my hang ups. Immanuel - He is with us, with me.

Marriage - Making it work

We live in a world of "Instants": Instant coffee, instant transfers, instant marriages, instant affairs and woe betide - instant divorces too! Marriage, especially "long-term" commitment in marriage is a word that is like an old shoe with broken heel next to the hot, racy stilettos on display! But how many can actually say that's not what they want? How many can actually say true and lasting love is not what they seek? What is then the road to a lasting marital relationship - with fidelity, I mean? And not a dowdy one either - an active, passionate, loving, consuming one? Where the hearth is still hot years after it was lit?

The answer begins with an Instant 'No' to the 'Instants'!
1. Watch the beginning - Its easier to control the head than the heart. So when your head is still in control, decide if a relationship is good or not for you. In this, leave no area gray. Anything that is uncertain 'may be good' or 'may not be that good' is a No. If after considering well with your head, you decide it is good, go ahead. If not, leave. Don't hang around. Don't dilly dally. Why unnecessarily hurt yourself and someone else?

If you are single, this becomes a choice. If you are married, another relationship is NO CHOICE. Keep that your motto. If you are already married and are looking across your pasture at another beckoning you, FLEE. Flee like Joseph did from Potiphar's wife who tried to seduce him. Drop it like a hot cake before it burns you - such foolish risks will leave scars not only on you, but on all those you love, who love you and care about you. Even if your spouse eventually forgives, the hurt will not go that easy. Trust will not return that quick. You will be chipping away at the very foundation of your marriage and so your life.
Relationships that are wrong or destructive are like a marsh land. You just need to put a foot in, it will by its own means pull your whole self down - and the harder you try to get out after that, the deeper you are likely to sink in your own mire!

2. Singles, take your time to commit - The world is not going to collapse if this relationship does not work. The sun will still shine, the birds will still sing and flowers still bloom. At the end of the night, day will still dawn. So don't push your self. If a relationship is meant to be (I believe in Heaven ordaining it), it will be. That is the relationship that will last. If you push a relationship into being, then you've given it weak and shaky legs. Don't hope to build after marriage what does not exist before marriage. Don't try to change a person or hope to make them love you after a walk down the aisle, a ring on your finger or a baby in a crib.

Two have to commit definitely to a lasting relationship before all this. Often in married life, commitment will see you through rough weather - through personal, financial, job, family and other stresses which we encounter every day and which will still be the same after your walk down the aisle. The nitty gritty stresses are what make or break marriages.
Commitment is what will keep a husband or wife walk away or flee flirty advances at work, socializing places, or simply anywhere else. Commitment is what will protect the husband for the wife or the wife for the husband when they are temporarily away from each other. Commitment starts with the head, the mind and holds the threads of the heart. When your heart is full with commitment to your better-other, there will be no room for a third.
So if your choice is not ready to commit, don't push it. If he/she feels they will miss you and want you and cannot live without you, they will come back to you.
Before we get out of this topic, let me say I am heartily against pre-nups. I think its for those who are unprepared to commit, unwilling to go the extra-mile to make things work. Its for those who plan a divorce even before the walk up the aisle. Commitment should throw the "D" word out of your dictionary!

3. Throw the D word out of your dictionary: Married? Chuck the D word out the window at the altar. Divorce happens only when it is considered as an option. Once divorce is considered an option, all other options slowly fade from view and this gives the illusion of being the only way that is still open for a way out in your life.
Once you close this door out, you will naturally start looking for other options to let your stresses out and make your marriage bloom again. Then other options will present.

4. Communicate - Communicate with your spouse. Not just talk pretty. Your spouse can be the only other person that can know your heart. What you really like, what you hate, what you really want, what you need... Communication becomes better and stronger with time as do relationships. Good communication can keep many imaginary ghosts at bay. It will chip away the little moss that can gather in a relationship that could make it stale.
A good marital relationship is like a new one every day. You may of course go through all the downs, but you will come up again. It is like wine, gathering flavor with time. Treasure it and cherish it!

Here is a little something I penned down about Marriage:

Marriage and Love

Marriage gives life to love and love gives life to marriage.
In marriage, love means:
To know in your heart you were meant only for each-other. That Heaven grew you apart and brought you together after the time you were meant to be molded to fit each-other.
To discover what it is to be best friends forever. To discover what it is to love someone more than yourself.
To discover you are actually only a half and how much you need the other to be complete.
To discover the bonds that form when times get tough. To discover how much more joy is multiplied when there is someone you love to share it with.
Each day is a day of discovery, a day to build your love, a day to make your bond stronger.
Marriage is:
To together choose one way, not one's own way.
To respect and honor with love the other over oneself or anyone else.
To compromise with each-other but never compromising each-other.
To know you are loved, wanted and needed whether you are fat or thin, well or ill, chirpy or grumpy.
To live life's summer, winter, autumn and spring always being there for one another.
To blend as one that over the years you feel as one and speak as one.
To honor Marriage is to honor its Maker. To commit in marriage is to commit to its Maker.

Snippets

1. Life is a walk down a one-way street. You can choose the way you want to go forward, but you can never ever go back. So how do you want your life to be? What kind of memories do you want to keep or leave? How do you choose which way to go?
2. A person who does not respect his/her own marriage cannot be expected to respect someone else's neither can a person who does not respect someone else's marriage be expected to respect their own (honor their marital commitment themselves - but usually expect the other half to, anyway!)

Out of the depths I cry...

This seems an apt prelude when we are still not healed - in the body, mind, spirit or even materially! The title is taken from the first verse of Psalm 130.

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy."
I am in the depths - not just low, but really in the depths... Like a bottomless pit or the ocean floor. I acknowledge I need help. I can't get out on my own... I know You can help me. I don't deserve you to listen to me, but please listen! I am crying - for mercy (for I well deserve the pit, I got myself into it). Yet, please, pay close attention to me, to my cry for mercy!
"If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared."
I have done plenty of wrongs. If you keep a record and punish me for it, I can't even survive - none of us humans can. But dear God, Your heart is forgiving. That is what gives me hope... That is what makes me reverence You and keeps me from rebelling against You.
"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning."
I am so helpless Lord, there is nothing else I can do but wait... so hard-pressed, I wait for You to answer me, waiting, waiting, waiting... for this ordeal to be over, waiting like the night watchman waits for the morning, to put his shift behind and go home. Lord, I too want to put this behind me, put the dark night of the pit behind and walk out into the sunshine, into daylight once more... like going home...
"O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins."
If your heart is heavy and your spirit is down, at the bottom of the bottomless pit or the floor of the deepest ocean, put your name there substituting it for the word 'Israel' and read it again...
Lord, I put my hope in You, in Your unfailing love - for though I do not deserve and I always seem to fail, You are unfailing and You are ever-loving, not counting my sins against me... So I put my hope in You - not in myself, not in my education, not in my career, not in my money, not in my family, not in my friends or anything or anyone else. I put my hope in You. You alone can redeem me. I cannot redeem myself. You will redeem me. I will wait and hope - not because of my goodness, not because of my love for You but because of Your love for me.

Miracles: Looking for proof

We often hear about miracles that happen to people, but so long as it hasn't happened to us, how do we know it was for real? Did these people have a proven disease to start with? Was it investigated and documented? Did they have any form of treatment? Homeopathic/Ayurvedic/Chinese or other native forms? Did they get healed beyond reasonable doubt? Was the healing again medically proved by investigations and documented? Have they suffered a relapse since?

Out of sheer curiosity I asked a forum of doctors to share such 'miracles' and here are a couple of amazing finds.

This one is from a cardiologist:

In cardiology we routinely see people denying surgery for triple vessel disease and live long, may be longer than the ones operated and think it's a miracle. These can be explained by science, reason and the exaggerated fear of "heart problem".

I don't believe in such miracles.

There was this one particular incident that I think IS/WAS a miracle or an unexplained medical mystery.

There was a man from Thanjavur, with a Hindu name, who was admitted for Coronary angiography followed by AVR (Aortic valve replacement) , the following day. When I did his ECHO, his gradient across the Aortic valve was 128 mmHg peak, which qualified him for severe Aortic Stenosis. The ECHO is supposed to be accurate for the estimation of AS severity. The patient asked me if I'm sure of the severity of AS while I was doing the ECHO. I was a bit annoyed, but he kept querying the gradients and said "Please be sure" etc. The next day morning the patient called me in the morning and wanted to repeat the ECHO. I asked my colleague to do it and he confirmed the findings.

While he was on the table for coronary angiography and I was busy inserting a sheath in his femoral artery, again he asked " Doctor, do you think I will need surgery?" . I said bluntly "Yes, sometimes you need to accept it". I proceeded with the angiography. His valve was calcified, and while trying to engage the right coronary, the catheter entered the left ventricle unintentionally. I would have never attempted that on a severe calcific aortic stenosis (It is difficult to even pass a wire through the stenotic aortic valve). Now we had a direct pressure measurement from the left ventricle and the gradient across the aortic valve on pull-back was 26 mmHg. I was lost in disbelief and actually repeated it and recorded it on paper. Seeing all the excitement in the lab the patient calmly asked "it's normal, isn't it?". I had to swallow all the big talk I had given earlier and say "yes".

He said, "Doctor, I have a promise from God, that I will not need surgery, that's why I asked you to check so many times". He happened to be a converted Christian and had this unshakable faith that he will not need surgery. This is after allowing us to post him on the list and paying the amount for the surgery. He of course, didn't have the surgery.

He is still asymptomatic and is on follow up for > 5 years. I don't dare to discuss the ECHO gradient with him anymore.

Here is one from our time in General Surgery:

About 4 years ago, while running our own small general surgical practice in Madurai, a young couple walked into OP. She had jaundice which a scan revealed to be caused by stones in the CBD. Her gall bladder was packed with stones and sludge. Stones had also spilled into her Common Bile Duct. There were multiple ones, some larger than 1.5 cm.

We advised her to go in for a laproscopic cholecystectomy with ERCP and basketing. As we did not have the facility and this was not available anywhere in Madurai at the time, we referred her to CMC, Vellore.

For reasons of financial and social support, they decided they could not go all the way to Vellore (both were orphans, brought up in an orphan home, with no known close family for support and had 2 children). They asked for an open cholecystectomy, but we instead offered to speak to our friends in Vellore to get some help for them. The couple did not show up after that and we learnt they had been accepted by another surgeon for an open cholecystectomy and CBD exploration.

A month later, both walked into our OP again, faces wreathed in smiles. Assuming she must be post-op, we asked how the surgery had been and if she was alright now. Her answer stunned us. She said, "Doctor, I am alright, but there has been no surgery. We went to ----- Hospital and I was given a date for surgery. They repeated the scan and found the same stones. I asked the surgeon for one week time. I went home, fasted and prayed, "Jesus, I have no mother and no father to be with me or give me money but I have these stones. You are my mother and my father. You have to take care of me." At the end of the week, at a particular instant, I knew I was healed. I went back to ----- Hospital to be admitted. I requested the surgeon to repeat the ultrasound just to check one more time before the surgery. This time, there were no stones anywhere! The doctors were so surprised, they repeated the scan again, but still there was nothing! So we came here to tell you!"

After getting over the 'shock' we sent her back to the sonologist who had done her first scan with a letter giving details of the story. The sonologist repeated a scan for free to check and she also found everything clear, no stones or sludge anywhere!

Though personally, I have not experienced a miracle of such scale, I do believe they can happen. We still do not know all the ways of nature but God, who created nature, holds it in His sway; yet He listens to and watches over a woman humbly praying behind closed doors. To me thats just great!