Overmedicated

While I was in Tucson, someone whom I will not name stopped giving Honeybun her medication for her vertebral stenosis. This someone said the notes I left with explicit instructions were confusing. We will not discuss how I went over the notes with said someone whom I will not name. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She cold-turkeyed from three different medications with no apparent ill effect. I noticed when I returned home that she was moving slowly, and dragging one leg a little, so started her back on two of the meds, but only in the morning rather than twice daily as she had been taking. The symptoms disappeared and she is fine now on half the dosage she was on, with the worst medicine completely eliminated. A serendipitous and welcome mistake in the end.

Not all mistakes lead to happy endings but it made me consider how often we are overdosing with things we don't realize we could, and should, do without. While I was in Tucson, I had no phone reception in the desert place where I was staying, and slow, spotty internet. I was too busy to check email often, or read Facebook posts, or even check my book sales statistics. For ten days, I was almost off the grid. I had not downloaded any of the wonderful Kindle books I had bought. They were in the "cloud" and not on my machine. I had downloaded the Bible however. So the little reading time I had was spent reading the Bible. The only internet indulgence I took was to write my daily blog. And I realized when the week was over that I had actually liked not knowing what was going on in the world, and not being a slave to email, political posts, or Facebook. I had dwelled on the Bible, and found it to be perfectly what I needed.

God is so gently trying to get our attention. He knows that we have "overmedicated" ourselves in a desperate attempt to make it through life without paying attention sometimes to the only things that are truly important. Television, movies, music, art, books, clothing, fancy foods, shopping, internet, facebook, twitter, etc. etc. etc.  It is not that all those things don't have a place in our existence...they do. But sometimes I think our time spent in those endeavors far outweighs our time spent in the things that matter eternally. There are countless ways to numb ourselves to that which is truly of value. I think sometimes we feel we cannot do without those distractions. Sometimes, God wrenches them away, not to punish us, but to liberate us. We find we never needed those things afterall, and what we did need, we ignored.

Honeybun walked by my side cheerfully on our walk today. I was glad someone had taken away the medicine she had not needed because I wouldn't have dared.

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Psalm 51: 10- 17
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.