When Things Go Sour

Emmit has been dealing with a sour stomach since Saturday.  I'll spare you the details.  You're welcome.

He resisted eating anything, which is impressive considering this guy's an omnivore (hint: how he got to this point to begin with).  Of course it was a three day weekend but he managed to stay hydrated and was in the vet Tuesday.  When further attempts at eating and getting him to take his medication down his gullet failed, back to the vet's office yesterday, which resulted in failure as well.

Finally, after continued resistance this morning, he rallied just before noon and gulped down some chicken.  And I snuck some medicine in some cheese that he previously refused.  With the help of the muzzle, at least some of the liquid medicine got in (most was spit out, but some had to go in, didn't it?).

As the tech said, "If we could only tell them that the medicine would make them feel better."

And isn't that true for us too?  Maybe not you.  You probably have it all together.  But me, it's true for me.  I often turn up my nose at what's good for me.  I suspect there's a magic capsule in that tasty cheese cube and refuse it.  Trying to jam some truth serum down my throat?  I'll spit it right back at you.

Often people (again, not you, but me, and maybe some others) wonder why God lets horrible tragedies happen.  That's more than I can address in one blog post (or ten), but some of those tragedies are what we've brought down on our own heads.  Many times we've been warned ahead of time that we are heading for a brick wall.  We are sick and we refuse our meds.  We just keep going on, certain we know better.

Then we hit that wall.  Our disease grows.

What is the answer? 

God's word has centuries of sound advice on how to live.  We can choose to flaunt it.  We can do our own thing.  Free will means the freedom to make bad choices.

But a good choice is to turn back to the Lord when we are sick and broken (you can go when you're well too).  It's not rules that make us better but God's mercy and love that heals.  Forgiveness is a special kind of freedom.  We can bypass the legalism/license tight rope by remembering whose we are, why we are here, and living freely in that love.

Life can be sour.  It can also be bittersweet.  A land of milk and honey awaits.  Live eternally now.