Spiritual Heartache

I took my dad to the doctor yesterday. He is preparing for major surgery later this month (you can add that to your prayer list if you would), but this visit was to prepare us for what to expect. One of the things he has to do is the dreaded colon prep in advance of the operation. He has to drink that terrible “liquid plumber” all day before the procedure. It reminded me of an event that occurred in my life in the winter of 1998.

Over the course of one weekend, I began experiencing some chest pains. On that Sunday morning, as I sang in the choir, I found myself struggling to take deep breaths. Following church, Paige forced me to go to the emergency room to make sure it wasn’t something really serious. Well, if you have ever gone to the ER complaining of chest pains you know that you immediately are taken back and given a battery of tests and x-rays. As it turned out, I was suffering from a simple case of acid reflux.

In order to make sure of what I was dealing with, my doctor made an appointment for me to have an “Upper G.I.” For those of you who have not had the pleasure of undergoing this fantastic procedure, allow me to elaborate. First of all you are invited to a dressing room in which you disrobe and are given a lovely green gown to wear that, in my case, greatly accentuated my voluptuous figure and made the colors of my eyes dance. Then they serve cocktails. The house special has a foamy, chalk base with really interesting aftertaste. Apparently I lucked out and hit it right at “Happy Hour” because they served me about four of these luscious beverages and said there was more where that came from. After a while Mandy, a lovely, young nurse, who happened to be married to a friend of mine, led me into the x-ray room. She explained the “dance” we were about to perform. I was to lie on this table and the nice doctor would manipulate my body so as to take the “pictures” he needed to take. I will never make fun of supermodels again. Here I was a 6 foot 5 inch, 310 pound man (at that time) rolling around on a slab, trying to keep my dress from riding up while this doctor is sounding more and more like a fashion photographer saying things like, “That looks good, now turn to the side…beautiful.” All the while, Mandy is standing there telling me she is sorry but I have to drink another “Wellmont Wallbanger.”

I had never experienced anything like that before. As humorous as I have tried to make this sound, I was not in very good humor going through it all. When I was sitting in the ER that Sunday thinking about the possibility of having heart problems at age 28, I became very scared, something that does not happen very often to me. When I was rolling around on that table doing the x-ray dance, I was ashamed at how bad out of shape I was and how much weight I had gained over the years. That is when I decided to lose weight, start eating right and get my life back in order. Now, years later, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad.

Many times in our spiritual lives we find that, if we are honest with ourselves, there are many things that need to be changed. Maybe our spiritual diet is missing some things we really need to stay in shape like regular prayer, Bible study, or real worship. Maybe we are “ingesting” some things that are weighing us down more than they should. Don’t wait until you have spiritual “heartache” to decide that you need to get right with God. Perhaps that first one will be the “big one.”