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&In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths&

“Are You Comfortable?”

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I've given this little article this title because that was the heading of a notice posted in the examining room at one of the doctor's offices I have visited recently. Underneath this heading the sign went on to read, "It's difficult to keep the temperature adjusted to suit the needs of our patients. If you are uncomfortable, please inform the desk and we will be happy to adjust it for you".

Well, in the first place, most of the time when a person goes to the doctor, it's because they are not comfortable. If they were really comfortable, they wouldn't drive all that distance and spend their hard earned money to see the doctor. I mean, they're probably not there for the fellowship.

But with a sign like that hanging on the wall, you would tend to get the impression that your comfort was of great importance to them. Well, as we sat there, and sat there, and sat there for a really long time, it became more and more evident that our comfort was not really that high on their priority list. I can never really understand why a person goes to the doctor for a ten o'clock appointment and he is made to wait out front for an hour and then taken to a room where he waits another half hour. And then the doctor has the nerve to ask him why his blood pressure is so high.

My wife, Ruth, accompanied me to the doctor's office on several of those visits and she is very cold natured and the room was often too cold for her, but seeing that our comfort wasn't really that high on their priority list, she didn't ask them to adjust the temperature. She just toughed it out. But there was something in that room each time that was far more uncomfortable than the weather and they didn't have a sign concerning it. That thing I'm speaking of was in the air. It was the (so-called) music that they had piped into every room. We had to sit there and tolerate this stuff until we finally noticed a knob on the wall which we finally found to be the volume control to that awful stuff. After learning this, we were able to turn it off and Ruth could sit there and freeze in peace.

Well, when the doctor finally arrived, we found him to be as cold as his rooms. One of the first things he noticed was that there was no (so-called) music in there, so I informed him that I had found the mysterious knob on the wall and had turned it off. This man tried to put up such a good front with this little sign proclaiming his concern for the comfort of his patients and yet all real evidence that was present revealed his lack of concern.

Then came time for treatment, and the lack thereof was all that was needed to see that his number one priority was his car payment and so on. His real reason for becoming a doctor was motivated by something that had "In God We Trust" written on it. He finally realized though, that I wasn't content nor satisfied with his (so-called) treatment, so he referred me to a specialist. But not before sending me back to work on full duty, which I was neither ready for nor able to do.

I had been told by many people of a specialist who everyone said was very good in the field of knee injuries, but as I tried to recommend him to the doctor, I was told that it wasn't up to me to decide who I would go see, but that it would be up to my company nurse to choose who treated me. Again, I was uncomfortable.

Well, the company nurse chose me a doctor and made me an appointment to see him, but he wasn't the one I had been told about, so when I went to see him I was expecting the same lack of concern. He told me to wear a knee brace for a month and come back to see him. After I had done that with no improvement, he decided to do surgery to see what the problem was. A week after my surgery, I was scheduled to go back to see him and I did that this past Wednesday 2/15/1995.

As I sat in the little waiting room, where by the way, there was no sign concerning the weather and my comfort, I overheard this doctor talking to another patient in the next room. He talks very loud, so I had no problem hearing what he had to say. He was explaining to this other patient about her problem with a nerve. As he did so, he explained that he could repair damage to the outside of a person's nerves, but that when a person had internal damage, the only one who could heal was the Lord.

Suddenly for the first time since November the eleventh of last year when I had my knee injury, I felt comfortable. I made up my mind right then and there that no matter what this man told me, I was going to try and do it. When he came into the room where I was, he examined my knee and explained to me that what I was calling swelling is actually fluid and pointed out how fluid-like the bulges around my knee were. Then he told me that he wanted to start me on some more therapy when I am ready for it. As he was about to leave, I asked him when he wanted me to return to work and he said, "I don't want you even going back there until I see you again in a month".

Friends, my knee didn't suddenly feel better when I heard that doctor admitting to that other patient that he knew his limitations. But I certainly did suddenly get a feeling of real comfort. It had nothing to do with a sign on the wall. It had nothing to do with the weather, though it was warmer in that room, even before he came in there. It did have something to do with something that was in the air though, and it wasn't (so-called) music. It did have everything to do with the feeling I got that this man had "In God We Trust" written upon his heart instead of his wallet.

It is my most earnest prayer as it is with every article the Lord places upon my heart to write, that it will serve as a very real and lasting blessing to all those who will read it and that in Him you will find the comfort you cannot find in the world. May God richly bless you!