My plans for the New Year were horribly changed by ending up in the hospital.
A certain incident happened on a Sunday afternoon. I was in the bathroom, and on the floor of the bathroom was a little rug so that I wouldn’t get water all over the floor after a shower.
When I stepped on that rug, it slipped, and I went crashing to the floor. As I lay there on the floor, I couldn’t, for some reason, get back up on my feet. I didn’t seem to have any strength.
With no other option, I had to call out to The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, wife Martha, to come and help me.
She came but wasn’t able to help me up, so she immediately called the ambulance, who came and helped me out of the bathroom and into my bed. But the situation was a little more than I understood, so Martha had the ambulance take me to the hospital.
That was the beginning of four days of wonderment. By that, I mean every day I wondered if this would be the day I’d go home. I’d never wondered so much in my life.
The medical team assumed I probably had a heart attack, and so I was up for every examination known in the civilized world. I had so many needles plunged into my body that I began looking like a porcupine.
Every day, I asked if this was the day I was going to be released from the hospital. Much to my discouragement, the nurses all said that I’d have to wait one more day. The next day, the same news came to me: I had to wait just one more day. Oh, just one more day.
All of the nurses looked at me and said I wasn’t allowed to leave the room.
As I lay in bed, I thought of how I could escape this hospital room. Then, it occurred to me that if I could harass the nurses enough, they’d get so perturbed they’d want to let me go immediately.
I worked on my little plan and tried to figure out ways to harass the nurses to make them want me to leave. However, the more I harassed them, the more they made sure they weren’t going to let me leave.
Every time I did something to harass a nurse, she would always look at me and laugh out loud, and then, with both hands on her hips, would look at me and say, “That’s not going to work today.” Then, she’d leave the room laughing.
I needed some plan to get out of the hospital, and I wondered day after day how can I accomplish that. Laying in my hospital bed some scripture came to my mind.
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
— James 1: 2-4
Either the stress in my life can frustrate me or, I can let it work for my good. I’m eager to see the good that will come out of this frustration.
Dr. Snyder is a former pastor who lives with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, wife Martha, in Ocala, Fla. His email is [email protected]
