Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.
On Sunday afternoon I spent almost two hours in a doctor's waiting room, bored out of my mind with a bad cough, only to be diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis. All around me were people with colds and coughs and high blood pressure and bad knees and bad backs and morning sickness and pain. Lots and lots of pain surrounded me. My own chest was starting to hurt.
And after I had been waiting for just about an hour and forty minutes or so and I had finished my book and my patience felt like a rubber band on the point of breaking, I thought of Edwards' tenth resolution. And I felt conviction. I started praying. I prayed for patience. I prayed for the people around me. I prayed for the persecuted church.
And then the doctor called me in.
I am not saying this to brag. Rather, I have more to be ashamed about than to brag about. I sat and stewed in that stuffy waiting room for two hours, frustrated and tired and hoping desperately that I could get into the doctor before the exhausted lady in sweats next to me. Prayer never crossed my mind once. I focused selfishly on me. I was my priority. I was uncomfortable. Everything was all about me.
Then suddenly, it wasn't. Edwards' tenth resolution didn't pop into my mind by chance. I am certain that the Holy Spirit brought it to memory for a specific reason. It convicted me of my selfishness, my impatience, my weak understanding of what real pain is. I have a cough. William Tyndale was burned at the stake.
Sometimes we need our priorities adjusted.
How blessed I am to be able to sit in a (mostly) clean medical clinic and receive care for a cough. How blessed I am to have a book to read, to have been able to drive to the clinic on my own in a functioning car, to be able to walk right in. And how blessed I am to go home to my dad's chili and have a mom who will pick up my prescription for me.
There is always a lesson to be found if we look for it. There are always opportunities for conviction and grace among the mundane. My question is: do we look for them?