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Wednesday, August 5, 2020

When The Doctor Says, You Should Sit Down.


In 2010, I was leading worship in front of a few thousand people and I closed my set and went to pray. I was so incoherent that everyone just kept standing and staring at me. Before I turned to walk off stage, I saw the medical team running across the back of the auditorium. I got backstage to my green room where I am bundled up with a coat on, and they came bursting in the room. They thought I was having a stroke. They rushed me back home and my wife immediately drove me to the hospital. They gave me a battery of tests, checked my speech, and a host of other things, then they admitted me. 

The next time they came into the room, it looked like a scene from the movie Outbreak. I sat up as best I could in bed and said. I've seen this movie. Somewhere out there Cuba Gooding Jr, and Dustin Hoffman are looking for a monkey. They said, you have H1N1 and you are in heart failure. 

Maybe you have been in one of those situations where the doctor walks in and says you better sit down. When you were fine just a few days ago but now your world is turned upside down. The only thing you want to do is go back a few days ago when things were normal. I have said for some time for some of us normal wasn't all that great. 

It's the best analogy I can think of to describe what I see going on around the world when it comes to the topic of race. As a society we were fine, or at least we thought we were. I can deal with that pesky nagging thing or it doesn't hurt all the time. Then something happens and you realize we have been asked to have a seat. We awake to the realization that maybe we weren't as good as we thought, maybe those things we thought we could tolerate are now serious things that have to be addressed. Like anyone, we want the quick fix. Can't you just give me a pill and fix this. Isn't there anything I can do? That is when we realize, we should have been doing something all along. Now we have to focus on it. And there is no quick fix. There is no pill we can take and there is no going back to "just a few weeks ago I was fine!" 

This is going to require regular visits, check-ups, medicine, various treatments but most of all a change in lifestyle. In a doctor's office, it always begins with symptoms, then a test, then a conversation, then the acceptance that I have a problem and need to deal with it. Finally a partnership with trained professionals that will walk this out with you. For each of us, I believe we are all at the "why don't you take a seat" part. Hopefully, we will address this soon enough to make a full recovery and the lifestyle changes we make will extend our lives.

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