Medicine or No Medicine?

We all have pet peeves.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone is sick and they don’t do what they need to do for their health and well-being to get better.  Or they know they need to do something proactively to stay in good health and they don’t do it. Trust me, there are tests and procedures I don’t want to do or they terrify me, but since I know it’s for my well-being I do it. The funny thing about personal pet peeves though, is they usually stem from something we had to work through and learn for ourselves.

When I was eight years old my medical treatment had already been a constant trial and error process to help with my extremely weak immune system. This included the amount of medicine I was taking, which was about 10 types of medication each morning.  To say I didn’t like this part of my morning routine is an understatement. It was so annoying I had to get up earlier each day to have time to take my pills.  It was also frustrating I had to stand in front of my medicine for about ten minutes just to get the guts to take the medication— because a lot of it was pretty disgusting. 

Growing up my mom did everything she could to make living with a disease easier for me.  Each morning she would lay all of my medication out on a napkin and all the liquid medications were in syringes ready to go.  There was one liquid medication I could only take mixed in fruit punch, so there was also a paper cup full of juice present as well.

I hated the extra time it took when I could be doing other things.  I was so tired of choking down vulgar medication— some of which, I was sure was unnecessary anyway.  One morning, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and I would throw my medication away. Thankfully, I wasn’t completely ignorant, because I knew exactly what medicine to take to keep me alive and functioning.  But the rest of it went in the trash.  For the next two weeks, I carefully wrapped up the pills in the napkin, stuffed them in the empty cup of fruit juice, and threw it away.

One Sunday evening I was in church and it a couple of weeks had passed since I had been throwing my medicine away.  I have no clue what my pastor was preaching, but serious conviction came over me.   I just had to tell my mom what I had been doing and I had to do it right then.  So, I wrote her a note and it said something like this:

Dear Mom,

I have something I need to confess to you.  For the past two weeks, I have been wrapping my medicine in a napkin and throwing it away.  I’m very sorry and you can punish me anyway you want, but I hope you’re proud of me for being honest. I love you very much!

Whitney

It’s comical to think back on now, because I remember passing the note to my mom, which she accepted with a loving smile, so sure I had written her a precious note.  I watched as her expression change from one of doting, to one of shock, and to one of anger.  She then looked at me with an expression that said, “you’re going to get it when you get home,” as she passed the note to my dad.  Yes, it’s comical to think about now, in fact, my mom even kept that note I wrote 21 years ago.

It wasn’t comical back then.

 It might seem a little silly, but I know adults who have a difficult time taking medicine, let alone an eight-year-old.  This was a difficult lesson I had to learn as a child.  I had to come to terms with the fact at a young age that sometimes I’m going to have to do things I don’t want to do or things I don’t like to do, but I must do those things to be the best person I can be.

Now as an adult, I see it in a clearer way.  My body is a temple of God and God expects me to take care of my body so it can be the absolute best it can be.  In my case, I need to take medication to make my temple the best it can be.

Thankfully, now I can take all of my pills with no issues and in one swift swallow, but as a little girl it took some time.  With the gentle guidance of my parents and the mercy of God, I finally chose to be better, I chose to grow, and I chose to be More than my mountains.

What “medicine,” in your life do you have to overcome?  At some point in our life we all have something we don’t want to do, but we know it’s the right choice to make, so we can be Better, and we can be More.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to this very simple question: Medicine or no Medicine?