Modern medicine is a good thing, and part of that is the use of effective drugs. Misuse, however, can get us into trouble.
When my husband’s cancer was rushing through his system, our drug use became prodigious. (“Medicine 101”) Those of us helping him were in a race to stay ahead of his escalating symptoms, and because pancreatic cancer is 100% fatal, we weren’t under the delusion Nate’s prescriptions would heal him. The pills were simply meant to ease his misery: Vicodin, Oxycontin, Ondansetron, Morphine, and others.
During 5 of Nate’s 6 weeks of cancer, he took the pills himself (though we handed them to him), but during the last week, everything changed. He had trouble holding onto the small pills, and sometimes they’d roll off his fingers on the way to his mouth. When that happened, we’d get on all fours around his chair in an effort to find the stray drug. With two young children in the house, one a crawler, our mission to keep an eye on each pill was critical.
One day we lost an oxicontin, the strength of which could kill a toddler. All of us endeavored to find it, literally inspecting every square inch near where Nate had last held it in his hand. We swept, vacuumed, and inspected the vacuum bag contents but failed to find the pill. And until my grandchildren left several weeks later, we lived with uncertainty and a good deal of fear.
All of our lives include scenarios that can turn out to be harmless or deadly. For example, it isn’t difficult to prevent a child from eating moldy food or a friend from running in front of a truck. But what about the out-of-sight dangers like hanging onto unforgiveness or letting anger dominate? Do we tolerate jealousy or let worry control us? Or how about allowing fear to consume us or nurturing our anger? Maybe we have a critical spirit or are permitting bitterness to take root.
Are we as diligent about locating these things in our lives as we might be in searching for a stray Oxycontin pill? If not, it’s probably because we think of hidden poisons as insipid rather than insidious, despite their ability to destroy us just as effectively as a drug overdose or a deadly cancer.
Scripture warns us to watch for these inner poisons, label them honestly, and route them out. And in the empty places they leave behind, God promises to put something new, something good, because he’s not a God of emptiness but of fullness.
As for the wayward Oxycontin pill? A month after my grandchildren left I was brushing dog hair from a heating grate when there it was, nestled snugly against the white grill. How we missed it I’ll never know, but once found, it was thoroughly destroyed.
“The church… is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.” (Ephesians 1:23)