the silent killers...

It started with a headache...You see, I never...well, hardly ever...get headaches. In fact, I am rarely sick at all. When I do get sick, though, there are several problems that immediately arise. Being a nurse one tends to diagnose themselves with every imaginable disease and condition. I have had all sorts of ailments from various cancers to brain tumors. I think just having the knowledge of illnesses and what can go wrong in the body is dangerous if in the wrong hands...like mine. So, these intermittent headaches got my attention because I am of the belief that any time your head hurts that is a sign of some sort of problem. Usually I use the process of elimination just like doctors do except they fancy it up and call it differential diagnosis. It seriously is just an educated guess under the best of circumstances. So, I eliminated hunger...thirst...and stress as the provoking factor in how I am feeling lately. The other issue as a man is we adamantly refuse to go to a doctor unless on deaths doorstep. So, being a man and a nurse I am doubly doomed. I sometimes have the bad habit of living in denial of an obvious truth until it becomes a crisis issue. So, the other day at work, I was feeling unusually tired for early in the day and the nagging headache was creeping back. I felt hot and flushed even though it was comfortable in my office. I went to the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror and to my surprise saw I was as flushed as could be. I had a rosy glow that resembled an early summer sunburn. I thought to myself...maybe I should take my blood pressure. So I did...imaging my horror when I saw the numbers 158/103 flash on the machine. My immediate reaction...that can't possibly be right. So, I rechecked it...and again...and again...switched arms...no change. I was stunned. My blood pressure almost always is around 110/60...or should I say...has been. I tried to finish my work but needless to say...this was weighing very heavy on my mind. I came home and drank a lot of water to rehydrate and hopefully bring it back to normal. My wife came home and I told her about it and we rechecked it...no change. I asked her “when do you think it will come down?” and she said, “I don't know”. Not the answer I wanted to hear and she knew that. I rechecked it before bed and the next morning...no change 150/94. I thought...what if it doesn't change? I didn't like the thought of that at all. I thought of the countless thousands of people a day that get some new shocking news in the form of a diagnosis they didn't want or expect. Right on the heels of that came the thought...that's possibly me. Shocking and sobering at the same time. I felt the weight of the denial of a lot of signs and symptoms fall down upon me. Even in the face of solid evidence I still sought to rationalize. This is what we do with many things in our lives...particularly sin. We seem to categorize sin in our lives on a self created sliding scale. The big attention getting sins get top billing and the lesser ones fall in place further along the scale. We measure and compare sins both to themselves and others. In the process we can successfully...at least to ourselves...feel a sense of “well that's NOT that bad” or “I'm not as bad as that guy”. This is a false reality we create and we live in a state of denial until something really bad happens...like your blood pressure staying excessively high. Until the symptoms of the so called little...benign...minor sins become a full blown illness or erupt in a catastrophic manner that wrecks our life we go on merrily ignoring warning signs that God sends your way. It is a ticking time bomb...it's a roll of the dice...it's a huge gamble to live in denial. However, for many of us it's safer that way. We bury into the busyness of our daily lives these seemingly insignificant little sins and totally minimize the cumulative effects and the ultimate tragic outcome which is an ever widening split in our relationship with Jesus. We finally get to the point where He has become something we only know and do not live in all that we do. As I contemplate the possibility of being diagnosed with high blood pressure that requires treatment and lifestyle changes I understand how denial operates in our lives and can make us really sick. This untreated and denied sin is no different...both make us sick and both can kill. So, I'll take the medicine...as bitter as it may be to me. I don't like it...but the consequences of ignoring those signs...whether from your body or from God...isn't something worth gambling on...