I'll try to make this brief, as I have loads of housekeeping things to do!! This has been on my mind a couple days so I'll just put it down so I can refer back to it sometime.
As part of this Breaking Free study I am doing for the second time, it has occurred to me that you can do this study over and over and each time find more areas or baggage to unload. It amazes me the things we unknowingly carry around that Christ is desiring to free us from. Most of the time these strongholds are things we've hidden away as if they are unimportant, never to surface at any time or we cover them with other things that mask their deadly features.
As I've been thinking about these things, doing a spiritual inventory it reminded me of my dad. Yeah, again! After he finished his first stage of chemo, with excellent results, they did a PET scan to see if there was any remaining lymphoma. Unfortunately, there was one remaining tumor in a difficult to reach place right on his aorta. This would prove to be devastating, as they were never able to fully remove it and then never able to control it's virulent return after their attempt.
The part of this particular incident, though, that I'm thinking about is the spot on his lung that they also found. While they were fairly certain it was of little concern, the surgeon who removed the previously mentioned tumor also removed this "calcification" and had it analyzed. Of all the crazy things it could have been, it ended up being calcified tuberculosis. What did that mean? We still aren't fully sure, but their best guess was that at some point in my dad's 58 years he had been exposed to tuberculosis, gotten a particle of it somehow lodged in his lung and it "calcified," or build a protective, aged coating around it.
Now, I have absolutely no medical background. I'm only repeated what was communicated to me through my parents. The result of this finding led to my parents being reported to the health department and my mother and brother both have to go through testing for tuberculosis, because each of them had lived with my dad in the same house in the past 5 years. My mom was embarrassed and didn't want anyone knowing about it - that's why I'm sharing this on the world wide web (she'll kill me if she reads this!).
I'm not sure why this example keeps popping into my head these days, but I think there is some truth to the fact that we can be exposed to very damaging experiences but tuck them away, cover them up with protective "skins" and never really deal with them properly. I'd even go so far as to say we could be unaware of this happening in our lives until, one day, it becomes a big deal. It's not a good thing to find out that a cancer patient who just completed a harsh regimen of drugs for 8 sessions, 6 months has been exposed to tuberculosis. The doctors had some concerns, but they were guarded as this deadly disease had been calcified, therefore nondestructive to my dad.
The interesting thing was that the doctors could not tell if this exposure had been in my dad's childhood, his younger years or recent. They were guessing early years, but they were not certain. At any rate, this was an interesting fine that had consequences affecting others, namely, my mom and brother, who ended up showing no sign of having ever been exposed or having tuberculosis.
In order to Christ to truly set us free, we have to acknowlege all our infirmities, even those that are hidden away and calcified. It's not an easy or fun task, but the freedom is within our reach. Now, I'm off to figure out what some of these are in my life.
As part of this Breaking Free study I am doing for the second time, it has occurred to me that you can do this study over and over and each time find more areas or baggage to unload. It amazes me the things we unknowingly carry around that Christ is desiring to free us from. Most of the time these strongholds are things we've hidden away as if they are unimportant, never to surface at any time or we cover them with other things that mask their deadly features.
As I've been thinking about these things, doing a spiritual inventory it reminded me of my dad. Yeah, again! After he finished his first stage of chemo, with excellent results, they did a PET scan to see if there was any remaining lymphoma. Unfortunately, there was one remaining tumor in a difficult to reach place right on his aorta. This would prove to be devastating, as they were never able to fully remove it and then never able to control it's virulent return after their attempt.
The part of this particular incident, though, that I'm thinking about is the spot on his lung that they also found. While they were fairly certain it was of little concern, the surgeon who removed the previously mentioned tumor also removed this "calcification" and had it analyzed. Of all the crazy things it could have been, it ended up being calcified tuberculosis. What did that mean? We still aren't fully sure, but their best guess was that at some point in my dad's 58 years he had been exposed to tuberculosis, gotten a particle of it somehow lodged in his lung and it "calcified," or build a protective, aged coating around it.
Now, I have absolutely no medical background. I'm only repeated what was communicated to me through my parents. The result of this finding led to my parents being reported to the health department and my mother and brother both have to go through testing for tuberculosis, because each of them had lived with my dad in the same house in the past 5 years. My mom was embarrassed and didn't want anyone knowing about it - that's why I'm sharing this on the world wide web (she'll kill me if she reads this!).
I'm not sure why this example keeps popping into my head these days, but I think there is some truth to the fact that we can be exposed to very damaging experiences but tuck them away, cover them up with protective "skins" and never really deal with them properly. I'd even go so far as to say we could be unaware of this happening in our lives until, one day, it becomes a big deal. It's not a good thing to find out that a cancer patient who just completed a harsh regimen of drugs for 8 sessions, 6 months has been exposed to tuberculosis. The doctors had some concerns, but they were guarded as this deadly disease had been calcified, therefore nondestructive to my dad.
The interesting thing was that the doctors could not tell if this exposure had been in my dad's childhood, his younger years or recent. They were guessing early years, but they were not certain. At any rate, this was an interesting fine that had consequences affecting others, namely, my mom and brother, who ended up showing no sign of having ever been exposed or having tuberculosis.
In order to Christ to truly set us free, we have to acknowlege all our infirmities, even those that are hidden away and calcified. It's not an easy or fun task, but the freedom is within our reach. Now, I'm off to figure out what some of these are in my life.
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