I’m Not Looking Forward to It.

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

          A lot of years ago I needed to undergo an unusually frightening medical procedure. Well, to me it was unusually frightening, because at that time ANY medical procedure was off the charts, frightening-wise, to me, and this one was off the chart that was way above all the other charts. I didn’t want to do it. Nope, I didn’t. But I needed to.

          I met with the doctor. He explained to me what would happen and what part of that happening I would actually experience. I didn’t like any of what he said. Nope, I really didn’t, again. Anyway, I do still remember bits of that long-ago conversation and a few things that the doctor said to me. What I said to him was one incomprehensible babble after another, I’m sure. After going over the procedure with me, he asked me how I felt about it. My answer, offered through what I remember as trembling and stumbling words, was, “Well, I’m not exactly looking forward to it,” to which the wise doctor offered a wise and direct reply.

          He simply said: “Of course you’re not looking forward to it. There would have to be something wrong with you if you were looking forward to it.”

          As I look back on that long-ago conversation with a doctor that I will probably never meet again, I wish I could tell him just how profound his words were to me. No, I wasn’t looking forward to the procedure, but that was because there was not that ‘something’ that he mentioned, wrong with me. No one looks forward to some certain and uncomfortable things that they must endure if there is not something wrong with them. See? 

 

          Now, in the present time, which is a long time past the time of my conversation with that doctor, and actually within the next week or so, I will have to confront a surgery that I am in some dread of. Did I say ‘some’ dread? Can you see my knees shaking from where you are?

          My upcoming operation is a common thing that people undergo all the time, and yes, I’m going to be okay, and I will survive to write more columns, (if you happen to like that idea or not). Still, deep down, something about it is trying its best to scare the begeebers out of me.

          My unbelievably wonderful wife is totally on my side, my entire family is united in prayer for me, and I know I will be right back here, in a week or two, rambling on again and boring you to tears.

          No, I’m not looking forward to what I need to go through, and that’s okay. God is right here with me. Besides that, there would have to be something wrong with me if I were looking forward to it.