Dear Saints,
It’s time to bring out the light weight jackets, and don’t forget the apple butter for your toast as summer has given way to fall. From the calendar I can see this year slipping away and from most retail stores I can already see that, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” Why??? Put away the Christmas decorations for now. Let’s not rush the fall. Get out the marshmallows and stoke up the campfires, let’s enjoy watching the changing of the season.
Last week I had an MRI done at my doctor’s request. Now I have to tell you I am not a big fan of being enclosed in small spaces. I guess you could say that claustrophobia is my middle name. The MRI tech asked me if I had ever had an MRI done before, to which I replied, “No, but after this morning I guess I can check it off my bucket list.” After the procedure I wished I still had it on the bucket list to be checked off. She placed head-phones over my ears as I lay down to enter headfirst into the machine. I could hear the gospel music being played through the speakers for that was the music I requested while I had the MRI done. I thought to myself as I began to get my praise on listening to my man Freddie Hammond belt out one of my favorite tunes, this isn’t that bad, and I got this. But then I felt the machine move me inside a small cylinder. It was narrow and the top of it was just inches away from my face. The fear of being in that small space began to drown out the music and my heart started to race. I started to get an anxiety attack as I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I needed to do the test but I didn’t know if I could. She had placed a panic button in my hand so that if I felt overwhelmed I could press it and get out of the MRI machine. I tried to refocus my mind on hearing Freddie’s voice. I had just tuned in again to the gospel music when a horrible sound coming from the machine began to drown out everything. I could hear nothing but the frightening sounds the machine was making. My gospel music was there but the machine kept me from hearing it. Now the realization of where I was began to set in and my heart beat started to race and now I felt my hand starting to press the panic button the nurse had given me. But before I quit (I thought, because I hate to quit things,) I prayed and asked “Father, do you see me, do you see where I am, can you find me, I need you please come and lay beside me in my storm.” That’s when his presence filled the MRI chamber and like Jonah in the belly of that great fish I began to praise Him. I didn’t need gospel music, I just needed Him. His whisper is what I needed to survive this test. As I focused my hearing on His voice that lives inside me, I began to ease up on the panic button and instead I squeezed the nail-scarred hand that held mine. I now rested in him during a test that before now would have sent me running to safety. I had found yet again that He abides faithful and during any storm He is all we need. Thirty minutes later as I sat up outside the chamber that had enclosed me, I looked back to where I had lain and saw not a small enclosed space but a huge God that not only sees me but walks with me through every storm and trial.
Letting go of the panic button and holding on to Jesus,
Pastor Rick