Some things are too good not to share, and this perspective from Judy Wu Dominick is such an insight. In the introduction to a long post about what she’s learning from her father’s dementia following a stroke, she writes this about the initial hospital and rehab experiences:
During the weeks between June and August, my brother, my mom, and I meandered our way through various healthcare settings: the Neuro ICU, the intermediate medicine unit, a skilled nursing facility, and a world-renowned rehab hospital. Each place came with its own set of rhythms, lumps, bumps, jolts, joys, and triumphs. If I wanted to, I could write thousands of words about how institution-centric and dehumanizing our healthcare system is. But I don’t want to. At this particular point in time, detailing the ways that dehumanizing systems are dehumanizing isn’t the best use of my time and energy. Neither is the activity that goes with it: proposing ways to transform—or its humbler version, to improve—such a system. It’s way above my pay grade anyway and well beyond where I fall on a potency spectrum that ranges from impotent to omnipotent.
What is within my pay grade and appropriate for where I fall on the potency spectrum is discerning how to walk with God, maintain hope, and love well within an earthly milieu that presents a steady stream of roadblocks to human flourishing. That’s where I intend to direct most of my energy during this season.
Let’s parse that last paragraph:
What is “within my pay grade and appropriate”? Discerning how to…
- Walk with God
- Maintain hope
- Love well
…within an earthly milieu that presents a steady stream of roadblocks to human flourishing.
That will preach. There will be a steady stream of roadblocks. Walk with God, maintain hope, and love well anyway.
Rescue us every time we face tribulations. (From Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer in the Passion Translation, Luke 11.4)
In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16.33, ESV)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15.13, ESV)
We have a greate example of how to walk with God, maintain hope and love well in our own pastor,
Jeff, who is and has been dealing with the lacking health system and related family issues for his 99 year old mother. He lives his faith, as Judy has said she is doing, amid the struggles. I am so grateful to see and hear of such examples of God’s working in the hearts of believers to reflect His goodness.
Powerful! And what an articulate writer she is!