“I Have to Live with Myself”
My mama has been struggling with her health for the last few months. In October she was in the hospital for a couple of days after suffering a small stroke. Her hospital stay was followed by inpatient therapy. Outpatient therapy still continues. During this long ordeal, she has been blessed with sweet and conscientious doctors and therapists.
The hospital which is nearest to us has its own doctors called hospitalists; very few doctors in private practice see patients there. This means that every doctor Mother saw in the hospital was someone new whom we had never met before. Still, our experience with them was really good.
The first doctor who impressed me was the hospitalist neurologist. If only he had been dressed in a red suit trimmed with fur, he would have looked like Santa Claus. Just for fun, I’ll call him Dr. Claus. Not only was his bedside manner kind and his attention to detail amazing, but he made long visits to Mother’s room and even gave me his card with a cell phone number so that I could call him whenever I had a question.
When Dr. Claus explained how my mother’s atrial fibrillation happens, he used a word picture to help us understand. He also acknowledged that God made blood. Dr. Claus spoke of things being in the Lord’s hands. Many times he parted with the words, “Blessings” and “Many prayers.”
Dr. Claus thought deeply about what was best for my mother and explained it carefully to her and also to my brother and me. He told me, “I have to feel good about it.” He also talked about the way he practices medicine, explaining: “You have to live with yourself.”
Dr. Claus’ father was also a physician. Like other fathers, he wanted to make sure that his son did what he was supposed to do. When Mother’s Dr. Claus first started to practice medicine in New York City, where he had grown up, he worked in his dad’s office on Saturdays. The senior Dr. Claus sat on the sidewalk outside the office and questioned the exiting patients in order to check up on his son.
I want my children and grandchildren to live in such a way that they can, like Dr. Claus, live with themselves. For that to work in accordance with God’s will, it is our job to train their consciences so that their ability to live with themselves will be based on what God has said.
The apostle Paul once appeared before a Roman governor. Paul told the governor:
In view of this [his faith in the resurrection],
I also do my best
to maintain always a blameless conscience
both before God and before men.
Acts 24:16
The author of Hebrews asked his readers to:
Pray for us,
for we are sure that we have a good conscience,
desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.
Hebrews 13:18