Journal of Sacred Work

Editor’s note: Today’s meditation is from a special physician. Morgan Wills, M.D., (left)has long served
Nashville’s Siloam Clinic (www.siloamhealth.org) as a physician and former Medical Director. We are pleased to offer his lovely column to you. – Erie Chapman

If only my
master would see the prophet who is in Samaria!
He would cure him of his leprosy. (2 Kings 5:3)

  A
roughly sixty year old woman—whom we’ll call Betty—came to see me several
months ago for the first time with a host of vexing health problems. You could see the desperation in her eyes and
hear it in her voice as she feverishly tried to recount all that was ailing
her: chronic colitis, back pain, neuropathic leg pains, crippling anxiety, a recently
torn rotator cuff, hypertension, and more. I barely had time to ask questions…

Despite the torrent of clinical information coming at me
that demanded recording, her spirit seemed to beg even louder for me to put the
pen down and just listen. After Betty
grimly ran the litany of physical symptoms, the bigger context of her illness
emerged. Not only was she having great
difficulty even walking down the hall, but she had recently lost both her job
and her house. She was living
temporarily at the home of one of her estranged children, but felt like “a
prisoner in her own room.” The anxiety
had intensified her pain, and she had become a recluse, not even leaving to go
to the grocery store in over a year. She
was infirm, exhausted, miserable, and worst of all—hopeless.
   I must confess that Betty was not someone I was initially eager
to see. She needed so much more than I
had to offer! Ugh. Her deep-seated issues were an affront to my
desire to “get through the afternoon.” But right there—in the moment of
powerlessness—is when “the Siloam way” kicked into gear. It started with my confessing my sense of
inadequacy, then praying together with my teammates for God to guide her
journey towards healing. We then framed
her problems into broad categories, tackling them one at a time over many, many
visits.
   Progress was painstakingly slow. It did not help that Betty was not keen on
receiving “charity” care. But slowly, in
addition to following up with me, she humbled herself and agreed to meet with a
volunteer orthopedist, a neurologist, and our staff behavioral health
consultant. Another behind-the-scenes
volunteer filled out forms for her to receive free samples of some of the
medications she needed. An off-site
specialist helped interpret some studies we ordered at another facility. One night a volunteer interpreter with some
extra time even gave her a 45 minute massage!
 In the intervening months, we noticed a change in
Betty. For starters, I began to be
greeted with a smile instead of a moan. She
began to abandon her hermit-like habits and linger for extra conversation with
providers or front office staff after her visits—like a thirsty desert nomad
lapping up fellowship like water at an oasis. Although her symptoms are not all gone, they no longer appear to be the
defining aspects of her life. She still
battles significant pain, but she recently found herself walking down the
street a few houses for the first time since she could remember. And all this before she got her first dose of antidepressant. When I asked her how she was doing last
month, she gushed “I just love this place! I so feel the presence of God here.” It is sometimes difficult to convince her to leave!
   As fun as it has been to watch Betty’s transformation,
there’s another aspect to her story—one that I could easily have missed in my
rush to “fix” her problems—that makes me
aware of the presence of God. It is
reminiscent of the biblical prophet Elisha and one of his famous “patients,” a
man known as Namaan the Syrian. Although
known as a valiant warrior, Namaan had leprosy—and all the debilitation and
social stigma that went with it. He came
to Israel seeking healing from Elisha—and initially balked at the “prescription”
of bathing seven times in the waters of the relatively measly (to a Syrian) River
Jordan. Yet by finally humbling himself
in this manner, “his flesh was restored and became
clean like that of a young boy.”
   Like Namaan, Betty felt stigmatized and hopeless. She, too, has required frequent visits and a
variety of quite mundane interventions.  Until recently a self-sufficient homeowner, she
has to swallow her pride to receive donated samples of even relatively low-cost
medicines that she can no longer afford to purchase. And she, too, is in the process of becoming
whole. But the aspect of Betty’s
situation that really reminds me of Namaan is the ironic vehicle that God used
to bring them both to their healers. In
2 Kings 5 we learn that a little child—a Hebrew girl enslaved in a foreign
land—was the one who told Namaan of the healing to be found in Israel.
   Of all people, it was one of “the least of these”—a Latino
immigrant living now in a foreign land—who put Betty on her path to wholeness! His name is Juan, and he had developed a warm
friendship with Betty while working as a server at her favorite restaurant. After noting her absence over the past year,
he and his wife sought out their “American mother” at her new address. They were shocked at her pathetic condition and
pleaded with her to go to Siloam. They
knew family and friends who had been cared for well here and figured that we
could help Betty, too. Since then,
they’ve driven her to each appointment, and Juan’s wife has become a patient
herself!
   As beautiful as these stories are in themselves, they also
point to a bigger Story with implications for us all. In both the little Hebrew slave girl and Juan
the Mexican restaurant waiter we catch something so critical in our hectic day
and age—a glimpse of Jesus. Though fully
God, he condescended to the most humble of human circumstances, living a life
as an outcast and dying as the ultimate “alien” among foreigners. Yet in the mysterious wisdom of God, that
ignoble death becomes the ground for our hope of eternal life. So, we find our salvation and wholeness where
we least expect it!
   For those inside the church, this message is strange but familiar. And yet, outside the walls of the church, we
are so prone to forget it. Thankfully, as
Juan was to Betty, so Betty has been to me and to us: an unexpected messenger
who points to our true source of Healing.

-Morgan Wills, M.D.
Siloam Clinic