March 2006

That heading could apply to many things – the biggie, abortion comes to mind first, but that’s not what I’m thinking about today – though it is certainly a subject that evokes strong feelings in me. No, today my frustrations are on a much smaller scale. They have to do with the new privacy HIPAA laws.

Did you know that if you leave one doctor and move to another, the first doctor can charge you to make copies of your medical records? I found that out today when I tried to get my x-rays from a chiropractor that I’ve been seeing for over a year.

About a month ago, we had to switch dentists due to financial reasons, so I called our old dentist to cancel our six month scheduled appointments. I hated to leave because we’d been with this dentist for 25 years. When I cancelled the appointments and said I wasn’t going to make new ones, she asked if we were seeing a new dentist. I said yes, and her immediate response was, “Would you like me to send you your x-rays? You’re going to need them.” I said yes, I would appreciate that. She mailed them out to me and I received them within a week. No charge.

Today my experience was much different. When I asked for my x-rays for my entire family, I was told I would have to pay $5 per copy. Multiply that by five people and some of us had up to nine films taken and the cost to get our x-rays from this doctor, x-rays we have already paid for the first time around to the tune of hundreds of dollars, would cost us another $165 to get them released into our hands.

Needless to say I was surprised and angered. No one wants to pay for something twice, but apparently, when you pay for x-rays, though they technically belong to you, the doctor has the right to keep them in his file and if you want your own copies he’s allowed to charge you. I checked the HIPAA law online to be sure.

But like abortion, which is so much worse, it may be legal, but is it ethical? I don’t think so.

If the fee was reasonable – maybe. I wish I knew what it cost to copy an x-ray. A regular copy can cost as little as three cents but x-rays are different, and I have no clue. Still, I can’t help but notice the difference between my dentist and my chiropractor. Though both doctors charged higher prices than we were willing to pay, one had the good sense to treat their patients with generosity and kindness, even patients they were about to lose.

Should anyone ever ask me for a dental referral, you can bet that my old dentist will be on my list, even though we can no longer afford his costs. He is still a good dentist and they allowed us to leave on good terms. But if anyone ever asks me for a chiropractic referral, this doctor will not get my endorsement.

Sometimes it’s those little things that we need to take into consideration. The way we treat people and whether we are greedy or giving. We may have the laws on our side and do things according to the book and take what we’re legally allowed to take. But sometimes we’re better off choosing what will endear us to people, rather than trying to squeeze everything we can get out of them.

It may be legal, but it’s a long way from ethical.

There are certain things one should not attempt to do if you do not value patience. I mean we all want things to go our way, right? And most of us want it yesterday. That’s the hazard of living in a instant-everything world. But if the last twenty years have taught me anything, they have taught me this – if you do not want patience forced upon you, avoid certain things.

1. Do not homeschool your children. :) When we began homeschooling twelve years ago, I had a bit of a temper. Blame it on my German heritage or my red hair, but whatever the reason, I was easily frustrated and had a bit of a screaming problem. Ask my kids, they may remember. Then again, maybe you’d better not. :)

2. Do not try to become a published author. When I dug up the gift I had buried and started writing again, I was soon bitten by the “I want to be published” bug. (I’m not sure if this bug is contagious, so if you are suseptible, you might want to avoid writers’ groups.) One thing you will quickly learn if you submit your work for publication is that waiting is the one thing you will spend a lot of time doing. Now you could sit around every day biting your nails, waiting for the mail to return your SASEs with rejection slips (or staring at your inboxes for the same thing), or you can keep writing and forget about it. Either way, you will learn patience.

3. Do not work in a church ministry. Working with people is always a challenge because we let each other down all the time. But working in ministry poses its own type of challenges, especially when other people don’t share your level of commitment or don’t keep their word. These are times when frustrations will mount, so if you don’t want to learn patience with people, avoid them at all costs. :)

I say these things rather tongue-in-cheek. Hopefully, I’m making myself clear. If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that I do, in fact, value patience because God has been using the above experiences in my life to teach it to me. And when I’m slow to learn, He just keeps me in the waiting room a while longer.

I know we want what we want now – and many of us will freely admit we don’t really want to wait on God’s timing. That means waiting most of the time. Now if God were a genie who snapped His fingers and “poof” we had our answer, well, then maybe we wouldn’t mind His timing all that much.

But as I’ve said before, God values patience. He himself is longsuffering toward us, when we tax His patience to the max. Fortunately for us, we cannot exhaust the patience of God. Not until He is ready to say, “Enough”. That patience is uniquely intertwined with His grace that He freely offers us in Christ Jesus. It is that very patience that waits for all men to come to repentence. It is that patience that loves us and forgives us when we blow it over and over again. God’s patience is not easily angered or quick to give up on us. It, coupled with His love, is what kept Jesus on the cross.

Aren’t you glad?

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and I actually thought about making green sugar cookies (even though I’m not Irish), but opted for a frosted brownie box mix instead. Yesterday I baked (from scratch) Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins for the third week in a row. I got the recipe in Branson, MO, last year when I bought a little cookbook called, “Chocolate is Cheaper Than Therapy”. Oh so true! :) I think I am becoming fast addicted to those muffins! Especially when you use Ghirardelli 60% cocoa bittersweet dark chocolate chips, that I like in place of semi-sweet. I also cut down the butter a bit and add more banana. Saves just a tad on cholesterol.

I suppose instead of baking I should be finishing the last chapter on my latest book, but I’m at that point where I am trying to tie in two sequels, and wanting to know where these characters will go if I have them solve more suspense/mysteries. So instead of writing (though I did write a few words), I’m researching crime. Interesting to read how low men and women can stoop and how seriously depraved is the human condition. For the humanists who think we are evolving to godhood or growing better with time, they need to take a serious look around. If this world is moving toward perfection, where is it? I don’t think so.

In the midst of this research, I’m still dealing with two silly cats. We’re still keeping Shadow and Tiger apart most of the day, but I’ve started to introduce them twice a day the way the lady at the shelter suggested. On the bright side, neither cat gets their fur in a dander and their tails don’t puff up around each other. Shadow just hisses and growls, and if that doesn’t work, he pouts. It’s actually pretty funny. We put Shadow in a cage with a treat, and Tiger being the curious one wants to check him out. There are times Shadow will hiss and other times he will just ignore that Tiger is right beside him. He’ll turn his back to Tiger, ears back in what can only be described as a pouting stance. Like if I pretend he’s not there, maybe he’ll go away! The cat is definitely high maintenance.

Of course, what I should really be doing today is cleaning. Friday is my designated cleaning day, though some Fridays get more attention than others. Today I have not been all that fastidious – just giving things a lick and a promise. But I do have some papers to sort through. Where does all of the junk mail come from? I would love to see an entire week go by where I did not take in one piece of unsolicited mail. My house would be so much neater! Credit card offers are the worst.

Tonight – actually this weekend – looks like my guys have picked up several movies for a kind of family movie marathon. The movies are actually sort of loose assignments from their various teachers. I think we’re watching Walk the Line tonight. That should be good. We can watch it with our frosted brown brownies minus the green. I wonder if I have any green M & Ms in the house…

Better go check…

There are some character traits that we notice in other people, but don’t like to practice in ourselves. I’m thinking of one called patience. In some circles patience sounds more like a four letter word. :)

Sometimes we recognize our need for patience, but we dare not pray for it because the Bible tells us that “the trial of your faith produces patience” and since we don’t like trials, we’d rather keep our impatient spirit, thank you very much!

But really, do we like impatient people? Think about these scenarios:

1. You are a cashier at a grocery store with a line a mile long, and you’re the only lane open. You glance down at the row of unhappy faces and groan. Some are scowling, others tapping a foot and looking at their watches every few seconds – as if you could do anything to make the line move faster. But then you notice someone waiting patiently, perhaps reading a magazine or just smiling at you that they understand. What makes you happier – the scowling foot tapper or the smiling person with the patient heart?

2. You are late for an appointment, due to your own poor planning or someone else slowed you down. Either way, you need to get there fast and you’re stuck behind a snail-paced driver with no way to get around. You would honk, but that wouldn’t solve anything, so you curse or mumble under your breath. When you finally break free another driver nearly cuts you off. You shout some foul name at them and shake your fist, then keep driving. This “trial” is not having it’s perfect work of patience.

3. You have goals for your life, but your plans depend on other people in one way or another. Perhaps you are ready to launch onto a new career path, but the people who are helping you don’t get you what you need when you want it. So you rush ahead and do the thing without them, not realizing that if you had waited, you might have gotten a better deal. Or you nag them continuously until they give you what you want. In both cases, you would show your impatience. In both cases, you will not endear yourself to those people.

It’s hard to cultivate patience, especially in our instant everything world. The Bible calls it a fruit of the Spirit, meaning that it is something only God can truly develop in us. He does so through various trials, often making us wait for things in order to show us how to exercise our patience muscles. I dare say that most of us have patience atrophy to one degree or another. And believe me, if those above scenarios are any indication, my patience muscles need some definite weight lifting!

But in another sense, impatience with people shows our impatience with God – as though we know better than He does what is best for us. Because in reality, He can bring what we want to fruition fast or slow.

Since God tells us to be patient, to disobey that is sin. Will we fail? Absolutely. But God’s mercies are new every morning, and we can start over again. I also think it is possible that we may continue to face the same trials over and over again because we do not learn the lesson of patience that is in them.

“But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:4 NKJV

Better to embrace this unsung character trait and allow it to have its perfect work in us than to stay immature and impatient lacking everything.

Of course, this means that the next time a trial comes our way, be it an issue of great importance to us, like that new career path, or insignificant, like standing in a grocery line, we must choose to wait without complaining, learning the lesson of true patience.

There are many parts to Christ’s passion that I may explore in coming days, but one that touched me this week was the part where Christ prayed in the garden for the cup to pass from Him. In an agony that made him sweat blood, Christ prayed to His Father for a way out. Was He asking to escape the cross and the violence of wicked men?

To human eyes, that is how it would appear, but earlier Jesus had told His disciples not to fear those who could kill the body, but to fear the One who could cast both soul and body in hell. Jesus was not afraid of the men who would crucify Him. I dare say that He wasn’t even afraid of crucifixion itself. In his humanity, He may have dreaded the pain, and the book of Hebrews says He despised the shame He suffered. But that is not what He feared. No man could take His life from Him. He laid it down of His own accord.

No, what He feared or rather agonized over was the cup of His Father’s wrath that would be poured out on Him for the sins of the whole world.

Imagine, if you will, that you were standing before God, and He said, “I never knew you.” Imagine being cast into hell where you would be tormented with burning pain for ever and ever and ever. Feel the heat of the flames licking your skin. If you’ve ever burned yourself, you know how desperately you want relief. But in hell there will be no relief, no escape, never again a second chance.

That is the fate of every human. I know this is not a popular message these days, but the Bible is clear on this, whether we like it or not. The holiness of God demands that we pay for our sin. And God’s Word says, “The wages of sin is death”. If we spent eternity being tormented in hell, we would never be able to satisfy God’s wrath against that sin.

Jesus was the only man, being fully God and fully man, who never sinned, the only one who did not deserve God’s wrath. But He knew when He went to the cross that He would suffer all of the torments of hell – for everyone else – for the sin of the world. The terrifying force of God’s wrath (which scared me to death before I came to know Christ) would be placed on Him. And He sweat blood praying for some other way.

Hebrews 12:2 says, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Why did He submit to His Father and choose to endure that wrath when He didn’t have to? “For the joy set before Him.” That joy was us – that we could spend eternity with Him – something in our sin we could never do. “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jesus endured the wrath of hell so I don’t have to.

That is the true message of Easter.

A new spotlight is up – on author Tamera Alexander! Tammy’s debut novel Rekindled is in stores this month and it is getting great reviews! I hope you will click on “Spotlight” and read Tammy’s answers to my questions.

Speaking of spotlighting people, I watched much of the Academy Awards last night. Since two of my sons have an interest in film directing and script writing, these awards always hold a certain fascination for our family. I’ll admit I’d only seen a handful of the movies that were nominated, my favorite of the year being Pride and Prejudice. It wasn’t nominated for best picture, but in my opinion, it should have been. :)

In any case, I found the Academy Awards interesting and some of the comments enlightening. The MC mentioned that some people think that Hollywood is out of touch with the rest of society. Later George Clooney noted how Hollywood had drawn attention to many injustices in the world and that he was proud to be part of that out of touch crowd.

It is true that Hollywood has produced films that have brought many wrongs in this world to light. Through the avenue of film, we have seen the horrors of war and the plight of the oppressed. We watched the injustice of racism and the prejudice of the class system. They’ve allowed us to live in other eras and imagine the lives of historic people in a vicarious way. For these things I commend them.

As a matter of fact, I love a well done movie. The power of story to touch a life is clear when seen on the big silver screen, or even on DVD for that matter. Some of my favorites I can watch again and again and marvel at how they continue to stir emotion or evoke laughter. Hollywood deserves our thanks in this.

But it is also true that Hollywood is out of touch with certain issues. Some of what they would portray as “realism” in their movies, looks more like they are pushing their own agenda on the rest of the population. Before TV and film became so pervasive in our culture, the language of most people was not so vulgar. Sex was not so cheap. Women were not so exploited. Voilence was not so graphic. And things once considered sinful and perverted were not so easily accepted.

So on the one hand, I would agree with George Clooney in his pride of what this industry has done to show the world its hidden evils. But on the other hand, I would be ashamed of how that same industry has brought other evils to light in an accepting sort of way. It would be nice if we could have the one without the other, the good that Hollywood has done, without the tendency to push what many in this country still consider evil on people that don’t want it.

Something to pray about…