Swollen nodes and rambling thoughts.
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Last night, the lymph nodes in my neck swelled suddenly, they were painful to touch and since nothing like this has ever happened to me before, I found it quite alarming.
Unsure what might be causing it, I quickly took some medications and started searching online. Like most times, my searching yielded inconclusive results. They still hurt today, but most of what I read didn’t leave me feeling too concerned.
If they hurt a few days from now, perhaps then I’ll wait three-hours in an urgent care waiting room. But as I went to bed last night, not with any real belief that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning, I thought again about how fragile life is.
I know we feel sad when people are diagnosed with illnesses and diseases that will shorten their lives, but the truth is we all have a terminal condition called life. Life wasn’t intended to last forever and all of us, sooner or later, will die.
To the best of our knowledge, life has no pause, rewind, or re-run buttons. This is it. Once today is gone it’s irretrievable, there’s no going back, only forward. People love to talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ like it undoes things or erases yesterday but I am not so sure it does or even can.
Beauty for ashes, redemption from regret, saving from sin, mending broken things, for certain I believe. If you break a chair in anger, you can repair or replace it, but you cannot undo the fact that you broke it. You can repent and move forward a new creature in Christ, but I still don’t believe this removes the fact that you broke the chair. If you break a bone, the doctor can mend the leg, remove the pain and help you to move forward, but he can’t erase the memory of what caused the leg to break.
Perhaps my understanding is patchy. I am growing and exploring like everyone else.
The older I get, the less I speak in absolutes, the less certain I become. Not in everything but many things. I believe there is a God in heaven, something inside me seems to just know that my life has meaning, purpose, and potential and that there is a creator behind it all. But do I know it like I know two plus two equals four? I can’t say that I do. I don’t have that sort of knowledge.
I know that the word has swelled in my heart at times, and that when I have nourished it it has brought forth fruit that is delicious. But that is not a knowledge. Even if you honestly believe you can stand and say “without a shadow of doubt” I would ask what good that does anyway?
The three witnesses of the Book of Mormon knew ‘without any doubt’ what they had seen and heard, yet they all three of them walked away anyway, never denying, but walked away nonetheless.
Perhaps knowledge is less important than is a commitment to follow Christ. Belief is enough. Why else would Jesus say that all things were possible to those who believe. The word belief is plastered all over scripture, and when things are repeated, it’s because they are important.
What do all these incoherent thoughts have to do with swollen lymph nodes, perhaps nothing, but then again, maybe everything. Have a blessed day.
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