Tag Archives: trust

marriage & parenting, personal growth, self health

3 Days in the Hospital – 3 Lessons Learned

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Last week I was plucked from my life for three harrowing days. Stripped of my belongings and even my clothes, I was locked away from the world with my every move being monitored. I was stabbed repeatedly and even injected with radioactive material.

I was in the hospital.

After a couple day of dealing with dubious chest pains, I thought it prudent to visit my local ER with the hopes that they could dispel my suspicion of heart attack. Three days later, after running a gauntlet of examinations, an automatic sliding glass door powered open granting me freedom from the medical center.

Long story short, I did not have a heart attack, but I do have an enlarged right ventricle which will require that I log more hours in the sterile spaces of our health care system.

Three days of torturous day-time TV and conversations about mortality, afford one a lot of opportunity to reflect on life and to think about the things that truly matter. Three observations stuck with me and are still bouncing around my head as I still linger in the shadow of this experience:

  1. My family’s needs supersede my own. I HATE going to doctors. I avoid them at all costs, even at my own peril. If it were up to me, I would opt out of my company’s heath care program and stock up on duct tape and gauze. But I’m regularly reminded that it’s not about me. I’m the leader of my home, and my family’s needs take precedence over my preference. If I were a single guy, I would have skipped the ER. I would have washed down a pair of Ibuprofen with some beer and hoped for the best. But, it’s not about me.
  2. I need people in my life. As a raging introvert who’s pursuing the rugged individualistic American dream, I try to weather most storms on my own. I don’t like to bring people into my messes. I posted no selfies in my hospital gown because I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me or reaching out to me. Frankly, there’s something wrong with that approach to life. Some did find out about my condition and reached out to me to encourage me. I needed that. It made a difference. I felt fairly isolated from humanity during my stay, like a con locked in the bing. Freedom came in the form of encouraging words.
  3. I need to be more humble. Okay, this thought wasn’t some grand revelation. I knew this already. I’ve been praying about humility and about breaking down my wall of pride for some time. In a way, this experience was an answer to prayer. Being wheeled through a hospital in an open-backed gown, unshaven, unbathed, blood-stained, exhausted is a humbling experience. Remembering the frailty of the human condition gives laser focus. Recognizing that I’m not in control, nor have I ever been in control of my life is reorienting. I needed all that

Friends, we are all going to find ourselves in positions from which we want to escape. I almost yanked out my IV and ninja-walked out of that hospital on day two. But I trusted there was some reason I was there, and that I would take something away from the experience. I hated it in the moment though.

If you find yourself in such a situation today, my encouragement would be to figure out why you’re there. God brought you to it. How do you need Him to equip you or change you to get through it? Don’t face it alone. You are not alone.

If you need someone to talk to, you can email me at jwilloughby443@gmail.com or call (800) 273-8255 to talk to a professional.

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Truth Hurts

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LS020106Truth hurts…but it also sets you free. Throughout the course of our lives, we will receive all kinds of mixed messages about the truth. Some extol the necessity of truth, while others speak of the pain that it can cause. For some, truth is relative. For others, it is a weapon.

What I’ve learned in my fourteen years of marriage is that truth is a must. It is the foundation of trust, and trust is essential in a meaningful relationship. Being truthful sounds so easy, but it has proven to be difficult. Even those of us who claim to be honest, can find ourselves at a moral crossroads when posed with the age-old question – Do these jeans make my butt look big?

I know I’m making light of a very serious topic, but even a seemingly innocent question like this can create a moral dilemma in a man. If the true answer to the question is “yes,” does one tell the truth and risk hurting the feelings of the one you love? Or does one bend the truth, preserving your wife’s feelings while starting down a slippery slope of dishonesty?

Through much of my marriage, my wife (Jody) and I avoided difficult or painful truths. We both had some shadowy areas in our lives that we kept from one another. Sometimes I think we both knew that these shadows existed, but we also knew that shining a light on these shadows would create discomfort and hurt. So we lived much of our lives on the surface, failing to advance because advancing would require painful truth.

As we got older and wiser, the need for total honesty became more evident so we eventually had those uncomfortable conversations. And boy did they hurt! The hurt eventually faded though as it always does, and it was replaced by a deep respect. It also laid a solid foundation upon which we began building trust.

Jody and I have committed to being completely and lovingly honest with one another, but it’s not always easy. For me, factual truth is no problem. I can tell Jody, without wavering, about all my actions, because I don’t have anything to hide from her. My brain can recall and regurgitate facts at will.  Where I sometimes struggle is with emotional truth – explaining how I’m feeling in the moment.

I would venture to say that more men struggle with this problem than women. One of the most deceptive phrases in marriage is “I’m fine.” I’ve said it many times when I wasn’t in fact fine. Most of the time, I wasn’t intentionally trying to deceive, but I wasn’t really in touch with what was going on inside me.

Sometimes there is a state of discontent in me that I don’t fully understand until I take the time to think about it and trace the feeling to its root. It’s so much easier to say “I’m fine” than it is to self-analyze. But the easy road is seldom the right road. Strong marriages are not built upon easy. They are built upon trust – a trust earned over time through total, loving honesty.