Who is happier?

8:59 p.m. Today's project was to visit my doctor concerning a months-long, lingering dry cough, restarted and aggravated by dust.  We've been cleaning out the garage and the rooms for my older son and his family to move in, so since November, I've had a probelem. Hopefully, with more exercise, the shortness of breath will go away, too. If not, it's chest xray time. Right now, he says my lungs are clear.

Dr G has seen all of our family between the kids' pediatrician days and young adulthood. Steve and I have been seeing him since 1992. I haven't been sure of his relationship with Christ, but he and his wife and I have become friends. He was one of my strong school board campaign supporters, and we always shared the same conservative worldview. He's seen me successsfully through breast cancer; prescribed helpful medications for Steve in his early stage of dementia to curb the fear and anxiety he felt when losing his faculties; and his office was instrumental in getting Steve quickly qualified for Social Security lifetime disability benefits. In short, he's a wonderful doctor, who was really sad when Steve had to join another medical group when he was changed over to Medicare in 2009.

In short, this is a doctor who is what a doctor should be--professional and personal!

Today I had the sad job of telling the doctor that Steve passed away last month. He had known, of course, as a practitioner, the inevitable end of memory loss; Steve's genetic background; and the loss of his brother in 2010 coincided with Steve's descent into his own final stage. The doctor said, "Just think of how much happier Steve is now than either of  us who are still here right now!" Thinking of my dreadful aggravation with Social Security and the delay tactics of John Hancock life insurance, I said,  "You got that right! Steve has not a worry on his mind, ever again." (II Corinthians 5:8:We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord).

Then the doctor said, "Look at the two kids we lost from Woodcrest! [the Christian school his kids attend] Killed, along with the grandma, by a 20 year-old drunk driver.The only good thing is that they died instantly, spines snapped at the skull, the one who lingered was gone in two days." I replied, "The good thing is that they were happy as clams, maybe even singing, on their way to a church youth event, and now they're in heaven."

He surprised me by saying next, "This may sound kind of crude, Dana, but even though we miss them, think of what they'll never have to go through in the rest of their lives--everything bad they might have had to face here on earth." "You mean, like a spouse who cheats and a family gets destroyed, or being victim of  a violent crime, or losing everything?" Right," the doctor said, "They were taken away from any of that."

I said, "Wait! There's a Bible verse that says that! 'Good men are taken away from the evil to come.'" The doctor definitely took that in, a real "aha!" moment. May it build to a solid commitment to Jesus Christ!

Isaiah 57:1-2 says:

The righteous perishes,
And no man takes it to
 heart;
Merciful men are taken away,
While no one considers
That the righteous is taken away
 from evil.
He shall enter into peace;
They shall rest in their beds,
Each one walking in his
  uprightness.

So, who is happier?