This raging fire represents what I have seen several times this week at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa …
Loss of control
It's a terrible fear. Next to my mom's room I heard a physician talking with a distinguished, articulate elderly gentlemen and his wife as he was about to be released to go home.
"You might not be able to control your bowels as well as you hope to. That's what we've been talking about. But I think your control will return," the doc said. "It will just take some time."
"I'm not happy about this," the gentlemen said. "In fact, I am very unhappy about this whole deal."
"I'm sorry," the doc said. "Just keep wearing your protection for a while. And stay close to the toilet."
"That's ridiculous," the man said, "utterly ridiculous."
Then the wife spoke, "He's such a private man, doctor."
"I understand," the doctor said.
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So here's this handsome, lean, white-haired gentlemen who is experiencing what every person dreads … loss of control. He's right. It's ridiculous and I'm sure he feels very embarrassed and inadequate and lots of other painful emotions.
And I am reminded that the fruit of patience must ripen in every life. Patience is one of the foremost of all the virtues, but it is so hard, so painful, so arduous to accept the paths that take us there.
"Grant us, O God, the serenity to accept the things we cannot change."
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