I’ve been thinking recently about all the medications I take. It isn’t just that I take medication, but because it seems to coincidentally come up in my life a lot recently. When my brother and I were cleaning out my mother’s house after she passed away, we came across so many prescriptions. After we went to the pharmacy to return the unused medication, we would find more prescriptions. It happened over and over again. I think we ended up making at least six trips to return unused medications. I also noticed recently that my own medications have been affecting my memory and causing my dyslexia symptoms to be more severe. I have lived with the side effects of the medications as well. I have dealt with those side effect for years, but recently they have been worse. The one I hate the most is losing words. I will be talking, and randomly and infrequently, I will just lose a word. I will know exactly what word I need, I can’t describe exactly what it is, but I can’t think of the word. It only happens when I am talking. It doesn’t happen in my thoughts or when I write. It’s entirely a verbal side effect. Finally, the medication thing has come up in my conversations with different friends and family members. We all converse about how people seem to be over-medicated. I just recently took my elderly aunt to a doctor’s appointment. While we were waiting for the doctor, there was a poster in the room that stressed the importance of bringing all your medications to every doctor’s appointment. The signs’ message said one out of every five patients over sixty-five are taking over six prescriptions.
The idea that people are taking too much medication stems from this idea that medications don’t actually fix the problem. For example, if I take my migraine rescue meds, they actually work, if they work, on the problem. I take them and a few hours later, my migraine is gone. I don’t take the meds all the time, I only take them when I need them. However, several years ago, I took a blood pressure medication. I took this medication every day and it helped to lower my high blood pressure. However, it is only treating a symptom. My high blood pressure resulted from my being overweight. When I lost some weight, my blood pressure dropped, and I didn’t need to take the medication anymore. These medications that we take every day, sometimes only treat symptoms and don’t treat the cause of the problem.
The reason I write about this situation today is because I feel like that mentality is how we treat many things in our world. I’ll use just one controversial topic like abortion. American society has devolved into a situation where we believe whole-heartedly that only a prescribed law will solve the problem. Some people believe that a law protecting life at all cost is the remedy, and the other side believes that a law protecting a women’s right over her own body is the remedy. Neither law actually solves the problem. It’s like one of those ongoing prescriptions that only treats a symptom and never treats the cause.
I truly believe that God would never force any of us not to sin if that were true, we would already be living in a world without sin. At the same time, I also truly believe that God and only God decides when life should end. A law isn’t the answer to this problem, at least not man’s law. The greatest sin is pride, and whenever man thinks his law is more powerful than God’s law, then that’s a sin of pride.
I know that to treat this problem, we must first look at God’s greatest commandments. First, hold God above all others. In this case, His law is more important than any law that we could ever create. We can’t create a law that will fix this problem. We aren’t that powerful. We shouldn’t be that prideful. Second, love others and we love ourselves. Man or woman, ask ourselves, how would we want to be treated, if we were that woman seeking an abortion? My personal answer is simple, I would want to be treated with love, kindness, and respect. And most importantly, I would want to be treated by a medical professional who could help me to make an informed decision. God’s love is the first answer to all of problems. Not pills. Not laws. (They can treat the symptoms). Faith and love get to the heart of things.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
