Today, I had to do an MRI. I hate doing them and I avoid them as much as possible because I have terrible claustrophobia. When they put me into the very tiny metal tube, I closed my eyes and I tried to imagine floating in a huge ocean of water with a great big sky above me. It was a little difficult to do because of all the buzzing and clicking of the machine around me, but I tried my best to keep the image in my head.
The strangest part is that no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t imagine a sunny sky above me. Instead, I saw a gray sky with storm clouds gathering all around me. As I was lying there, trying my best to imagine water all around me and the sky above, I thought about God. It is difficult to imagine that the God from the Old Testament could ever have conceived of human beings inventing and using an MRI machine. Yet, God does. He knows of every single technological innovation we have made or ever will make. So, as I tried my best to stay calm and float through life, I realized that as uncomfortable and scary as the experience was, God was there. Even inside of a metal tube making buzzing and clicking noises, as long as my heart is beating, I am experiencing life and I should be thankful for that experience.
I started to relax knowing that somehow no matter how bad it felt, I was going to get through it. I wasn’t going to be okay because I could imagine myself in another place or because it was only going to be for a short time. I was going to be able to get through it because God was with me. The ironic part is when I realized God was there, I stopped trying so hard to be calm. I stopped trying so hard to be anything. I just let myself be still and know that God was there.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
